You Made How Much for Doing What?

By Tommy Morgan

This book traces the journey of a boy with a harmonica and shows him growing into an international performer and becoming the number-one studio harmonica player in the world. It’s the fascinating story of a musician who appeared in concerts in thirty countries and performed a number of command performances by the time he was twenty-three, when he stopped his worldwide travel and returned to school to earn a master’s degree in music (composition). He worked for five years as a composer at CBS television in Hollywood and for several years was a freelance composer and arranger. Perhaps his most notable arranging credit was as the arranger of the strings on the Johnny Cash album Songs of the True West.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Archway Publishing
• Release date: Mar 10, 2022
• ISBN: 9781665709927

Tommy Morgan

With reference to that old axiom that if you find something that you really love to do and you’ll never work a day in your life. Tommy Morgan lived that idea that he really took his work seriously, but never took himself too seriously. This gave him the perspective of always being an observer of life and to see the humor that exits in life, sometimes looking at himself in a self deprecating way and seeing that it relates unto himself. The vignettes in the book cite examples of both in his days as a World class performer to the later years as the Number1studio harmonica player in the world, to his solo on the Academy Awards Show 2,000, which had a worldwide television audience of one billion. There were some ups and owns, but he never lost the joy of going to work. As he has often said how bad can it be when you wake up in the morning an and get ready to go to “work” with some of the of the finest musicians an composers in the world.

Book preview

Copyright © 2022 Tommy Morgan.

All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the author except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

Archway Publishing

1663 Liberty Drive

Bloomington, IN 47403

www.archwaypublishing.com

844-669-3957

Because of the dynamic nature of the Internet, any web addresses or links contained in this book may have changed since publication and may no longer be valid. The views expressed in this work are solely those of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of the publisher, and the publisher hereby disclaims any responsibility for them.

Any people depicted in stock imagery provided by Getty Images are models, and such images are being used for illustrative purposes only.

Certain stock imagery © Getty Images.

ISBN: 978-1-6657-0991-0 (sc)

ISBN: 978-1-6657-0992-7 (e)

Library of Congress Control Number: 2021914812

Archway Publishing rev. date: 3/4/2022

PREFACE

Until felled by a stroke in November of 2013 Tommy Morgan was the number one studio harmonica player in the world. He played on hundreds of movie soundtracks, hundreds of records and television shows, with reruns throughout the world and an appearance on the 2000 Academy Awards television show (estimated audience 1 billion). With over seven thousand recording sessions, he is the most-heard harmonica player in the world.

LIST OF VIGNETTES

The vignettes are meant to be anecdotal and to amplify the material in the main body of the book and they appear on the page with which they are associated.

Vignette #1 Creating Tommy Morgan from Tommy Edwards

Vignette #2 Using Two Names to Book the San Antonio Symphony Orchestra

Vignette #3 The Vacation at Home over the Holidays of 1954

Vignette #4 Arranging for Other Acts

Vignette #5 The Naked Woman on the Train

Vignette #6 George Roberts: It Must Be Be Another Western

Vignette #7 The Jan and Dean Record Date Blur

Vignette #8 Don Ashworth and the Jaw Harp Incident

Vignette #9 Lois’s Work Life

Vignette #10 This Book Gets Its Title

Vignette #11 The Henry Mancini Phone Call Re: the Hollywood Bowl

Vignette #12 The China Beach Doubling Slip Episode

Vignette #13 God, I Hope Not!

Vignette #14 How’s the Kitchen Going?

Music raised its head in my life when I was between two and four years old, when my brother started taking piano lessons. When the teacher arrived (yes, they used to come to the house in those days), my mother would put me down for my nap. Later, when I got up from my nap, I would go out to the piano and play what my brother had played during his lesson. Then I would do my parlor act: I would turn my back to the keyboard and have my brother play a note on the piano. Then I would turn around to the keyboard and play the same note that he had played.

While writing this book, I talked to my brother about this chapter, and he was still pissed off about this (his words, not mine). He had spent several hours over several more days trying to learn to do this, without success. To this day it still bugs him, but perfect pitch is something that you are born with, and it really is a gift.

However, now I see ads in our musicians union paper where people are selling products to help potential students learn perfect pitch.

When I was in the second grade, a third grade teacher started an afterschool class to teach third graders how to play the harmonica. Since I was only in the second grade, I didn’t qualify to take the class, but because I had a background in the chromatic harmonica and could read music on the instrument, I was granted an audition for the teacher, who accepted me into the class. Thus began my long climb in the harmonica world.

In the 1930s I was very ill for a time and spent six months in bed. I had to stop all extracurricular activities beyond my schoolwork, which my mother brought home to me for homeschooling so that I might keep up with my class.

When I was twelve and well again, my mother thought it was time for me to start taking music lessons again, so I started taking piano lessons. But after a while I decided that the piano wasn’t it for me. So I started playing the harmonica again and got books and reading exercises for the instrument. When I was fifteen, we all decided that I should take harmonica lessons. My father called around and found a harmonica teacher; his name was Ken Forshee. He played professionally as an entertainer under the name of Johnny Kay.

After about six months I realized that I knew as much about playing the harmonica as my teacher did. So again my father came to the rescue and called around town and