The Moody River Man–December 23rd 1938-October 21st 2025
A personal tribute by Chris Eley-The Sound of Fury.
Chase Webster RIP
On the 22nd October 2025 I was extremely saddened to hear from a member of Chase’s family that he had just passed away following a bronchial illness.
It seems he passed peacefully at home in Peytonsville, near Franklin, not long after being driven around some of his local haunts by a family member.
Although only meeting up during two holidays to Nashville we had phoned and written since around 2004, and together with our respective other halves, Linda and Donnie, become firm friends.
Tragically, at far too young an age, Donnie passed away unexpectedly in 2018, making us even more grateful that we had gone over again during 2017.
Chase was a modest, self-effacing, warm, generous and humorous man who had a great voice, wrote and recorded some fine songs, and who deserves to be remembered for his largely unsung yet significant contribution to popular and country music. Influenced by his father he was into country music from a very young age, being bought a guitar aged 10 and at 15 or 16, appearing at lunchtime slots on a local daytime radio show, concurrent to stacking food in a Franklin grocery store. In 1961, told by local DJ and publisher Noel Ball to write a song about sex or death he penned Moody River.
Released on the small local label, Southern Sound, it made No 1 in Nashville but lack of promotional resources prevented it from taking off nationally. It was picked up by Pat Boone on DOT and became an international smash. Apparently Boone didn’t like it, but over twenty other singers must have done as they covered it over the years; one of the best being a superb version by John Fogerty. Switching to DOT Chase released another five 45s, still without success. Although considered by some as being too ‘pop’ he appeared several times at the Ryman Theatre (Grand Old Opry), backed by the Blue Boys, and performing Moody River, among other numbers. He was once cited on-stage by Johnny Cash as an up and coming artist to watch out for.
An admirer of Gene Vincent he would incorporate Be Bop A Lula and other rock’n ‘roll numbers in his pop and country act and much later appreciate the music of Britain’s Billy Fury, Cliff Richard and Marty Wilde, the latter of whom he felt was perhaps the nearest in vocal style and material to his own.
Everything seemed to come together with a country song turned pop, the superb Elvis styled, Handful of Friends (also recorded by Leroy Van Dyke) and the original excellent version of the Billy Fury classic hit, Like I’ve Never Been Gone, yet chart success continued to elude Chase. Stints on Cameo, Hickory and Show Biz brought excellent country such as Find Out, a revamped Mood River and a pure country album on Spar which featured four songs written by Chase.
The whole recorded output, including music DVDs of some performances, is worth checking out, less a couple of novelty items.
Having said that, some fans do like The Patty Cake, the obligatory twist record!
For around two years Chase was resident on The Del Reeves Carnival syndicated TV show out of Nashville and tracks such as Memphis Tennessee, Crystal Chandeliers and others have turned up on Classic country DVD.com.
Chase worked with and or knew some of the music greats, including Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Arthur Alexander, Marty Robbins, the Everly Brothers, and Jackie Wilson.
He watched Roy Orbison in the studio (covering the formers Uptown whilst on DOT ), and on ‘cowboy’ shows acted with and musically backed the likes of Michael Landon (Little Joe) and Dan Blocker (Hoss Cartwright), two lovely people it seems. Chase never did manage to get his output officially released but for anyone wishing to get a flavour of his music there was a Teenage Dreams label CD, shared with one Alan Vallone, which may still be available through specialist oldies dealers.
On a musical level I will always be grateful to Chase, who, together with Narvel Felts and Billy Crash Craddock helped to turn me more onto country music of all types , still enriching my life today.
Chase once worked on a TV show with Narvel and considered him a ‘fantastic artist’, which of course he is. On a personal level, knowing that I will never again hear that wonderful Tennessee drawl and great humour from my friend whilst we sit and talk music, walk around the farm and Dellie’s Gone With The Wind ‘Big House’, drive around Tennessee, never again know that wonderful southern old world hospitality coming from Chase, lovely Donnie and Dellie Mangrum and family fills me with innate sadness.
