This is Barny Tall's only other Domino label recording that was pressed and released. "I'm Only Human" was a local hit in Texas, and is still played by bands to this day. One way radio was different in the 50's and the 60's was that the rock and roll stations played quite a variety. That included rock and roll, r+B, doo wop, pop, and some songs that were country influenced. "Fleeting Love" is on the flip side, and it seems this side could have done well on most any station at the time. A collaboration of thoughts and memories written by Chester Johnson, the son of Maydell Johnson who is shown with writing credits on "I'm Only Human", follows here:

In the mid 1950‘s, my mother, Maydell, and dad heard about Bernard Samuelson (Barny Tall) and that he sang and played the guitar very well. They had previously known of Bernard’s parents because they had attended the same church with them at one time. Shortly after hearing of Bernard
Samuelson, my parents had contacted the Samuelsons and we had an invitation to the Samuelson home one evening, which was in about the 4600 block of Speedway, in central Austin. At that point in time, Bernard was a young adult and still lived with his parents. The evening of the first meeting with him, my parents took my younger brother, Kenneth and I, with them to the Samuelson home.

I was only about 8 or 9 years old at the time, but I vividly remember that first visit to the Samuelson home and our first meeting with Bernard, who was a very tall, thin, sharp featured young man with dark curly hair. Although Bernard had a severe sight impairment and was considered legally blind, he was very musically gifted. In order to see anything with any degree of clarity, he had to hold it up very near his face and everything beyond a few inches from his face was a blur. That did not prevent him from singing and playing his guitar like a professional musician. Bernard had a Martin acoustic guitar at that time when we first met him. It was covered with a tooled leather cover with hand stitched leather lacing where the top and bottom of the leather cover met the sides. Hand tooled leather covered most of the guitar body except for the round sound hole and the area beneath the strings.
Bernard sang some Hank Snow songs for us and he sounded exactly like Hank Snow. He also expertly played his guitar exactly like Hank Snow. I remember that he had a big stack of Hank Snow 78 rpm records and he and his parents told us he learned all of the Hank Snow songs from listening to those records and that he taught himself to play the guitar. Bernard’s mother had an old pump organ and I remember her playing it for us at some point back then. I remember that she played it with much vigor and enthusiasm. At that first meeting with Bernard Samuelson, he indicated that he would like to try some of my mother, Maydell’s, songs.

My mother, Maydell, had purchased a ukulele to use to accompany her singing while she worked out the melody for her songs. After we met Bernard Samuelson, my parents bought a Webcor tape recorder, which was a big, heavy tube type suitcase sized one; the latest technology of the day. My mother would sing her songs and accompany herself with the ukulele, and record them on the tape recorder. They would then let Bernard Samuelson use the tape recorder. He listened to the tape until he had learned the lyrics and melody of some of the songs, such that he could sing her songs and accompany himself on his guitar. At the point we first met Bernard Samuelson, he and a few other boys were regularly getting together to play at each other’s houses or garages but I don’t believe they were playing professionally at that point in time. Bernard Samuelson also came to our house in Austin sometimes back then. My parents went to get him because he did not drive because of his sight problem. I remember that one time he came over, I had gotten a little youth sized green Harmony flat top acoustic guitar for Christmas and my parents asked him if he would play it for me and he did. I’ll never forget how wonderful Bernard made that little green Harmony guitar sound. He had such long fingers and it seemed like he had a natural ability to easily get the sounds out of a guitar that others had to really work for.At some point after we met Bernard Samuelson in the mid 50‘s, he married and moved from his parents house on Speedway. He and his new wife moved into a small house just off North Loop in north Austin. They began raising a family there. During the weekdays, Bernard worked at a grocery store and on the weekends and evenings he pursued his musical ambitions. We went to their home a few times there and sometimes the other members of his band would be there. I remember one time when we were there and the bass player arrived (Don Keeling). He was in a green Chevrolet, about a 1952 model, and he had his bass, a big standup acoustic bass, strapped to the roof of that old Chevrolet. In the days before guitar sized electric basses, before vans and before Suburbans, the only way a bass player had to transport his instrument was usually by strapping it to the roof of a car. My mother, Maydell, said she believes the bass player was named Don Keeling.

