Paul Garrison, who drummed for Roy Orbison and more recently with the Knoxville-based Concord Brass Quintet, has died. He was 87.
Garrison, who lived in Farragut, played drums on the song "Oh, Pretty Woman" for Orbison's 1964 album "Oh! Pretty Woman," and on "The Ed Sullivan Show" in 1964. The song was number one on the Billboard Hot 100 for three weeks straight that year, according to Stereogum.
His wife, Phylis Garrison, was an airline stewardess with Pan Am at the time and told Knox News she can still remember hearing "Oh, Pretty Woman" come on the radio while she was in Brazil at Corcovado, the mountain where the Christ the Redeemer statue stands. The song was everywhere.
Paul Garrison ultimately went to England with Orbison three times, touring
with the Beatles, Freddie & the Dreams, Brian & the Tremelos and the Searchers, according to his Concord Brass biography. Ringo Starr even exchanged drumsticks with Garrison, a gesture indicating a drummer's appreciation and respect. Garrison met the Beatles again in Miami, Florida.
He toured in Australia with Orbison and the Beach Boys, and they even taught him to surf, Phylis Garrison said.
Garrison was born in Cookeville and grew up in Nashville before attending Auburn University in Alabama. He played in the Auburn University Marching Band and with a band called the Webs. Through a set of serendipitous circumstances, the Webs found themselves playing a 1961 show that Orbison was headlining at the Garrett Coliseum in Montgomery, and he asked them to perform as his backing band that night. He hired them on a more permanent basis after that.
"Roy got comfortable with me, because I'd always be there, show up, and as we got together, I just started playing, and I learned a lot of his songs that he had pre-recorded, and I was on several others that I cut sessions on," Garrison told Knox News last month.
Garrison and his wife moved to Knoxville in the early 2000s from Nashville, and while here, he continued to perform music, both with the Concord Brass Quintet and in the choir as a bass at Concord United Methodist Church.
He enjoyed telling stories of his time recording and on the road, and was a fun, playful, friendly, sweet man who loved connecting with others. "We could go almost anywhere and somebody would know Paul," Phylis Garrison said.
"He was a showman," his daughter Claudia Stallings said. His other daughter Paula Herston echoed the sentiment. "In the best possible way, because, showmen can be in it for themselves, but he was in it for everyone else," Herston said.
Garrison's warm character was also defined by his supportive and nurturing personality. "He'd help you to death," Herston joked.
His fun-loving spirit included a willingness to don a costume, whether that was lederhosen for the brass band's Oktoberfest performances or to become Uncle Sam or a clown. One of his grandsons, Garrison Stallings, plans to pay tribute to his grandfather's charismatic fashion sensibilities by wearing yellow pants and a pink jacket to the upcoming celebration of life.
Visitation will be at 10 a.m. Oct. 24 at Concord United Methodist Church, followed by a celebration of life at noon.
Hayden Dunbar Evans is the storyteller reporter. Email: hayden.dunbar@knoxnews.com. Instagram: @knoxstoryteller.
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This article originally appeared on Knoxville News Sentinel: Paul Garrison, a Farragut man who played drums on 'Pretty Woman,' has died
