Music Written by Loyal Pritchard
My Dad wrote well over 150 songs in his lifetime. His writings cover several genres of music, but my favorites are his songs that he wrote during the 50s & 60s and recorded with Jerry Cannon (bass guitar), Ed Cook (lead guitar), Ronnie Florene (acoustic guitar), & Phillip Futral (drums & backup vocals).
Loretta Pritchard Music (BMI)
"Songwriting is the self escaping into the open."
Loyal Pritchard
Mom & family friend, David Noles, did the backup vocals on this one called "Too Much of Not Enough"
Commissioned by Tommy Ray, this is my all-time favorite song written by my dad.
Mom sang backup vocals with Dad on this one.
Written by Dad in the early 70s, this song still has the style of the 50s. My brother sang the lead & we recorded it in our own studio in Jackson's Gap in the mid-80s. Phil not only sang, but also engineered it & played drums & bass guitar. I played keyboards & sang backup with my friends Tawana Greer & Leonna Railey. Travis Overstreet, a friend of mine from college, played the sax part.
Yep, this is me at 8 years old. Such a cute & completely original song, Dad wrote it when I was 6 months old & we recorded it years later at Boutwell Recording Studio in downtown Birmingham.
I remember the day well. I was nervous & shy, but I always loved making trips to Boutwell to do recordings with my Dad.
Mom sang backup with Dad on this one, too. Dad played his acoustic guitar along with Ricky Jennings on the lead guitar, & Phil played bass guitar & drums.
One morning in 1985, at the wee small hour of 1:00 a.m., our home phone rang. I answered it and, much to my surprise, there was the voice of a radio DJ on the other end who said he worked at a station in NY City. He said he had been contacted by a man from Holland who had heard some of Dad's records and wanted to come to the US to meet him. The man turned out to be the famous, and also controversial, record collector Cees Klop. Cees eventually made his way to our recording studio in Jackson's Gap, AL, and purchased several of Dad's records. Here is a photo of Mr. Klop and Dad from that visit in 1985.
My brother was a self-taught natural at engineering. He learned at our recording studio that was located in Jackson's Gap, AL. Here he is in our studio in the early 80s when he was a young teen. He later earned a degree in Mass Communications from the University of Montevallo & today is the owner of a highly successful video productions company.
Dad with his guitar & me at age 4 on the drums.
Dad's meetings with record collectors didn't stop in 1985 with Cees Klop. In May of 2020, two months after the onset of the horrible COVID-19 pandemic, a young man by the name of Dane Knudsen in Birmingham, AL, contacted me via this website and asked if I would put him in touch my father. Mr. Knudsen, also a passionate collector, had found several of Dad's vinyls along the way and really liked them, as Cees Klop had. He wanted to talk with Dad by phone as meeting in person was out of the question at that time. They were able to speak and later, in Novemember of 2021, were able to meet in person. Dane played one of Dad's recordings called "I've Got a Heart Doing Fine"on a program hosted by Birmingham Mountain Radio, 107.3, on the morning of Dec. 4, 2021. He said he got a big, positive response from listeners who enjoyed the song. To the right is a photo of Dane Knudsen and Dad from their meeting on Nov. 20, 2021.
Dad's primary instrument was the acoustic guitar. MY first real instrument was NOT the piano as you might think; it was this beautiful set of Ludwig drums that you see in the picture to the left. I was 4 years old in this photo of my Dad and me. Needless to say, I didn't have any talent for drumming. I could keep a steady beat, but that was about the extent of my percussion skills. The real drummer in our family came along two years later by way of my brother. I had fun trying, though!
These drums have an interesting story. A well-known club, started in 1954 by Dad, Lamar Morris and Edward Futral, was located on the section of Lake Martin called Blue Creek, just outside of my hometown of Dadeville, AL. It hosted country music artists who performed there every weekend. Several of the artists were famous! Some names were Porter Wagoner, Ernest Tubb, Tammy Wynette, Jack Green, Farin Young, Lonzo & Oscar, and Loretta Lynn.
At that time, Loretta Lynn did not have her own band. She had ties with a radio DJ in Opelika, AL, named Speck Wright. Opelika was not that far away from Lake Martin, and since Speck was also a drummer, he agreed to play with Loretta at the Blue Creek club. There was just one problem - Speck didn't have any drums of his own.
Dad also had ties with Speck. Dad had made some records and Speck liked them enough to play them on his radio station. Knowing about Dad's Ludwig drums, Speck asked to borrow them one weekend to back up Loretta Lynn. Of course, Dad happily obliged. So, these drums played an important role in the musical lives of 2 Lorettas!
I get asked often if I was named after Loretta Lynn. No, I was actually named after Loretta Young, an actress that Mom enjoyed watching on a TV show called The Loretta Young Theatre when she was expecting with me. I don't mind, though, if people associate me with Loretta Lynn. Loretta Lynn was always an honest, good-to-the core, classy lady. Who wouldn't want to be associated with someone like that?
