Cliffie Stone Family Photos


Merle Travis and Cliffie working on a song during rehearsals for one of Cliffie’s shows. Cliffie enjoyed putting concerts together such as his “Hometown Jamboree Reunion” (May 18, 1973), which featured many of his Hometown cast members of yesteryear such as Tennessee Ernie, Merle Travis, Billy Liebert and Molly Bee, etc. Merle and Cliffie also have a history of co-writing songs together. The following excerpts are from Cliffie’s book, ‘Everything About Songwriting…’: “Merle Travis (who wrote worldwide hit song, ’16 Tons’) was one of the world’s most naturally gifted guitar players and songwriters. We wrote about forty songs together and many of them were created while we were driving in a car to music gigs. I would drive while he sat there and played different chords on his ukulele. That’s how we wrote the song, ’No Vacancy.’ We had driven to Palm Springs and we were looking for a motel; all we saw were ‘no vacancy’ signs. Finally in frustration, I said disgustedly, ‘no vacancy, no vacancy!’ Simultaneously, Merle and I looked at each other and said, ‘song title!’ So the process of writing that song began in a car, in middle of the night in the desert with no place to sleep! Merle once said to me, ‘Do you remember that song we started writing a year ago? Well, I just finished it.’ It was a very simple song called ‘Sweet Temptation.’ We had started out with a title and several lyric lines. The process of writing a song has its own time frame.” Some of the hit songs that Merle and Cliffie co-wrote were: ‘So Round, So Firm, So Fully Packed’ (co-writers – Cliffie Stone & Eddie Kirk); ‘No Vacancy’ (co-writer, Cliffie Stone), 'Divorce Me COD’ (co-writer, Cliffie Stone), ‘Sweet Temptation’ (co-writer, Cliffie Stone),’Steel Guitar Rag’ (co-writers – Cliffie Stone & Leon McAuliffe). Merle was inducted into the ”Nashville Songwriters Hall of Fame” in 1970. In 1977, he was inducted into the “Country Music Hall of Fame.”
  Back  
Previous     Next