United Talent was co-owned by Twitty and Lynn with a two-person staff headed by Jimmy Jay, who had previously handled Twitty’s concert dates for the Bob Neal Agency. By 1977, the now-defunct company coordinated tours for 25 different performers, including Mickey Gilley, Billy “Crash” Craddock and Moe Bandy, but the agency was originally formed just to handle bookings for Lynn and Twitty. Jay operated it differently than any other agency in Nashville in the fact that there were no written contracts with any of its acts. Everything was handled strictly on a handshake basis.
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In one of their first headlining appearances after the agency’s debut, Conway and Loretta performed their new release “Lead Me On” with memorable results. Loretta found out that Conway was real bashful. After finding this out, she liked to pull little tricks on him to embarrass him. She had a special gown made with shorts and a top hooked together by Velcro connected to a long gown-like skirt. Conway opened “Lead Me On” with his part and when Loretta stepped up to the microphone to sing her verse, she pulled the Velcro apart. It made a “ripping” sound, as Velcro always does, and Twitty (thinking Loretta’s gown had ripped apart) nearly passed out. He never forgot that one!
The “Lead Me On” album wasn’t forgotten either. Ten years after its release, it was finally certified gold (meaning sales of 500,000 units) on October 29, 1981. As for Conway & Loretta’s career as a duet team, they went on to score three more number one hits (for a total of five chart-toppers, the most of any duet partnership in country music history) and four consecutive “Duo of the Year” trophies from the Country Music Association from 1972 through 1975.
These were the only CMA awards that Conway Twitty ever won, although Loretta Lynn amassed a total of eight, including 1972’s prestigious “Entertainer of the Year” award, the first female recipient of that honor. She was inducted into the Country Music Hall Of Fame in 1988, while Twitty (who died of a stomach aneurysm in Springfield, Missouri in 1993) was posthumously inducted into the Hall in 1999.
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