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(return
to part 3)
The record was released in October 1950. They
tested it in Atlanta, New Orleans, and Memphis. It went so fast,
got to sellin' so many records. They released it all over. Sold
like wildfire. Zenas Sears was a DJ at WAOK in Atlanta. He played
Red all the time. When Zenas became president of the station,
he offered me my own show. An hourlong show live every afternoon.
My second record was "You Got the Right
String, Baby (But the Wrong Yo-Yo)" and "My Gal Jo."
Followed it up with "Diggin' the Boogie" and "Let's
Have a Good Time Tonight," then "She's Dynamite"
and "I'm Gonna Tell Everybody," then "Bouncin'
With Red" and "Count the Days I'm Gone." RCA also
released "Your Mouth's Got a Hole in It" and "Decatur
Street Boogie," and "Just Right Bounce" with "Jumpin'
the Boogie."
In 1961, the Okeh record label released a
remake of "Wrong Yo-Yo." Followed that up about a year
later with "Dr. Feelgood," which is a song about a
doctor of love who only likes big womens. When the record come
out it said the song was by "Dr. Feelgood & the Interns,"
and the name stuck from then on.
At the Toledo Club during intermission one
night a lady got up and told the crowd, "This man, Dr. Feelgood,
is the cause for me bein' alive today. The doctor told me I had
cancer. My daughter tol' me to get my mind on Dr. Feelgood. I
started listenin' to his radio show, and I heard him say, 'I'm
workin' on cancer. I want all you people jus' to concentrate
on my music, and when I go offa this air, jus' forget you ever
had a cancer.' And I said I'm gonna do jus' that. That day I
prayed to God, 'Lord, make this cancer be gone.' Three days later
I went back to the doctor and there was no sign of cancer. The
doctor said, 'I don't know if it was Dr. Feelgood; it might be
the Lord - so you thank him.' "
After that, I'd go on the air and say, "Dr.
Feelgood workin' on strokes today, high blood pressure tomorrow,
heart attacks."
Before you know it, I was playin' all the
colleges in the '60s - Princeton, Harvard, Yale, Miami, Georgia
Tech, Emory, Georgia - and was playin' Europe. I played the Montress
Festival. Montrex [Montreux]. In 1977, Norbert Hess booked me
all over Europe on a six-weeks tour. I was workin' out of three
agencies. No contracts. Nine years. People always liked my music.
Anything you gonna do, if you don't put God
in the front, you ain't gonna do nothin' to start with. And that's
what I do. I be's prayin' when I'm drivin' in my car. I be's
prayin' at the intermission of my show. God let me know a while
back when I was makin' records it wasn't me, but him, and I never
forgot that. From then on I put God in front of me, and I been
doin' good ever since.
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