By Tommy Hill Jr.

"Posting this for my friend Ana about me traveling with Goldie Hill, Carl Smith, and Dad when I was very young

 The Early Years 

Argolda Hill and Trucks Early in Dad’s music career, around March of 1957, he signed up for a seven week tour with the Phillip Morris Agency. There were numerous stars on the tour and they all had to ride on the bus according to Phillip Morris’ rules. That left me and Mom to follow up in a car behind the bus alone. I was all of 2 1/2 years old and Mom, who was maybe 20, was trapped in the car by herself with me every time we moved from one town to the next. I would talk non-stop yakity, yakity and what made it worse was that most of my words barely resembled the actual words I was trying so say. For example, one of the words was “trucks” and I pronounced it “frucks”.

 Tommy Hill and brother Kenny Hill - 1949

(Courtesy of Tommy Hill Jr.)

Non-stop jabbering for seven weeks was bad enough, but my garbling of almost every word had to make it rough on Mom I’m sure. So anytime we stopped to eat, gas up, or when we got to the next spot on the schedule she was very grateful to anyone that would “relieve” her in any way. Traveling on the bus with Dad were two other country singers in the family, Carl and Goldie. These two saintly folks spelled “relief” for Mom at almost every stop. So there was Dad, his sister Goldie, her husband Carl on the bus and Mom and I were following in the car.

Tommy Hill, Johnny Siebert,  Jr Husky on bass and Goldie Hill 

(Courtesy of Tommy Hill Jr.)

Carl, Goldie and Dad were all up and coming country singers and were all proud of each other’s success and liked to showcase the family talent at every opportunity. This is where the relief Carl and Goldie gave Mom comes in. It seems at almost every stop Carl and Goldie would “take care” of me to give Mom a break. As Country Music stars, were recognized by everyone wherever we stopped and a crowd would soon gather around them. What they would up wind doing was to showcase the talents I showed as a young entertainer. Particularly, they liked to show off my command of the English language at 2 ½ years old. Carl knew how I pronounced the word “trucks” by saying “frucks” but the payoff was in how I pronounced Aunt Goldie’s real name.

 Everyone knew her as Goldie Hill and Carl would be sure to set the stage for me by telling everyone that her true name was Argolda Hill and she was from San Antonio, Texas. He would then brag about all of her achievements as a country singer, all the albums she had made, and the stardom she had reached. He’d keep going on telling the folks that he wanted his little nephew to introduce Goldie to them using her actual name. Then he would set me up on the table or counter top and whisper to me to say “Tell the folks, Argolda Hill trucks” to the crowd.

 They tell me that like a trained monkey I would shout, “Aw-go-ta Hell frucks!”. Carl would yank me off the stage acting mortified and pretending to make excuses for me but by then the place would be going crazy and throwing money my way as they wiped away their tears from laughing at Aunt Goldie’s rehearsed indignation. We were a close gypsy type family."

Goldie Hill ~ August 1957