First from the West Coast, a fine crossing between Hillbilly Bop and Rock’n'Roll (because of the drumming): DICK MILLER and « Now I’ Gone« . I’ve added a second song from him, very different, this time, 1957 on Mercury Records, « My Tears Will Seal It Closed« .
Eddie Hill and « The Hot Guitar » was combination of various guitar stylings, Merle Travis, Hank Garland, Chet Atkins.Very nice fast tune.
Rufus Shoffner is not a stranger. Here on Detroit’s HI-Q label, he delivers an energetic »It Always Happens To Me« , backed by his sister/wife (I don’t know) Joyce Shoffner.
A real mystery now. Ked Killen was cutting Hillbilly Bop as late as 1969 on WESTERN RANCH. Bopping has recently posted a track by him (Fortnight’s favorites, May 2010). Here « You’d better Take Time« , on a Starday Custom pressing, has welcome gospel overtones. The name HIRAM PHILMON isn’t that common: he cut on his own PHILMON label the fine Hillbilly « I‘m Lonesome Baby« . Just to finish with someone who, with is biting guitar sound, was very close to Rock’n'Roll, FRANKIE LEE SIMS – he cut for Specialty, here on Johnny Vincent’s VIN label, the great « She Likes To Boogie Real Low« .
DetroitBy Michael Hurtt, Metro TimesOctober 3, 2008
Hidden next to I-75 in Troy, just south of the Big Beaver Road exit, they sit, surroundedby strip malls, corporate high-rises and recently constructed apartment complexes. What we’re looking at is a smattering of old farmhouses — some still heated by oil furnaces and kerosene heaters — on a two-block stretch of dirt and gravel road accessible only through an abutting parking lot.
Standing in stark opposition to its recently overly developed surroundings, one has the eerie feeling that this rural enclave won’t be here much longer. But even after the last old homestead has been mercilessly uprooted and the final skyscraper is finished — indeed after even it meets its bitter end — one aspect of Troy’s countrified past will remain, and that is its status as the hometown of Clix Records, one of the most elusive, seamless and sought-after imprints in all of early rock ‘n’ roll. Those now-ancient abodes once housed the early Michigan label.
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Roy Hall, Pumpin’ and Drinkin’!
James Faye « Roy » Hall was born on May 7, 1922, in Big Stone Gap, Virginia. An old colored man taught him to play piano, and to drink. By the time Roy turned twenty-one, he knew that he was the best drunken piano-player in Big Stone Gap, and armed with the pride and confidence that this knowledge gave him, he departed the town of his birth to seek fame. Roy made it to Bristol and farther, pumping boogie-woogie in every Virginia, Tennessee, or Alabama beer-joint that had a piano. He played those pianos fast and hard and sinful, like that colored man who had taught him back in Big Stone Gap; but he sang like the hillbilly that he was. He organized his own band, Roy Hall and His Cohutta Mountain Boys (Cohutta was part of the Appalachians, in the shadows of whose foothills he had been raised up). It was a five-piece band, with Tommy Odum on lead guitar, Bud White on rhythm guitar, Flash Griner on bass, and Frankie Brumbalough on fiddle. Roy pounded the piano and did most of the singing; but everybody else in the band sang too. Read the rest of this entry »
In 1959, McDonald signed with Columbia, which mandated that he return to country music. In the early ’60s, he notched a handful of hits, including « Call Me Mr. Brown » which reached the Top Ten in 1963. A year later, he issued the album Call Me Skeets!. As the decade wore on, he began branching out from the West Coast music scene, recording in Nashville and appearing on the Grand Ole Opry. Despite the country industry’s shift towards slicker, more pop-oriented productions, McDonald remained a purist throughout his career; he died on March 31, 1968, after suffering a massive heart attack.
Recommended listening: Heartbreakin’ mama (Bear Family) Don’t Let The Stars Get In Your Eyes (6CD boxset Bear Family)
article revised December 5th, 2011. It still doesn’t please to me! It was one of my very first articles, and I didn’t know Photoshop and page mage make-up…Someday I will have to write it again entirely.
