Used with permission of CMA Closeup News Service
By Rick Kelly
Craft is the driving force of most songwriters who make their mark on Nashville's Music Row. It's a difficult vocation, and usually an all-consuming endeavor to be truly great at it. However, for some gifted individuals, the ability to communicate is innate, and flows gracefully if not effortlessly from them in many different forms.
Billy Edd Wheeler is such an individual.
Born and raised in the coal mining country of West Virginia, Wheeler was exposed as a child to hillbilly and gospel music. When he moved to North Carolina to attend Warren Wilson College, Wheeler became interested in folk music and folklore. After his introduction to Richard Chase, the folklorist and storyteller who published The Jack Tales compilation of folk tales, Wheeler's interest grew even stronger.
In 1953, Wheeler moved to Kentucky and earned his bachelor's degree at Berea College. He served in the Navy and then returned to Berea College as Alumni Director. While there, Wheeler had his first taste of songwriting success when Pat Boone recorded "Rockin' Boll Weevil."
"Pat Boone was really big at that time with hits including 'Love Letters In The Sand,'" Wheeler said. "He'd written a book of advice for teenagers called Twixt Twelve and Twenty. That book helped promote the record. It wasn't a monster hit, but it seemed monstrous to me."
Tired of the constant fundraising the job at Berea required, Wheeler enrolled at Yale University in the playwright program. While it was challenging and rewarding, Wheeler decided he didn't want to complete the three-year program.
"The head of the program said, 'We can't teach you write, but if you have a play in you, we'll try to help you get it out. ... The main thing is to go out and experience life and write about it.' So that's what I did," Wheeler said.
He moved to New York City to write. A friend there allowed Wheeler to stay for free in his apartment while he was on the road performing in a play. It was in New York that Wheeler met Norman Gimbel, the GRAMMY Award-winning lyricist of "Girl From Ipanema" and "Killing Me Softly."
"I'd made an album of folk songs when I was at Berea that Monitor Records released," Wheeler said. "I was standing in the office of a talent manager in New York, and Norman Gimbel was there. He introduced himself to me and said his wife loved my record."
Gimbel told Wheeler that it was difficult to make a living as a songwriter, but took him to the famous Brill Building and introduced him to songwriting legends Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller.
Leiber and Stoller were on their way to becoming one of the top songwriting teams of all time, with hits "Hound Dog," "Love Potion No. 9," "Yackety Yak" and hundreds more.
Leiber and Stoller instructed Wheeler to listen more critically to music, and to keep songs to a single theme. His first major success came with "The Reverend Mr. Black," recorded by the Kingston Trio.
"I called Jerry and told him I had a good song," Wheeler said. "He had me sing it to him over the phone, and when I got done he said, 'Bring that one in.'
"I went to their offices and we cut a demo of the song. Then they put their song plugger on a plane to the West Coast where the Kingston Trio wa
s recording and it became my first big hit." Leiber and Stoller signed Wheeler to a publishing deal because of the hit. Inspiration for his next smash came from the play "Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf."