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All Things Thriller

A Celebration of Thrillers, Noire and Black Comedy by Pamela Lowe Saldana

Category / True Crime

Playing Roulette with the Mob, Part III: The Bobby Fuller Four

You remember that kid? What was his name? The one from El Paso? Cocky, but quiet…Had an air about him. Not so much a strut but an attitude. You know who I’m talking about…Cute. Played the guitar. Could sing too. Sounded a lot  like Buddy Holly…Yeah! That’s who I’m talkin’ about. He played at PJ’s…Packed […]

Playing Roulette with the Mob, Part II: The Tex-Mex Invasion

When music historians write of the origins of rock and roll, most of them settle on Chuck Berry as the master architect and rightfully so. Berry was a singing, song writing, guitar playing phenom who bent the chords into twangy distortions that paid homage to the likes of, Webb Pierce, as well as mentors T-Bone […]

Playing Roulette with the Mob, Part I : Sam Cooke

The attractive brunette at the bar of Martoni’s was all of twenty-two years old, but she looked older. Well dressed, of Asian and Caucasian decent, her conspicuous maturity gave her an air of sophistication even as it threatened her from a distance. The brunette’s name was Elisa Boyer. She was a prostitute. Martoni’s was a […]

NashVegas 80s; Strip Club, M.D. (Part I)

  My husband and I worked a series of odd jobs when we first moved to Nashville. That’s what you do when you move to a new city without job prospects and you don’t know anybody; when you’ve interrupted your education to get married–and to party. Let’s see…I waited tables. I answered phones. I worked […]

Two Televangelists, a Prostitute and a Flat Tire; Part II

Recap of Part I: October, 1988–Powerful televangelist and right wing culture warrior Jimmy Swaggart is caught on camera in the company of known prostitute Debra Murphree at a dilapidated brothel motel in the New Orleans suburb of Metairie, Louisiana. Fellow Pentecostal evangelist and Swaggart rival/enemy Marvin Gorman prompts the sting. Gorman confronts Swaggart outside Murphree’s […]

Two Televangelists, a Prostitute and a Flat Tire; Part I

There is nothing covered that won’t be uncovered, nothing hidden that won’t be made known. Therefore, whatever you have said in the dark will be heard in the light, and what you have whispered in an ear in private rooms will be proclaimed on the housetops.–Jesus Christ; Luke 12:2-3 Back in the early 80s Nashville […]

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