A few years ago, saxophonist Lance Owens gave the Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound temporary access to a bag full of audio cassettes and reel-to-reel tapes. Owens recorded only one album, in 2012, when he was 89 years old, so these tapes, which we transferred to digital files, are particularly important documents of one of Knoxville’s most respected jazz musicians, along with many other musicians who died without recording an album.

An hour-long 1966 set from Willie Gibbs and the Illusioneers, one of Owens’ early bands, at downtown’s Place Elegant consists primarily of standards, including a few instrumentals and a lot of slow ballads such as “What Is This Thing Called Love” and “You’ll Never Know.” Catherine Imes is the singer; she would later marry her Illusioneers bandmate, saxophonist Rocky Wynder. The sound is a bit rough—there are a few dropouts and some crowd noise—but it’s pretty good for a live bootleg from 1966. Owens’ gorgeous sax comes through clearly. It’s interesting to compare this performance to his playing almost half a century later on his self-titled CD.

Another recording, from Deane Hill Country Club in 1984, offers a glimpse at a very relaxed and casual group of musicians, joking on the bandstand before what sounds like a fairly small crowd. Kenny James stands out on guitar, as do Fayte Rutherford on keyboard and an unidentified vocalist singing “The Man I Love.”

There are a few other recordings from unidentified clubs and one made at the Old City’s legendary Annie’s in the 1980s. Unfortunately, there was not much documentation on the tapes themselves, and Owens’ memory is a bit hazy, which is understandable given the number of clubs at which he played and the number of musicians who played with Gibbs’ band over the years: Charlie Boyd, June Ballinger, Margaret Seagraves, Bud Thomas, and Wynder, to name a few.

Included in the tapes was a fascinating conversation between Owens and his friend and colleague, the late saxophonist Bill Scarlett. The two talk about their early days in jazz, the radio shows they listened to, the records they bought, and the first bands they saw. It’s a candid talk between two old friends in which they find out they have more in common than either had realized.

Owens explains that he started playing violin at the age of 6. As a child, he could only listen to religious music; popular music was forbidden. In 1931, his family got a radio, but the only two stations they could pick up were WNOX, barely, and WOPI, out of Bristol. Those was still enough to change his life.

“The first band I ever heard was Benny Goodman,” Owens says on the tape. “And when I heard Benny Goodman the first time I thought, this is it! And I started out playing the clarinet.”

Scarlett saw Goodman at the 1939 San Francisco World’s Fair and was similarly affected. “This is the wildest coincidence, because when I saw Goodman, I thought, god almighty, something is going on up there that I’ve got to get into. And then I started playing clarinet.”

Then Owens and Scarlett heard Artie Shaw and pretty much stopped listening to Goodman.

“I started out on a metal clarinet, then got a wooden one,” Owens says. “In 1939, I got in a fight in a beer joint and tore that clarinet up, and soon started focusing more on playing saxophone. At first I didn’t know one note from another. I was just up there making $2.”

Scarlett’s first paying gigs were playing in Mormon churches. “When we got up to making $2, I thought that was big time,” he says.

Owens also recollects how important records were in his musical education.

“The first 78 I had was ‘Harlem Shout,’ by Jimmy Lunsford,” he says. “You could use nails as needles, but cactus needles were better. They wouldn’t ruin your records. The first time I saw a jukebox, I went to pieces. I saw it in a place where I didn’t have any business. I heard ‘One O’Clock Jump’ on it.”

To which Scarlett replies, “Did you know that song was originally called ‘Blue Balls’ before Basie changed the name? They were going to play it on a radio station in Arkansas and Basie had to change the name on the spot. At least that’s what I’ve been told.”

Unfortunately, the batteries on the recorder ran out about 20 minutes into the conversation, just as Owens was relating anecdotes of early life on the road, leaving much of their history still unrecorded. We’ve made arrangements to visit Owens soon and fill in some of the gaps.

Inside the Vault features discoveries from the Knox County Public Library’s Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound, a collection of film, video, music, and other media from around East Tennessee.

Eric Dawson

Eric Dawson is Audio-Visual Archivist with the Knox County Public Library's Tennessee Archive of Moving Image and Sound, and with Inside the Vault combs the archive for nuggets of lost Knoxville music and film history to share with us. He's also a longtime local music journalist, former A&E editor of the Knoxville Voice and a board member of the nonprofit performance venue Pilot Light.