The Meter-Tones on Jax

Piano Red presents
The Meter-Tones
(Vocal Curtis Smith)

CP-2432 ~ Talk To Me
Wr. Curtis Smith, Lowery Music BMI

CP-2433 ~ Believe in me
Wr. Curtis Smith, Willie Perryman, Lowery Music BMI

Jax 1002

Subsidiary of National Recording Corp. -Atlanta, Ga.

Piano Red and the Interns
Roy Lee Johnson, Jr. (guitar), Howard Hobbs (bass), Bobby Lee Tuggle (drums), Curtis Smith (guitar), and Beverly Watkins (guitar).

The Meter-Tones were the Piano Red (aka Willie Perryman) backing band. Members were likely also those listed HERE, backing Piano Red on the Okeh sessions from 1961 and pictured above.

Guitarist Beverly Watkins remembers :

Me and some guys got together and we formed a band, and we named it Billy West Stone and the Down Beats. I was like tryin' to play bass, but what I would do, every song we would do I would tune the first bass string down and run the bass line like that. So we kept that group for around about two years, then I met this drummer, Bobby Tuggle. And he carried me and introduced me to Piano Red. And I went out and I talked with Red. Durin' that time he had his radio show there on Madison Place. He used to broadcast from, he had somethin' like a little house in the back of his house, and he'd come on WAOK every evenin', I'd say around about three o'clock. That was around '59. And I was like going into my junior year at Archer High School. Then we formed a band there called Piano Red and the Meter-tones. And we had two guitars, bass, and drums. Curtis Smith on lead, myself on rhythm, Bobby Tuggle was on drums, Piano Red doin' his show separately.

Piano Red (1911-1985) :

Willie Lee Perryman, who performed during his career as "Piano Red" and as "Dr. Feelgood," was a self-taught pianist who played in the barrelhouse blues style. ..
Some music historians credit Perryman's 1950 recording "Rocking With Red" for the popularization of the term rock and roll in Atlanta.......


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