BATTLEGROUND KOREA 

Songs and Sounds of  America’s Forgotten War 

By Hugo Keesing With Bill Geerhart

Page 26 

"Pusan" (Fuzzy Owen) 

Billy Mize with Bill Woods & His Orange Blossom Playboys 

Kord 100 | OP 1953 

Other than "Heartbreak Ridge," a name assigned by U.S. war correspondents, Pusan is the only 1950-53 recording to use a Korean location in its title. The port city was the focal point of the U.N.'s last defensive perimeter when the Communists swept south in July/August 1950. Billy Mize's vocal, actually the B-side of I'm Still A Prisoner, is not about the battles that raged at the time but rather about the constant threat of enemy soldiers using guerilla tactics. Whether it was in the hills around Pusan, the shores of the Naktong River or on the land in between, "everyone saw the rice paddies doing the burp gun boogie" so they headed for the safety of the city. Note: Burp gun was the name for a Soviet-made submachine gun that could fire 900 rounds per minute. Neither side of the record found much favor with the 'Billboard' staff. Pusan was described as "another ditty, this a novelty effort about Korea," and given a 58 rating. William Robert 'Billy' Mize was born April 29, 1929, in Arkansas City, Kansas. Around 1950 he moved to Bakersfield, California where he formed a band, played at the Lucky Spot and found further work as a disc jockey at KPMC. In 1953 Mize and two others put together a local show that by featuring upcoming and established country music stars had a 13-year run on KERO-TV. One of his partners, Bill Woods, backed him on his KORD sides with The Orange Blossom playboys. Mize became a well-known television personality in the Los Angeles area and could be seen on a half-dozen local shows in the late '50s. His records did not begin to go national until 1966 when he entered the Country charts for the first time with You Can't Stop Me [COLUMBIA 43770]. He would then chart ten more times thru 1977. During the same stretch he played steel and rhythm guitar on many of fellow Bakersfield artist Merle Haggard's hits.