Rock-N-Roll Victims, the Story of a Band Called Death: My Story of Growing up in Detroit, My Family, and Rock-N-Roll

By Bobby Dean Hackney

This autobiography is a book about Rock-N-Roll, Family, and the determination of three young blood brothers to simply exist as a band. This book will motivate you, give you a blast into the past, and give you an insight into what it is like to be a part of a diligent group of young men who had a focus and followed it as a unified family. This book will tap into your emotions and have you laughing, crying, thinking and relishing on great Rock music memories. If you love Rock-N-Roll, the 50s, 60s, 70s, 80s, 90s, and what we now call the millennium, you will absolutely love “Rock-N-Roll Victims, The Story Of A Band Called Death”

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Feb 17, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483549057

Book preview

Death.

1. The Hackney Family

In the 50s, families were migrating from the southern states to the mid-western states in search of employment, and especially attractive was the booming automobile industry of Detroit. After our dad, Earl Vonulee Hackney Sr., served in Korea in the U.S. Air Force – where he trained as a journeyman electrician – our parents migrated from Florida to the Midwest in 1950 with their newborn son Earl Jr. (our oldest brother) at the height of the industrial boom. There, our father was able to secure gainful employment as an electrician in the Detroit automotive industry. Our parents listened to the artists of that time on the radio, musicians like Muddy Watters, Howlin Wolf, Little Walter, Bo Diddley, Willie Dixon, and of course Ray Charles. My mother gave birth to their second child, David, in 1952. Our parents saw musical interest and potential in David right away as he used to dance and pretend to play guitar like Chuck Berry whenever they would play their 45 records on the little mono record player our dad had bought for their modest apartment located on Cutler Avenue on Detroit’s East Side. Our dad Earl was a young Baptist minister who also loved the music of the Blues; according to the three elder brothers, Mom and Dad were always grooving to 45s by artists like B.B. King, Etta James, Sam Cooke, and Chuck Berry. Earl encouraged his children to enjoy music and life, and he would often say: But always take God with you whatever you do because he’ll be everywhere you go and in everything you do anyway, so you might as well enjoy his blessing and accept his offer of life, love, and peace. This is where our spiritual influence came from and it affected David most of all. On more than a few Sundays, our mom and dad used to go to Pastor C.L. Franklin’s church to see the show – as Earl would explain to Earl Jr. – and to hear the incredible voice of his daughter, Aretha, who always tore up the place with her voice when she led the choir. Our parents’ musical tastes were not limited to the Blues; our mother Majora’s record collection at the time also included 45s by Patsy Cline, Hank Williams, Frank Sinatra, and Sammy Davis Jr.

Majora gave birth to Dannis in 1953, and thereafter, the three brothers – Earl Jr., David, and Dannis – bonded tightly. Three years later, in 1956, although the couple was hopeful for a little girl, Majora gave birth to me, Bobby. I was favored as the youngest son by our dad, who also said that he thought I would be famous one day because I was born the same year that Elvis Presley released Blue Suede Shoes and because that was the year that Rock’n’Roll exploded. In 1957, Earl Sr. and Majora finally got the little girl they were hoping for as Majora gave birth to Margaret Hackney. With Earl Sr. working as an electrician for Allied Chemical, a company connected to the auto industry in Detroit, our family moved into a well-built home in the East Side at 2240 Lillibridge Street two years later in 1960. Being the first Black family to move into the neighborhood in 1960, you could just about do the social math: we were welcomed by few, unwelcomed by most.

