Country Cats--Haley, Eddie, and Carl

Bill Haley and His Saddlemen

As should be clear to anyone reading this blog,  my current musical  obsession is early rock and roll and its intertwining history with country in the mid-1950’s.  In the mid 50’s Sam Phillips at Sun Studios in Memphis Tennessee helped birth rockabilly by recording a number of artists who fused county music with rhythm and blues.  Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and others created rockabilly during this time.

But another artist was exploring a fusion of white and black musical idioms even before this, and he was a Yankee to boot.  I would argue vehemently that Bill Haley deserves at least as much recognition for founding rock and roll as the Sun rockabilly pioneers.  Haley never really got the same credit that Elvis did, probably at least in part because he was older and lacked Elvis’ animal charisma.  But Haley was creating proto-rock and roll even earlier than the King and his Court.  Haley started his musical career as a yodeling cowboy performing live and on the radio around Chester, PA as a teenager in the early 40’s, eventually forming a country/western swing combo called Bill Haley and the Four Aces of Western Swing in 1947.  Little of his work with the Four Aces is available commercially as of yet, but a few tunes are available on iTunes, including the harmonious “I Dreamed of an Old Love Affair”, the more contemporary sounding cover of Roy Acuff’s “Wreck on the Highway”, the accordion-accented vocal harmony workout “Behind the Eight-Ball”, a crudely recorded acetate cover of Hank Williams’ “My Bucket’s Got a Hole in It”, and a few others.  Haley’s impressive yodeling ability is showcased on the song “Yodel Your Blues Away”.  In 1949, Haley formed a new group, Bill Haley and the Saddlemen, but continued recording in a western swing/country vein.    An early Haley recording from this era is “Why Do I Cry Over You”, which has the smooth crooning vocals and pedal steel guitar of classic western swing. 

Haley and his Saddlemen played some of the sailor’s bars in and around Pennsylvania and New Jersey, and Haley started noticing that the patrons at these clubs seemed to greatly prefer up-tempo R&B covers to their country standards.  This prompted Haley to explore moving his combo in a more R&B direction, even though at the time that meant having to deal with the shaky racial politics of the time. 

Nevertheless, in 1951, Haley recorded a cover of “Rocket 88” by Jackie Brenston.  The original had been recorded by Brenston, who was actually a member of Ike Turner’s traveling band, by Sam Phillips at Sun Studio earlier that same year.  Haley’s guitar-centric of this jump blues classic occurred almost three years to the day before Elvis Presley went into Sun Studios with Bill Black and Scotty Moore to record his cover of Arthur Crudup’s 1946 blues song “That’s All Right, Mama” and it is very clearly a nascent rock and roll record.  Around this time Haley also covered Jimmy Preston’s “Rock The Joint”, another R&B song, with a phenomenal guitar solo by guitarist Danny Cedrone; Cedrone would reprise this solo note-for-note on Haley’s eventual smash “Rock Around the Clock” three years later.  Around the same time, Haley renamed his band the Comets to better characterize this new, modern sound.

Haley eventually achieved worldwide fame with “Clock” (which was actually the B-side of “Thirteen Women (And Only One Man in Town)”) which is a terrific, up-tempo blast of pure early rock, and his cover of Big Joe Turner’s “Shake, Rattle, and Roll” (which was also covered by Elvis), but some of my current favorite Haley songs are ones that fall in this early pre-55 era and which often still retain aspects of Haley’s pre-rock country/swing work.  One of my absolute favorites by Haley right now is 1951's “Green Tree Boogie”.  I just love the ringing, chiming guitar on this song, and its swinging shuffle beat; this is a song that is perched perfectly midway between country and rock; the steel guitar obviously has country elements but there’s a rock panache to it, and the “walking” bass solo adds to the rockish air to this song.  I definitely love the finger wagging, toe tapping country boogie core of this song, and I've played it so much that even my six year old son Ryan walks around singing to himself, "Oh, the green tree boogie is driving me almost wild"!

In 1952 Haley recorded a whole passel of rock/country hybrid songs.  Another that leans heavily on country is “Rocking Chair on the Moon”; it has a classic AAB blues structure but the crisp, clear production and ringing pedal steel give this even more country flavor than “Green Tree Boogie”.  “Sundown Boogie” has that country shuffle that “Green Tree Boogie” had (it even shares the same bass breakdown later in the song), but the production is cleaner and the backing vocals a little twangier.  “Real Rock Drive” is a step closer toward rock, with its buzzing guitar refrain and noodling licks and plinking piano.  “Rock A Beatin’ Boogie” is a blast of electrified jump blues; it even steals the syncopated beat of Louis Jordan’s “Caledonia”; there are almost no country elements here, this is really something new and separate from what has come before, its white blues.  Danny Cedrone lays down another amazing guitar solo that has almost no western/country aspects to it; Cedrone’s own band the Esquire Boys did a version of this song as well.