I feel privileged to have known this family and especially my late friend Chase, whose friendship has been a high point of my life. Would that we had managed to cross the pond a lot more often, do more interviews, actually get to fire Chase’s special edition Winchester carbine as promised, and just spend more hours with these special people in that lovely neck of the woods.
Rest in peace Chase. You will always be missed and this is another of those times for sure that the so called US-UK Special Relationship has been just that.
Your friends.
Chris and Linda.
NB. On billyfury.com is a written interview from fan club magazine number 26 from 2005, a later follow up on the site, both with some slightly incorrect detail about singles releases, plus a highly endearing hour long audio interview from 2017.This features an amusing anecdote about The Killer on stage whilst also revealing what a charming man Chase was.
September 2025
- The Sound of Fury Fan Club regret to inform its members and other fans that we are unable
to produce a Billy Fury Calendar for 2026. We deeply regret any disappointment arising from this difficult decision.
Ken Darvell - A Tribute.
The Sound of Fury Team and fan club members and partners were saddened to hear of the passing last night (May 25th) of Ken Darvell.
Aged 77 years Ken had been battling a progressive illness. A very lively personality and big fan of model railways (and Doris Day !),
Ken was an integral part of the fan club team from soon after the 2003 Billy Fury Bronze Statue unveiling right through to the final issue of the fan club magazine in 2018.
But for Ken’s computer skills the magazine would not have been so professional in presentation, indeed it may not have continued,
and it was Ken who was the admin person literally providing much of the heavy lifting (and tea equipment) at our fan club events,
also running the film clips.
Although obviously unwell, he attended our last fan gathering at Mill Hill in 2023 where he displayed some of his usual zany humour whilst also helping as always to run the event.
Together with lovely wife and SOF Team member Cecilia, Ken did much to help to promote the legacy of Billy Fury.
He was a personal friend to many of us in the Billy Fury fan circle and we have so many wonderful memories of happier times,
‘Billy’ related and otherwise, around the country. We will miss him very much. Our thoughts are with Cecilia and the family at this sad time.
Chris Eley and Linda Shawley- on behalf of the SOF Team and members. May 2025.
To Billy Fans,
We thought you would like to read this great news we have received from the Museum of Liverpool.
The Museum of Liverpool have contacted us to update us about the statue of Billy Fury at the Liverpool Waterfront.
“We have undertaken conservation work on the statue, after some delays due to weather and resources, this has happened in the last few weeks. The aim was to ensure that there is no active corrosion on the surface of the statue. This is part of an ongoing programme of conservation work which we undertake on collections. The work hasn’t changed the appearance of the statue but the surface is now clean, stable and free from corrosive elements. In the next week (weather permitting) a waxed-based coating will be applied to the surface of the statue to protect it.
Unfortunately, the interpretation panel has had to be removed due to weather damage. However, as you know the statue base itself incorporates some information about Billy that our visitors can engage with”.
Billy's first No 1 since the Halfway to Paradise film and DVD in 2015/16. Well done to all of Billy's facebook fans and great thanks to Matt Shepherd of the BBC and anyone else behind this. See below
Kind Regards
Sound of Fury Team
It’s a pleasure to bring you some great Billy Fury news. Here’s the Facebook post I’ve just put up…
TWO NUMBER ONES FOR BILLY FURY! The legendary Billy Fury has a well-deserved Number One hit today in not one, but two charts,
after his amazing fans listened to a special interview in their hundreds! The archive interview was with Lisa Voice, Billy's final partner.
Thanks so much to the awesome Billy Fury Facebook groups for their fabulous support and to everyone who has helped this special interview
get to Number One today! Next up will be memories of Billy from his great friend Vince Eager - coming soon!
Parts of the interview were used to mark the 25th anniversary of the passing of Billy across the BBC.
However this is the first time the whole interview has been available and in two days it’s been listened to more than 500 times. Billy now has a Number One hit in two of Mixcloud’s Global Charts, one dedicated to the 1950’s and one to the 1960’s. It’s also number two in the 1970’s chart.
Many thanks and best wishes
Matt
Here’s the link:
The Chase Webster story