Around that time, that is, from 1960 to around 1962, music was somewhat of a blur in the Hackney house because of the social and racial upheaval that was taking place in our communities, our cities, and throughout the country. The music that our mom and dad were bringing into the house was again the 45 singles and albums that reflected the time. Along with a number of Gospel records from artists like Mahlia Jackson, James Cleveland, and others, there were records by The Platters, Gene Washington, Buddy Holly, Jackie Wilson, Sam Cooke, Little Anthony and The Imperials, Ray Charles, and a new female singer our mother loved called Dionne Warwick. On occasional weekends, Earl and Majora would frequent, socialize, and dance at a place called The GreyStone Ballroom, where most of these artists performed when they came to Detroit. Earl brought home a record called Blowin’ in the Wind by a new White artist named Bob Dylan; he did not particularly care for Dylan’s singing or playing, but told us that the message in that song was the question and answer that the whole country was facing. Earl believed that song was as strong as any sermon that could be preached from a pulpit and even quoted lines from the song in some of his sermons. By now Earl’s upstart Baptist church was flourishing, and some said his church was second only to C. L. Franklin’s church, which was the largest church in Detroit at the time. All four of us brothers were required to sing in front of the congregation on most Sundays (although our oldest brother Earl Jr. was asked to leave the choir because he couldn’t hold a tune). The popularity that Earl Sr. was enjoying as a pastor became the undoing of the family, as a young woman in the church developed a relationship with him that turned into a love affair. In late 1961, at Majora’s request, Earl left the house on 2240 Lillibridge Street, purchased another house five blocks away on French Road Street, and moved in with his mistress. Although Earl and Majora’s relationship had become estranged because of the separation, Earl made sure that he supported and remained close to his children, visiting the house and having us over to his house as frequently as we wanted. As a result of one of Earl’s visits to the house on Lillibridge, Majora became pregnant, and in 1962 she gave birth to Shelia Hackney. Earl Jr., our oldest brother, was now a pre-teen at age twelve. Managing a neighborhood paper route, Earl Jr. began to buy his own 45 records that he and his friends were tuning into; he introduced the Hackney Family to a musical movement that was beginning to take place in Detroit and that was about to change Black and Pop music in America and the world. That movement was called Motown.

2. The Boys Began to Grow Up in Music

The first Motown 45 that came into the Hackney home by way of Earl Jr. was a song by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles called Ooh Baby Baby, and for the next few years (and throughout most of the whole decade), most of the 45 records and albums that came into the house by way of the young Hackney boys consisted of three record labels: the yellow Tamla label, the burgundy Gordy label, and the blue Motown label. David, who was coming into his own pre-teen years, joined Earl Jr. and was helping him earn extra money on the paper route; he was buying Motown 45s as well. Motown records were streaming into the house on a weekly basis – artists like Martha Reeves and The Vandellas, The Temptations, Marvin Gaye, The Supremes, Little Stevie Wonder, The Marvelettes, The Contours, Tami Terrell, The Four Tops, and Jr. Walker. Like many living rooms throughout the country, the Hackney living room on Lillibridge Street became a makeshift showcase for lip synching popular Motown songs. Sometimes we would line up in the middle of the living room imitating the Four Tops, The Miracles, and The Temptations; David was the best at imitating Jackie Wilson’s dancing: falling down on his knees and doing a thing called the splits.

With the advent of Motown, the Civil Rights March on Washington, and the Civil Rights Bill being introduced by President Kennedy, it almost seemed like life would settle down to some sort of normalcy. We had well settled into the neighborhood and had made many friends (along with many racial adversaries) among the all-White residents on Lillibridge Street. We Hackneys had also noticed a few other Black families had moved into the neighborhood as well, and many homes were displaying for sale signs on their lawns. Then, in November of 1963, something happened that just messed everybody up. I was only seven years old but I remember the day as if it were yesterday. It was a rainy night, and our dad, Earl Sr., had unexpectedly come over to the house. All of us boys were upstairs in our bedroom; our sisters were in their bedroom sleeping. We heard our mom open the door downstairs to let our dad in. We looked out the window to see his car standing idle in the middle of the street with the lights flashing and the driver’s door still open. We knew something was wrong, and we thought it was between Mom and Dad. We did not dare leave our room because back then, when you went to bed on a school night, you stayed in your room until it was time to wake up and go to school the next morning. David, however, had become notorious for sneaking out of his room, so we sent him down to investigate. David shortly returned and told us that our dad wanted all of us boys to come downstairs immediately. We really got nervous then, as we were sure it was family trouble and that it involved us. When we got downstairs, we entered a moment frozen in time as we saw our mom and dad standing in front of the black and white television set with tears in their eyes and in suspended shock as the news reporter Walter Cronkite repeatedly announced that President Kennedy had just died after having been shot in Dallas, Texas.