In 1953 Haley edged even closer to rock with his single “Crazy Man, Crazy”, which Haley wrote after talking to some teenagers after a show, who told him his music was “crazy man, crazy”.  Like “Rock A Beatin’ Boogie” and “Rock Around the Clock”, this is high-tempo music for young people who like to dance and cut loose.  I love the backing choruses of “Go, go, go everybody” that whip up the excitement level on this song. 

“Clock” and “Shake, Rattle and Roll” got Haley into the big time, and he followed these songs up with a few other stone classics in 1954.  “Birth of the Boogie” starts with a big snare drum backbeat and Haley wailing “Boogie, boogie woogie”.  This song owes as much to swing jazz as anything else, and features a more prominent saxophone element than most Haley songs.  “”Happy Baby” and “Razzle Dazzle” both have a peppy beat and evokes the catchiness of “Rock Around the Clock”.  “R-O-C-K” also has the shout-out aspect of these two songs and the swinging rhythm too.  Another of my current Haley faves is “Comet Blues”, a stone cold funky blues instrumental featuring fantastic string-bending guitar licks. The guitarist playing the mean, ferocious guitar here is Franny “Frank” Beecher; Cedrone had died in a freak accident a few weeks after he re-recorded his solo for “Rock Around the Clock”, falling down a staircase and breaking his neck.    

Haley was not perfect, and occasionally he over-reached, especially when he was trying too hard to find catchy songs for teenagers.  “See You Later, Alligator”, while musically fine, is more than a mite corny; “The Saints Rock and Roll” is a cheesy rehash of “When the Saints Go Marching In” that doesn’t really work; “Mambo Rock” is an attempt to cash in on the mambo craze of the early/mid 50’s that again falls flat (but I’ll bet Tito Puente could turn it into something interesting); corniest of all is “ABC Boogie”, with its sing-song rhythm and simplistic lyrics.  “Two Hound Dogs” is an attempt to mimic the success of Presley’s cover of “Hound Dog” that has little of the verve of the King’s version.

Other rockabilly pioneers straddled the country/rock divide.  Before he achieved widespread fame as  a rave-up rockabilly cat, Eddie Cochran played guitar for country boogie artist Hank Cochran; indeed, the two Cochrans often billed themselves as “The Cochran Brothers” even though they weren’t related.   Their early work, which has been collected in an album called Eddie Cochran—Rockin’ It Country Style by Rockstar Records and is available on iTunes, is another fascinating glimpse into the world before rock exploded and became a worldwide phenomenon.  My favorites are the shimmering, Gene Autry-like “Steelin’ the Blues”, with its shimmering pedal steel guitar and clip-clop pony rhythm.  Their cover of “Live Fast, Love Hard, Die Young” by Faron Young is a little peppier and again has some great steel guitar anchoring it firmly in the country realm.   “Rockin’ and Flyin’” is a more up-tempo hillbilly boogie; Eddie also provided guitar for a version by Buddy Dee, as is “Closer, Closer, Closer”.  Amazing to hear Eddie starting out with a much more straightforward country sound.

Anyone who has  been reading this blog knows that one of my biggest musical heroes right now is Carl Perkins; Perkins’ music as much as the guys above straddled the divide between country and the nascent rock scene.  Perkins grew up playing in Tennessee honky tonks from the time he was 14, drinking and fighting and forging a musical style designed to appeal to this rough and ready crowd.  Many of his early Sun rockabilly singles were backed with a hardline country song; for example, his first single, “Movie Magg”, recorded in fall of 1954, just  a few short months after Elvis, Scotty and Bill changed the face of music forever.  The B-side, “Turn Around”, is a slow country ballad, with sweet  fiddle and Carl’s hard country intonation giving it that classic country slow dance feel.  “Let the Jukebox Keep Playing”, the B-side to his next rockabilly hit “Gone, Gone, Gone”,  is straight-up honky tonk with a plunky rhythm bass and some terrific steel guitar and fiddle accompaniment.  Intended to be a follow-up to his massive hit “Blue Suede Shoes, “Sure To Fall” is another country weeper, with Carl’s brother Jay taking lead vocals and Carl providing almost duet level harmonies.  “Sure” was never released as a single but was included on Carl’s 1957 LP.  “Forever Yours”, the B-side to one of his post-accident comeback singles, “That’s Right”, is another straight-up country classic slow song.  One of his few country ravers (Carl seems to have saved most of his fire for his rockabilly cuts) is “Honky Tonk Gal”, recorded in 1954 but not released as a single, is a solid slab of Hank Williams honky tonk, complete with a slight, lilting yodel by Carl on the refrain. 

I love these artists who managed to “cross over” from straight country into the emerging rockabilly field and find success.  Very often their work reflects both worlds, the wilder, up-tempo rockabilly fire and the slow, sweet country side.  These are among my favorite songs by these artists right now.