I was borned on June 8th, 1941 in lil' ole Benton County, Arkansas in a village called Larue. I started singing in church every Wednesday and Sunday at about the age of 4. I'd start singing "I Been Waiting" in church and ever'body got to crying. I do love to sing. My entire family played instruments and my Daddy passed his fiddle-playing talent on to me. I got my first guitar (a sixteen dollar Stella) when I was 13 years old, and I started drinkin' when I was 14 years old. I quit school halfway through the tenth grade and started playing country music in bars around Wichita at about the same time rock n roll started gettin' to be so darn popular. In 1956 Elvis came out, and that ended country music on the radio in Wichita. That's the reason why I hated Elvis, 'cause to me he killed country music. I took offense to that.
In 1964 I finally moved to Nashville with my lovely wife Loretta to start a career, but things didn't rightly go as planned. I stalked Music Row day and night til a nice feller named Robert Ferguson from RCA took me under his wing and cut me some tracks. My songs were good. I had one of the top song writers of the day writin' for me. Harlan Howard was just about the best there was, writing songs for Patsy, Johnny, and even ole Buck. My first contract with RCA was officially signed in 1965, and at my first session we cut Watermelon Time In Georgia b/w Woman, Let Me Sing You A Song. I was dropped 3 years later and went back to my day job hangin' drywall while I searched for another label lookin' for traditional a country singer.
I was picked up that same year by Stop records, an independent label of the time. I did 4 songs for them but they was so poorly distributed you couldn't even buy the darn records in Nashville! The next label, Omni records, was even worse and barely of account at all.
Around 1970 I started gettin' letters from over in Europe. A guy in Sweden and one other guy in Scotland named Mike Craig both wrote me wondering why no more Vernon Oxford records was coming out. I wrote 'em back telling them it's because RCA dropped me. They asked if there was any unrealeased Vernon material an' I told 'em tons. Mike over in Scotland insisted on helping so I told him to write RCA. And that's just what them two did! Signed petitions from all over England and Sweden come pouring in while I did some petitioning here myself. By 1973 all those petitions suceeded in getting RCA to release everything that I'd recorded, and after I got to tour Europe for a while, I was re-signed to RCA in 1975.
That song Redneck! was written by a Hungarian feller from Texas named Mitchell Torok. After pitching it to Mr. Ferguson at RCA, I was called in to come and record it. On the demo tape Mitchell sang, "I'm a redneck, diddle-diddle-diddle." an' I says, "If you think I'm gonna sing 'diddle diddle diddle' you're crazy." And then Mr. Ferguson said, "No, Vern that's supposed to be the fiddle." I'd've had a number one hit if New York and Los Angeles stations had bothered to play it. RCA refused to even buy me an ad in Billboard magazine. The song was still big in Texas though, and I still remember seein' them people crossing their hearts like they was in church when I sang it. After more (unsuccessful) cuts by the end of 1977 I was history again at ole RCA.
By then my drinking was bad and after years of construction work my back got to hurtin' fiercely. Getting treated so shabby by the record companies made the future look bleak to me and I sometimes thought about suicide. My dad had died in '76. Even after my little son was born I was miserable, feeling like I wasn't being the father and husband I wanted to be. One day I says to Loretta, "Let's start all over" and she says, "What you mean?" I told her I wanted to start going to church on Sunday again and she said she wasn't bringin' no drunk to church. Well she did anyway, and as soon as I step in there I know God's thinkin' I gotta get him while I can.! And when I was called to the alter He sure did get me, boy, and I went to cryin' like a little baby. I fell down and committed myself to the Lord an' I told him I'd rather die and shoot straight down to Hell than act the way I'd seen so called Christians actin'. And He told me back, "Do you have to be that way? You can be Christian and set a good example."
After that I only did cheating songs to represent what sin is. I used them to make a point about dear Jesus Christ. My song Redneck! shows what I used to be before I was saved. Bein' a drunk, I spent much of my time in the dark place. Even now I still do mourn those days I wasted lettin' myself be lead into temptation and sin, and not in the service of our glorious Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ. I thank God every day that He in all His Goodness didn't give up on me (not once) all the years of my life. If He'd let me go; if He'd left me alone for one second I would've surely died of Overindulgence and my soul been lost forever. Now I sing gospel songs at the end of every show and tell them about the Truth. Sometimes I combine singin' with preachin'. When I called a girl out of the audience once, the power of God knocked her right down and she slithered like a snake across the floor. I have found peace and happiness and I would like to help others to find it too.
I toured and recorded in the United Kingdom regularly since the folks over there like me a whole lot. I even got together and recorded some with my old friend Bob Ferguson in 1979 who had by then quit RCA. Nothing flew. Nothing ever flew well enough for me, which is why I finally just stopped writing songs. They was either too early or too late or too country or too this or too that. But I'm just happy I got to go overseas and see places I'd only read about and hear different music I didn't even know existed.
I don't understand why I wasn't more successful. I was right popular over there in Europe, which oughtta be the last place you'd expect American country music to be accepted. I never did make it onto the Opry stage. You know, I'm often described as being "too country for country music" if that makes any sense at all. If you like country music, can something even be too country? Heck, then again I've even heard my boy Hank Williams described as sounding "too country" in his day. I guess I wasn't ever the type cut out for being a money-maker because what I really can't stand is the music business; how it only looks at how much a singer sells, rather than just appreciating the traditions he's carrying forward. I know they're just out to make a buck, but why does it have to be so competative and backstabbing? I was raised on handshake deals and being a man of your word. But in the business everyday I'd see people promise me something and then go behind my back and laugh about it.
Recognition's all well an' good but that don't mean your work's worthy of it. I don't believe any publicity's good publicity. I do believe, however, that more people would've wanted to hear me if they'd only had the chance to hear me in the first place. For all my hard luck, I'm thankful that my music has reached those who care about it. I hope ya'll enjoy.
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