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TERRY GILKYSON &
THE EASY RIDERS
“MARIANNE”
(Terry Gilkyson, Frank Miller, Richard Dehr)
Columbia 40817
No. 4 April 6, 1957
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Hamilton Henry “Terry” Gilkyson (b. 1919, Phoenix ville, PA) was born in a stone house near the
Schuylkill River. He attended the University of Pennsylvania as a music major until he grew bored with
formal studies. During the summer of 1938, he traveled to Tucson, Arizona, to work on a ranch, hear
genuine cowboy tunes, and learn how to play the guitar. He started singing in local watering holes, and
sang folk songs over the Armed Forces Radio Service during the ’40s. A decade later, Terry was humming
and picking for Decca Records, recording numerous singles and a few LPs. Most notable among these
waxings–and arguably culture changing–was a highly successful recording that Gilkyson cut with the
Weavers, “On Top of Old Smokey” (#2, 1951).
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By 1954,Terry had tailored and tuned an accompanying unit which he dubbed the Easy Riders. With
Richard “Rudy” Dehr and Frank Miller, they roamed about the land performing folk favorites. T. G. and
his Riders almost had a hit with an under-relished weirdie called “Yermos Nightmare, Yermo Red.” The
calypso flavored “Marianne” did what “Yermo” had barely managed to do–garner Gilkyson and his group
a genuine folk hit.
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For some reason, Terry immediately had his name pulled off all subsequent releases by the Easy Riders,
and at some fuzzy point left the group entirely. Before his departure, he wrote or cowrote “The Cry of the
Wild Goose” for Frankie Laine (#1, 1950) and Tennessee Ernie Ford (#15, 1950); “Greenfields” for the
Brothers Four (#2, 1960); “Love Is a Golden Ring” for Frankie Laine (#10, 1957); and “Memories Are Made
of This” for Dean Martin (#1, 1956) and Gale Storm (#5,1956).
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The Riders, meanwhile, carried on into the early ’60s. Nothing further charted, but the group’s ever
changing composition did allow a number of later music-makers an apprenticeship. Jerry Yester, a
former member of the New Christy Minstrels who would move on to work as a member of the Lovin’
Spoonful and soon thereafter the Association, was an Easy Rider for a brief time, as was Doug Myres of
Bud & Travis.
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Terry is still of this earth, living a life of near though unintentional anonymity in Mexico. His son Tony
has played bass for the rock group X; his daughter Liza is a folk artist with current LPs on Gold Coast
Records.