The “Golden Hits Of The 70s” 

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MERI WILSON

“TELEPHONE MAN”

(MERI WILSON)

GRT 127

No. 18   August 20, 1977

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Born in Japan and raised in Marietta, Georgia, Meri played piano, cello, and flute from childhood.  In the

mid-’70s, after graduating from Indiana University as a music major, Meri began singing and playing Anne

Murray and Crystal Gayle type tunes in night spots; supplementing her work as a daytime Dallas jingle

singer.  “Telephone Man,” a novelty number laden with cognitively inviting innuendoes, was her first

record.

“I swore for years that I’d never admit in public that I dated the telephone man, but the truth is, yes I did,”

said Meri to Bruce Nash and Allan Zullo, authors of The Wacky Top 40.  “So I wrote a silly song about it.  I

shouldn’t say anything more about him because I’m happily married–but not to the telephone man.”  The

“Telephone” tune would eventually be produced by a duo with One-Hit Wonder pasts of their own­–

BOOMER CASTLEMAN, marginally known for “Judy Mae” and BLOODROCK’s Jim Rutledge, of “D.O.A.”

note.   They had met at a demo session arranged by famed country producer/writer Allen Reynolds;

nothing came of the recordings made that day.

For a mere $228 Meri and the boys recorded “Tele­phone Man,” in a Dallas video studio.

“I didn’t see the likelihood of this song becoming a hit, and I didn’t realize how unique the song was,” said

Meri.  “Boomer took it to 17 record companies, and they all scoffed at the song and said, ‘no way.’  And

Boomer told me, ‘Don’t worry.  We’ll create our own label and put it out.'”

Acting as Meri’s manager, Boomer dropped copies of”Telephone Man” at radio stations all across the state

of Texas.  “I was in a Dallas store when I heard ‘TelephoneMan,” she said.  “I was shocked.  So Boomer

and I kept calling the radio stations, acting as typical listeners and asking them to play the song again and

again.”

Soon GRT picked up the disk for national distribu­tion and a hit was made.

“Midnight in Memphis” and other successive sin­gles, failed to reignite.  An album tided Telephone Man

a.k.a. First Take was issued before her departure from the nation’s footlights.

For awhile, Meri Wilson was a choral director at a high school in Atlanta.  Evenings she would sing with a

jazz group­ing called the Hodanta Jazz Singers.  Before departing, Meri did say: “It was fun to have a hit

record, but in my heart I was really disappointed that I couldn’t have had a real piece of music out there.”