Webb Pierce – There Stands the Glass

One of the greatest stars of country music’s honky-tonk heyday, the 1950s, Webb Pierce had thirteen singles top the Billboard charts in those years—more than any of his illustrious contemporaries. His loud, nasal, high-pitched,  delivery on hit after hit marked him as one of the music's most distinctive singers in an era of great individualists. A successful investor and wealthy man for much of his life, Pierce knew how to spend money to heighten his image, and he is perhaps as well remembered today for his silver-dollar studded autos and guitar-shaped swimming pools as for his great music.

Born Webb Michael (or Mike) Pierce in West Monroe, Louisiana, five years earlier than his publicists generally claimed, he grew up with the music of Jimmie Rodgers, Gene Autry, western swing bands of Texas and Oklahoma, and the Cajun bands of his native state. He first sang professionally on KMLB in Monroe, but after a brief army stint in the early days of World War II, he moved to Shreveport in 1944 and found early morning work on KTBS there. For six years he worked for Shreveport’s Sears, Roebuck store in the men's furnishings department, the whole time striving for a break in his singing career. Finally he moved to Shreveport’s 50,000-watt giant, KWKH, and its Saturday night auditorium broadcast, the Louisiana Hayride. Building a band around himself with such future legends as Floyd Cramer (piano), Tillman Franks (manager and bass), Jimmy Day (steel guitar), Tex Grimsley (fiddle), Teddy and Doyle Wilburn and Faron Young (extra vocalists), Webb Pierce was soon the hottest act on that big show. With Hayride producer Horace Logan, Pierce launched a record label, Pacemaker, which featured several Hayride acts in addition to Pierce himself, who was by then also recording for California’s Four Star Records. In late 1951, Pierce moved up to Decca and the next year scored his first big hit on that label with a version of the 1937 Cajun favorite, “Wondering,” which inspired his nickname and band name, the Wondering Boy(s).