March 19, 2010
Elmo Gunn
Love of music has taken him to Las Vegas and back
Elmo Gunn, long-time Catholic Center employee, spent many years as a musician entertaining fans in St. Louis, Las Vegas, Denver and Chicago. (Message photo by Paul R. Leingang) Click for a larger version.
By MARY ANN HUGHES (Message staff writer)
If you close your eyes and listen as Elmo Gunn speaks, you might hear a whisper from his early days on a tobacco farm in Kentucky.
Or you might catch a note or two from his life when he was a musician traveling the champaign circuit from Las Vegas to Reno.
He’s a quiet, unassuming man, set to retire this week from the maintenance staff at the Catholic Center in Evansville.
For the past 18 years, he’s done pretty much what needed to be done there, after ending a long career as a musician who entertained fans in St. Louis, Las Vegas, Denver and Chicago.
Being a professional musician was something he dreamed of when he was picking tobacco on the family farm west of Paducah, Ky., the third youngest of 13 children.
His mother was a “fine musician” who sang Gospel music around the house, and the first instrument he ever got his hands on was a mandolin that she rescued from an old farmer’s attic.
“I was 10 or 11 years old,” he remembers, “and I was tired of working in the tobacco fields. I knew I loved music, and I dreamed of playing professionally.”
When he was a freshman in high school, his older brother Stan was working as a salesman in St. Louis. Elmo and a younger brother “invited” themselves to St. Louis with plans to start careers in music.
The three brothers became known as “The Gunn Brothers,” and spent quite a few years performing in the St. Louis area. When they decided to move to Las Vegas “we had a real strong band, and there was only one band in town that could do our job while we left — and that was Ike and Tina Turner.”
In Las Vegas, he sang and played guitar, banjo and the bouzouki, a 12-string Greek instrument. In the early years, “we played the Golden Nugget downtown.”
They also played for “champaign flights” in small towns all the way from Las Vegas to Reno. He explains that audiences would be flown into the towns, and entertainers would put on shows for them.
He got to know Roy Clark, who became the host of “Hee Haw,” Carl Perkins who wrote “Blue Suede Shoes,” and Country musician Johnny Cash.
“We met along the way. We would be on the same shows with them. Carl Perkins was a dynamite guy, and Johnny Cash was the same on stage as off. He was a real nice guy to work with.
“They were all nice people.”
Elmo also got to know Las Vegas entertainer Wayne Newton. “We were pretty good friends. He was a young kid, and he was incredible. People loved him. They just loved him.”
Elmo and his brothers worked together for about 30 years, and in the early 1970s they taped a syndicated television show in Atlanta and New Orleans. “It was a lot of work, but it turned out real good,” he says of the variety show.
He says audiences just seemed to like the three brothers as they performed together, but it was a rough way to make a living. “We were kicked and thrown around a lot — but it was a lot of fun.
“There was a lot of pressure, especially in Las Vegas, and I was green from the farm — but I learned a lot about show business from a lot of people.”
Eventually, the brothers’ act broke up. “We had to leave Las Vegas because my older brother got to gambling with his money — and our money.” Elmo and his younger brother headed to Denver and worked there for quite a while.
“We started playing dance music in Holiday Inns and Hiltons, and we were on the road quite a while. No one ever liked us as well without our older brother Stan.
“He was tremendous. He could talk on stage, and get people’s attention,” Elmo said, shaking his head at the memory of his brother’s voice. “I still have people remembering him, and he passed away 10 years ago.”
After working in the Denver area, Elmo headed to Chicago, and started getting bookings around the Midwest. “I did that for quite a while. Slowly things went out like they came in. There was big money, and then the money was not as big anymore.”
He met and married an Evansville woman, and they toured together for eight or nine years. When their daughter Jamie started kindergarten, “I knew we had to get off the road.”
That’s when he applied for work at the Catholic Center as a maintenance man. And it was as different for him as day is to night.
“The people here were so great, but I was used to bright lights and tuxedos and all that.
“I thank God for the job because I had no education,” he said, remembering the adjustments he had to make. “God just took over and helped me handle it. I felt like God had a hand in it from the beginning to the end.”
This week he turned 75, and retired from his job at the Catholic Center. There was no fanfare, just a small luncheon with fellow staff members.
As he heads into retirement, Elmo says he’s planning “at first, to do much of nothing,” maybe give guitar lessons and definitely spend time with his daughter.
“I’m tired of working,” he said with a smile.