Bernard and his band would record some of my mother’s songs, including "I’m Only Human" on the old Webcor tape recorder. My parents then took copies of the tape around to disc jockeys and played it to whoever they could get to listen to it. Bernard Samuelson and the other members of his band also played tapes of the songs to people they encountered who might have connections in the music business and I believe that is how the connection was made with the Domino record people. My parents encountered a country disc jockey and musician named Earl Aycock who worked at a country music radio station in Pasadena, Texas. He liked my mothers songs and Bernard Samuelson’s vocals. He was associated or connected in some way with Starday Records, where George Jones, who lived in nearby Beaumont, at the time, was an up and coming new country music star. Earl Aycock reportedly played the tape of Bernard Samuelson and his band performing my mother, Maydell’s, songs for the record company people. They reportedly acknowledged Bernard Samuelson’s talent and abilities, but declined to offer him a recording contract because they said he sounded too much like Hank Snow. After that, Bernard Samuelson shifted his musical style from sounding too much like Hank
Snow, to a style that was more uniquely his own.

Earl Aycock, the Pasadena, Texas disc jockey and his band also performed some more of my mother’s songs on some demo tapes or records and he continued to push them to other record company people he came into contact with. Later on, he was instrumental in bringing about the release of two other songs of my mother’s on the "D" record label. Those
two songs were titled “Dear World" and "Cold Cold Ashes", and they were recorded by Bill Wilbourne. In the late 1950’s, Earl Aycock moved to Meridian, Mississippi, where he was originally from I believe. We took a family vacation in the summer of I believe 1960, and we drove through Meridian, Mississippi and stopped and visited with him at the Meridian radio station where he was working at the time.

When my family first met Bernard Samuelson in the mid 1950‘s, he was working at an Austin grocery store during the day and pursuing his music; first as a hobby and then semi-professionally, at night. When he began performing professionally, Bernard Samuelson purchased a beautiful white Gretsch electric guitar with gold colored hardware which he played from that point on. We no longer saw him with the Martin acoustic guitar with the leather cover that he had when we first met him and I don’t believe he had the Martin after he started using the white Gretsch electric guitar. After we had known Bernard Samuelson for awhile, we went to a place one night where he and his band were playing. I believe it may have been one of their first few professional gigs. It was at a small honky tonk called the "Hilltop Inn", which was located on Jollyville road just northwest of the Austin city limits. Bernard Samuelson was still working his grocery store day job into the 60‘s that we knew of, but we didn‘t know if or at what point he might have given up the grocery store job after he and his band began performing regularly. After their family began to grow, Bernard Samuelson and his wife and children moved from the small house off of North Loop in north Austin, to a larger home in northeast Austin. We visited with them there at least once, and I remember they had several small children by then.

I remember that their oldest son, who was probably no more than 5 or 6 years old at that time, looked just like his daddy, Bernard, but had very light colored hair like his mother. Although my mother, Maydell Johnson, wrote well over 100 good country songs between the early 1950’s and the early 1960’s, only a few of them were recorded. The Domino release of "I’m Only Human" by Barny Tall (Bernard Samuelson) and the "D" record label release of "Dear World"and
"Cold Cold Ashes" by Bill Wilbourne were the only 45 rpm releases of her songs. The only other works of her’s to be recorded were some recitations, which were included and released on a 33rpm album by Clyde “Barefoot" Chesser in the early 1960’s. Clyde Chesser was a country radio disc jockey at the time at Austin country radio station KOKE. Prior to that, he had worked for several years as a country disc jockey in the Temple, Texas area and he and his band performed frequently around central Texas in the 1950’s and 60’s. He was predominately known for his country music recitations.

After the early 1960’s, my mother, Maydell Johnson, did not write any more songs. In 1964, my parents bought a large, old, brick house in central Austin and our family project became home renovation. Although we had lost contact with Bernard Samuelson before the mid 1960’s, we often heard of his frequent local performances during the 60‘s. We were deeply saddened when we heard of his death in 1969.

This year (2008) my mother, Maydell Johnson, who wrote "I’m Only Human", will be 85.