| Pete
got married in 1952 and was released from the service in early. When he came out
of the service in 1954, Pete and his wife took about a thirty-day honeymoon. After
the honeymoon, Pete went back to D.C. then and looked up Curley
Irvin to find a banjo or mandolin player to play with.
He told Pete there was a boy named Buzz Busby
that played pretty good mandolin, and was looking for someone
to play with. Pete called Buzz up and they began performing together. |
| About
this same time, Pete began working with
Ben Adelman to get a record
contract. Ben worked with Pete two days a week for about four hours a day, working
on songs and helping Pete improve his diction. One of the first songs that they
worked on was a pop song which Ben had written titled I
Can See an Angel Walking. Pete worked for about
three months at changing the pop tune into a hillbilly tune, and the final cut
of the song was recorded in the summer of 1954. |
| Scotty
Stoneman was
undoubtedly one of the best fiddle players Pete had ever heard at that time and
he worked with Pete on some of his shows. Scotty agreed to do the session on
I Can See an Angel Walking with
Pete and played on most all of the records that Pete recorded from then on. To
this day, Pete still considers Scotty
Stoneman to
be the best bluegrass fiddle player that he ever worked with. |
| I
Can See an Angel Walking was
released in late summer of 1954 and was picked by Billboard
Magazine as a five-star pick hit. It began to
climb the charts and Wade Holmes,
who played lead guitar on the session, stopped Pete on the street one day and
informed him that it was high up on the charts and climbing. I
Can See an Angel Walking went to No. 1 in Virginia
and Maryland districts and several other states before Pete really knew what was
happening. |
| |
Scott
Stoneman, Smitty Irvin, Stoney Edwards, & Pete Pike Ozarks
Resturaunt Washington
DC - 1955
|
