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Billy Hancock’s Dedicated Rockabilly Roots: Unearthed |
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Written by Sky Shaw and Spencer Hill
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In the doldrums of Summer, there is due cause to celebrate- loudly and wildly. In the jam-packed “nerve centre” of Billy Hancock’s Turkey Mountain record production facility and music archive Mr. Hancock ‘dug up,’ so to speak, some highly classic Scotch reel-to-reel tapes that have proven to be the real missing link between the so long gone, joyful dawn of the 1980s roots music scene and the very somber present.
“I notice that an increasing number of White children are buying our records. They are spending more money than Black children. So, if you can put out a record that stresses the beat more completely, you will have a [huge] hit!
- Ike Turner to Sam Phillips, 1951 prior to Rocket 88, Memphis
All of the cuts on Billy’s “For Rockabilly Fans Only” (The Lost Tapes) were cut between 1980 and 1984, except the final selection (#14,Them Old Songs) which was waxed in 2006. Half of those were produced by Jim “Spike” Ostmann as part of the intended follow-up to Hancock’s ground breaking “Shakin’ That Rockabilly Fever.” The new set, intended as part of the “Hey Little Rock and Roller” disk were recorded among as Billy now recalls “18 or 20,” it’s hard to imagine doing all those songs in just about a day’s time!”
James “Spike “ Ostmann, attorney/guitarist/record producer, recalls the spare space, Hit and Run Studios, run by engineer Steve Carr, where this great music was cut. “The first studio started out in Steve’s parents’ basement. A little four track! But what incredible sounds we got!” Ostmann wrote “Hey Little Rock and Roller”(the title cut of the original sequel collection), and has wielded a mean pen since then, though as he admits, “some of my personal favorites have yet to see the light of day.” With a wry grin, Ostmann interjects “Some day, you should ask Billy how he and I met.” Ostmann was a longtime friend and counselor to Danny Gatton, and he’ll always be viewed by many as an audio hero for retrieving The Humbler from bootleg status and releasing it commercially for general consumption.
But Bill Hancock has kept much good company on the “Lost Tapes” sessions. Longtime rock chronicler and former Post staffer Joe Sasfy, according to Hancock, presented Billy with a ‘rockabilly rhyme poem,’ which was the nucleus for “Heart Beatin’ Woman.” Hancock explains, “I took it home, broke it down into a rhythm pattern and set the appropriate chords, and blam – a perfect song in the genre.” That the descending fare-thee-well of swooping bass and “Dee-dat-dee” voice syllables totally evokes “That’s All Right Mama,” is nothing short of loving unspoken tribute to Elvis.
One other inspiring touch comes from the socko bass foot of the late and lamented drummer Gary Kingery (Gary also held it down unforgettably on the British Walkers’ Girl Can’t Help It, etc.) on the opening cut, “Too Much Rock ‘n Roll Music” a perfect adoration of what Rockabilly had done to stir the souls of thousands of Southern boys and girls who had had it up to here with the Grand Old Opry and were ready to throw on zebra striped “Drape” coats, pegged pants, poodle skirts, and saddle shoes and wickedly pointed ‘Winkle-Picker’ boots and get up and out on the doggone dance floor, for goodness sakes! That tune, and two beautifully paired versions of an homage to the sweetness of Buddy Holly’s singing style, were the work of songsmith Dave Travis, whom Hancock originally met in Paris while on tour around 1981, and who now lives, according to Our Man In Rock(a-billy), in the U.K. And why not that? After all, the Brits, especially Keith Richards and Jimmy Page, seemed to have an early handle indeed on the spookier and darker quadrants of this sound – not to mention the Blues (Aha! There’s that Ike Turner again, and of course “Buck Cherry!”)
This past June, while one part of this GIGS combo drummed in Glover Park; the other half was sitting in American Independent Media TV studios in Arlington as a guest of Hancock on his far-reaching Virginia cable program “The American Music Show.” In the company of new Etouffe
band leader Hal Moore, Sky linked for Bill and his viewers the progression from acting on the Astoria sound stage in New York, to New Orleans and the Armstrong statue’s benediction to Chris and Spence’s lifelong love of rockabilly music in all its myriad forms.
Ironically, the show’s theme, ‘American Music’, with its cheery refrain, “..Will never fade away, Grows stronger ev-ery day,” was originally composed by Hancock for the fabulous Lloyd Price, in the hopes of re-envisioning PERSONALITY. Oddly, Price turned Bill down. In a mid ‘70s
meeting at the old American Star Studios on Lee Highway, Price insisted “I’m doing just disco these days.” The rest is history, as American Music was forged along with the rest of the initial Danny
and the Fat Boys LP on Hancock’s revived Aladdin label as an instant classic.
