Draggin' Main Music Festival: Yesterday: When Paul McCartney (maybe) was draggin' Main

It was a case of hello, goodbye.

That's how quickly Joe Jones and his cousin Gary Rector saw a man they were fairly certain was ex-Beatles legend Paul McCartney on Clovis' Main Street around 1973.

It was quite a few yesterdays ago, but Jones - then a teenaged visitor from Friona, now a retired dentist in Santa Fe - still remembers the surprise and confusion nearly five decades later.

Jones and Rector were frequent day trippers to Clovis, regularly popping over from Friona to see a movie, even do some draggin' on Main Street, as thousands will be doing this weekend during Clovis' annual Draggin' Main Music Festival.

"I was probably a junior or senior in high school," Jones said. "And we were on Main Street in Clovis, and we were, I guess, headed north on Main Street."

Jones said they were in the far right-hand lane - Main was four lanes back then - when a black stretch limousine pulled up on their left.

"We just kind of looked at it because we had never seen a black stretch limo anywhere, I don't think," Jones said. "Especially not in Clovis."

The limo had dark tinted windows, making it impossible to see who was being chauffeured through town. But then, the rear passenger-side window rolled down.

"And I was like, 'Is that Paul McCartney?'" Jones recalled. "And my cousin was like, 'Yeah, I think so. It sure looks like him.'"

They followed the limo a bit and it soon made its way toward US-84. When the limo turned onto 84, heading west, Jones and Rector decided to let it be.

"So when we got back to Friona, we were telling some of our friends that story," Jones said, "and nobody believed us. So we were like, 'Maybe it wasn't him.'"

Maybe it wasn't. But maybe ...

The obvious question from casual rock 'n' roll fans is likely: What on earth would Paul McCartney be doing in Clovis? Yet it might not be as far-fetched as it seems.

To understand, it's best to re-visit the early days of rock 'n' roll.

Norman Petty was a Clovis native and a musician himself, forming the Norman Petty Trio with his wife Vi Petty and guitarist Jack Vaughn. But Petty was best known for producing at his own Clovis studio, construction of which took place from 1954 to '57. It was at that studio on Seventh Street where Petty helped contribute to rock history by producing songs for Roy Orbison, Waylon Jennings and most notably, Buddy Holly and the Crickets.

Holly and his band, originally from Lubbock, had previously recorded in Nashville but did not have much success with the music produced there. Holly felt much more comfortable at Norman Petty Studios, resulting in songs such as "Peggy Sue," "That'll Be The Day" and "It's So Easy," now deemed classics.

Enter McCartney, who along with John Lennon was one of the main creative forces behind the Beatles. Each mentioned Holly as a strong musical influence and marveled at how advanced they thought Holly was for his time.

In the 1970s, after the Beatles had broken up, McCartney was interested in purchasing the copyrights to Buddy Holly's songs and was negotiating with Petty. They were able to complete the transaction in the mid-'70s. That is a fact, as is McCartney having at least once planned to visit Clovis.

"McCartney was to meet Norman in Clovis when McCartney was on his way to California," said Kenneth Broad, curator of the Norman Petty Studios, in an interview last week.

McCartney was touring with his post-Beatles band Wings and planned to pass through Clovis on his way to the West Coast.

The visit, however, was scrapped when McCartney called Petty and told him, "'It's past my deadline to be in California. I'm not going to be able to make it to your studio,'" according to Broad.

Instead, Broad said, McCartney asked Petty to meet him in California, which Petty did.

"That was the only time I know of (McCartney's) intent to get to Clovis," Broad said. "That could have been around '73."

Petty died of leukemia in 1984. And it's not easy getting an interview with McCartney on short notice.

There is a photo of McCartney, with guitar legend Eric Clapton and Petty, at the Petty Studios. "In the middle room," Broad said. "That was when Norman was a special guest of Paul's at Paul's place (in London)."

So, mystery solved?

Well, maybe. It does seem possible that McCartney - perhaps after a tour stop in Dallas, Houston, Phoenix, or even Los Angeles, when Wings was literally a band on the run - made a special trip to Clovis for more than just business. McCartney, huge Buddy Holly fan that he was, might well have wanted to see the studio where one of his idols had recorded. And maybe, Petty offered him a private tour, allowing him to get in and out of Clovis free of fanfare, with a little help from his friends - and a stretch limo.

Broad doesn't refute Jones' story; he merely states that he wasn't aware of a time that McCartney actually did make it to Clovis. And Jones isn't 100 percent sure that he and his cousin actually spotted McCartney. They thought it looked just like him, seeing the person in the limo for about 30 to 45 seconds. "However long a red light lasts," Jones said.

Some time later, when Jones and Rector discovered that McCartney was trying to strike a deal for Holly's music, they realized there was indeed a Clovis connection.

"'Remember that time we thought we saw Paul McCartney? Maybe we really did,'" Jones remembers one of the cousins saying to the other.

Unfortunately there were no camera phones in 1973. "Oh, that would've been awesome," Jones said.

Regardless of whom Jones and his cousin saw, be it Paul McCartney or a spitting image who just happened to be riding through Clovis in a stretch limo, it's a day in the life of two Friona boys they'll never forget.

And if they did actually see McCartney? That would have really been, in a word, something.

Publisher David Stevens contributed to this report.