Sean C. Morgan
Of The New Era
Retirement has been fun for C.R. Wells.
Wells, 74, discovered a new career – music – four years ago and since then he’s sung his way through county fairs around the state and is now selling CDs.
This year, “I did the Strawberry Festival,” he said. “I emceed for the talent show there, and I sang a couple of songs and provided the sound equipment.”
His buddy, Tim Rhodes, ran the sound booth.
He also performed at the Washington County Fair in Hillsboro and then the Klamath County Fair in Klamath Falls in August. In preceding years, he has played a number of fairs, including Tillamook and Clackamas County fairs.
His first gig was Tillamook, where he performed three consecutive years.
“I did the Linn County Fair,” he said. “I entered the talent contest, and the next year, they paid me to do a show of my own.”
“And once in a while, I’ll do a wedding reception,” he said.
He released his first CD three years ago after winning a “scaryoke” contest at Spirit Mountain, at which he took home a $500 prize. Since then, he has released three more CDs. His last one came out last year.
Most of his recordings are covers of old country-western tunes, but his last CD branches out into new territory with a couple of songs, “parodies, that I wrote,” he said.
One of them pokes fun at his age, parodying Patsy Cline’s “I Fall to Pieces.” His parody, “I’m Falling to Pieces,” goes over big at the fairs with the older folks.
He also wrote a song for his parents’ 80th wedding anniversary in 2003.
Wells enjoys performing older country-western music, “but I do an Elvis tune,” he said. “It’s not rock ‘n’ roll. It’s a mellow thing he did.”
He also enjoys performing John Prine, who is not really country but has a country voice, he said.
“Occasionally, I’ll do a Lynyrd Skynyrd song, ‘Gimme Three Steps,'” he said, and he also performs some upbeat country songs.
“I started singing in church,” he said. “Some of the people in church started hearing my singing. The next thing you know, I am up leading the singing.”
At age 15, “my voice was beginning to change, and sometimes, I didn’t really know where it was going.”
Wells served in the Navy and made friends with bands that played on bases where he was stationed, he said. Once in a while, he would sing with them.
After 20 years in the Navy, he retired in 1971.
“My nephew and I were working at the same place,” he said. “He and I and three other guys founded a band of our own and starting playing fraternities (such as the Elks, the VFW and others of that type in the Dallas, Texas, area).”
He spent about two years with this band and got hooked, he said. For him, the band ended the way it does for so many. There was tension between members and he wanted no part of it. So he got out “in 1979 or 1980.”
After his military retirement, he spent more than a decade driving city bus in Dallas. When he retired from that, he moved to Sweet Home with his wife, Dorothy, who is from Salem. She wanted to return to Oregon. He liked Oregon better than Texas and agreed with her. They moved to Sweet Home in 1992.
“What got me back on stage was my birthday,” he said. “My stepdaughter and her husband were taking Dorothy and me out to dinner. Unbeknownst to me, there was a karaoke set up there, and they had entered me in a karaoke contest.”
Wells tied for second with another contestant, he said, and they had a runoff. After they tied again, they were going to have another runoff. Instead, Wells conceded second place to the other singer.
With a taste of it, “I started doing karaoke everywhere,” he said. “Then I started looking around at the fairs and things. Somebody had suggested it to me.”
He started looking around, and someone told him about the Oregon Fair Association, so he joined it and got his name out to the fairs. He showcased at an OFA meeting in Eugene and landed a gig.
He had a hard time figuring out how much money he should ask for, but he got a lot of help from others in the business, who told him he should get at least $350 for a maximum of three shows.
“It seems like so much money for having so much fun,” Wells said, but that was all right with him.
“I got very positive feedback from the people,” he said. “They always come up and tell me they love to hear these old songs.”
People especially enjoy the old ballads, and he often directs them at the seniors in the audience.
Often on his set list is a Prine song, “Hello,” that talks about empty-nesters. When their loneliness can be seen in their eyes, “say hello,” the song says.
“You can see the emotion,” Wells said of the audience. “When it’s humorous, they smile and point at each other. My daughters, when they come to see me, they always cry.”
That’s what happens when he sings Roger Whiteaker’s “Last Farewell,” about a man who leaves for England after hearing about “war ablazing.”
“What makes my girls cry, they always relate to this when I was gone in the Navy,” he said. “I’ve never noticed other people crying, but they get very serious about it….”
Wells is recovering from major surgery following his Klamath Falls appearance.
“Once I’m recovered, I plan to continue doing what I do,” he said. He plans to continue performing at Oregon Fairs, and he also wants to begin doing Washington fairs.
“I’m having too much fun,” he said. “It’s the pleasure of doing what I really love to do and once in awhile getting paid to do it.”
To order CDs, call Wells at 367-3445.