And guess what, dear listeners. Added to Hancock’s new archival release are supposedly “Lost” tapes from the Wax Museum in Southwest DC (from 1984) and most significantly, part of an entire set mastered by Dave Sless live in the old Desperado’s club in Georgetown turned out, in the words of Spike Ostmann, to be “some of the best [pure unadulterated] guitar soloing and playing of Danny Gatton’s you’re ever gonna hear!” Billy has said he uncovered these priceless sides ten years ago, but as to why they are released now, well, “It just seemed that the time is right. In fact, already in Europe the CD is selling very, very big.”
The infectious exuberance of the early 1980's – the true “renaissance” of Rockabilly – is even apparent in Billy’s intro of his fellow Fat Boys- a reunion made possible by Danny’s eagerness to regroup with his old bandmates after being unable for a variety of reasons to join Hancock on his ground-breaking tour of Germany and the U.K. with the Tennessee Rockets (Bob ‘Newscaster’ was the accompanist on the tour, and John Strong’s Ripsaw sides and Ostmann’s subsequent recordings). Spike Ostmann, in his blistering recall of an exuberant musical chapter tragically faded from our lives in this neck of the woods, made sure we pause a moment for the first Fat Boy to disappear. Organ and piano maestro Dick Heintze of North Bethesda, Md., a major player not only with Hancock and Gatton and the Fat Boys, but also toured for years with Roy Buchanan and his Snake Stretchers; expired in 1980 after a tortuous struggle with ALS (Lou Gehrig’s Disease).
In the tightly packed quarters of Desperado’s (Hancock recalls it was frightfully cold out on M Street that February night in ‘82), Billy cleverly acknowledges the local papers’ calendar flub of Ralph McDuffie’s name with another popular sideman, then taps the “Tubs” guy Dave Elliott, and that “very short, slightly wide fellow (Gatton) in the corner.” Gatton responds to his buddy’s friendly gibes with some incredibly evocative musical wit. First, he and McDuffie (collaborating on sax) reconstruct the haunting opening bars to the 1950's PERRY MASON series. Next, Danny implodes a bit of ‘Funiculi, Funicula’ as if he were a 78 rpm turntable winding to a stop, to which the apparently ultra-hip audience chuckles appreciatively. Finally, as Hancock hurls a final barb, “He’s wearing one of those Roy Buchanan stick-on beards,” Gatton emits an otherworldly ‘jackass wah-wah’ noise on his foot pedal, which paints an immediate image of Roy’s weirder ‘guitar-isms.’
And that odd clip from the long-gone Wax Museum (of which night spot a few devoted afficionados of roots and Rockabilly are currently attempting to eulogize on the Internet) has a story of its own that is quite remarkable. Done sometime in 1984 (the same year Sky witnessed Albert Collins, Blues guitar giant, do a walk-around of said club with his 1,000 foot Whirlwind cord), Hancock lets us know he ‘bought the clip from the Web’ and that it was taped from an unknown source, probably a friend of the band, on a simple boom-box. The song, a hidden Everly Brothers treasure, “Maybe Tomorrow,” features the twinned vocals of Hancock and onetime Starland Vocal Band-er Jon Carroll, while Gatton, as part of a one-night combine known as the DC All-Stars (supported on the bottom by bassist Johnny Castle and Nighthawks drummer Pete Ragusa), weaves a gorgeous tapestry reminiscent of the steel ace Curley Chalker, and culminating in the crispiest “Diamond” chord of all time. And remember, dear friends, no pedal steel, no scramblers, Paulverizers, overdubs, or any of that – just one solitary Heaven-Blessed Telecaster guitar.
Hancock’s picture-perfect leopard skin patterned cover to the jewel box prominently reminds us that among the myriad guitar wizards that helped create this modern masterpiece, the featured artist you’ll remember the most is Daniel Gatton, his friend for ever.
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NOTES & ERRATA: A devoted reader, correspondent and Ellington-phile duly brought to our attention, that Duke’s autobiography MUSIC IS MY MISTRESS was actually published in
1973, and Juan Tizol, notably composer of CARAVAN and PERDIDO, played the valve trombone, not saxophone, in the Eliington orchestra. Secondly, musicologist and friend MARK OPSASNICK recently reported to us, that our column on LINK WRAY, “Lord of the Strings,” is hung up, “Laminated,” in his office in Maryland, alone in its glory, “My favorite of your many excellent columns, guys.” Next month’s issue, set in St. Louis will honor both award-winning producer/engineer SCOTT SHUMAN, and one of the most fabled American song legends of all. Can you guess which one that may be? |
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