Tales from the Tour Bus - The Vickery Family

Johnny Paycheck

Narrator: The Vickery Family from Town Creek, Alabama were siblings Lecil, Lulu, Lonnie, Rodney and Melba. Their cousin Mack Vickery wrote for George Strait and Jerry Lee Lewis. Lecil went to Greenfield, Ohio for his work right after his sons Larry Lecil and Jerry Ray were born. Greenfield, Ohio, birthplace of the detachable horse collar, Johnny Paycheck, and these three guys, the Adams Brothers. Don, Gary, and Arnie. Paycheck's backup band for nearly two decades.

Gary Adams: The first time I met Johnny Paycheck, I was like four years old. One of my brothers had him under a tree, kicking his butt.

Arnie Adams: We just hung out together, 'cause we lived in the the same neighborhood, in the country. I remember one time when he came to the house, he brought a guitar with him, and he sat in that kitchen and sang and sang and sang.

Don Adams: A couple years after that, me and Gary got in a talent show in Greenfield, and we needed a guitar player, and so he played guitar for us and, uh, and we lost.

Gary: Lost to a woman that pantomimed, so that was rough to take. Of course at that time, he was Donny Lytle.

Arnie: Donny Lytle.

Gary: He had several different nicknames that a lot of people would call him.

Narrator: The Vickerys didn't know about Paycheck, whose real name is Donald Eugene Lytle. Lecil would called him Hubcap Donny.

Gary: He was a hubcap thief. Him stealing hubcaps, they forgot to mention it had the car with it.

Arnie: Oh yeah.

Gary: He had a little, uh, criminal element to him.

Don: When he was in Greenfield one time, uh, he went downtown and, uh, got drunk, and he went and broke into a car lot.

Arnie: He seen the car out there on the lot that he liked, so he went in and found a key for it, took it for a drive and didn't like it, so he brought it back, went in, got another one. This time, he got the whole key board.

Don: Stole all the keys.

Arnie: Got him another car, took off again. Took it down to Paint Creek.

Don: And took all the keys and throw 'em in the creek.

Arnie: He got in a little trouble over that.

Don: Once he got out of jail, he was gone.

Gary: He took off for Nashville.

Narrator: Down in Music City, Paycheck scraped by as a backup musician, playing with everyone from Porter Wagoner to George Jones.

Gary: He was kind of like a country music Mozart. You know, he played guitar, lead guitar, uh, steel, and, uh, drums. He was an excellent bass player. Probably the best in Nashville in his day. He was a great singer. Next time I'd seen him was, uh, he had come back, and he had changed his name to Donny Young.

Narrator: Donny Young wasn't exactly burning up the charts so he decided he would change his act.

Gary: Back in them days there was a Johnny Dollar, and uh...

Arnie: Johnny Cash and, uh, Johnny Western.

Narrator: Donny's manager, figuring he'd cash in on the Johnny trend recalled an obscure Polish boxer, Johnny Paychek with a "K".

Gary: From that point on, I mean, he totally believed he was Johnny Paycheck. You couldn't talk him out of it. Saying, "Okay, Donny." Or every time you'd call him Donny, he'd get mad at you. I think he had an identity crisis.

Narrator: He legally changed his name to Johnny Paycheck, and his career took off, but deep down inside, he was still Hubcap Donny.

Gary: Paycheck was, uh, playing with Patsy Cline.