3. I Want You Boys to Sit Down Here and Watch This; You’re ABOUT TO WATCH HISTORY BEING MADE

During the remainder of 1963 and the first few months of 1964, we spent a lot of time just trying to get past the events of November. For us Hackneys, as well as for most households with teenage or young children, the music of Motown, the early Rock’n’Roll music being showcased on the weekly Sunday evening Ed Sullivan Show, and the music being played on the new Saturday-afternoon show called American Bandstand, was a serious escape from the grim realities of the time. A popular president had just been assassinated, the Civil Rights Movement was in full swing, and the anti-anything movement was heating up – as was a conflict in Asia people were calling the Vietnam War.

Around the very end of 1963, strong rumblings were being heard on American radio stations about a group of four guys called The Beatles from London, England, who were tearing up the charts with a revolutionary new sound. By the start of 1964, that sound was dominating the airwaves, the visual media, and the hearts of just about every young female or male that was into popular music; this was especially true for young females, who were going to the record shops in droves to buy the albums recorded by these guys. By the time The Beatles came to America in February to debut their act on the Ed Sullivan Show, the electricity of something new was so thick in the atmosphere, you could cut it with a knife. The television images of the now legendary press conference at the airport – when The Beatles had first arrived in America – and the record-breaking crowd in front of and around the hotel they were staying at in New York City was setting the stage for something special that was about to happen; everybody in America, tuned in or not, knew this to be so. This event also seemed to provide the country with a much-needed diversion from the domestic troubles that were so prevalent at the time.

On that Sunday night in February of 1964, we Hackney brothers – David, Dannis, and I – were visiting our dad Earl Sr.’s house. When it was time for the Ed Sullivan Show to come on, Earl Sr. announced the following words to us, as he had done with the March on Washington and the Kennedy assassination (and ensuing funeral): I want you boys to sit down here and watch this; you’re about to watch history being made. So David, Dannis, and I sat down on the living room carpet in front of the big black and white television in our dad’s house and, along with the rest of America, anticipated the performance by The Beatles. There were other acts on the program, but they got lost in the memory of the moment. One thing I do recall is that every time Ed Sullivan announced the upcoming performance of The Beatles in between the other performers, the mostly female audience would let out a loud scream that even Ed Sullivan was not accustomed to. When The Beatles finally performed, you could hardly hear the music because of the screaming girls. David, Dannis, and I watched the performance in silent awe. In everything we had seen and heard in music up to that point, nothing had had more of an influence on us than seeing four mop- top musicians who not only sang but played their own instruments as well. They looked different, played different, and sounded different. It turned out to be everything America was expecting. We began to point to the television screen, each of us claiming the various musical positions. David liked John Lennon and his shiny black Rickenbacker guitar, Dannis tuned into Ringo Starr, and I liked Paul McCartney, who played bass and sang. Little did we know at the time, but that television performance planted in our heads the idea of wanting to form a rock band.

The very next day, instead of going to school, David went out to the alley in back of our dad’s house and found a body of a discarded acoustic guitar; he glued the front back together and took some strong nylon and made strings for it. When Dannis and I saw the guitar, we began to sing and imitate the performance we saw The Beatles do, with each of us taking a turn on the makeshift guitar. What we were doing at that time is what was happening all over Detroit and all over America. The British invasion had come to America via The Beatles and the youth of America embraced it with all of its force and passion, and for the next two years, whoever or whatever The Beatles acknowledged as being cool became the next cool thing. The one thing that The Beatles did do for Motown and Detroit was to cover a Motown song called Please Mr. Postman, which was their nod of approval for the Motown sound. While most of the other artists and record labels throughout the country were running scared and trying to re-define themselves in light of the Beatles invasion, Motown embraced this acknowledgment by the Beatles and never looked back. For the next few years, The Beatles and Motown became synonymous amongst people in Detroit; the two names just seemed to roll off the tongue together: The Beatles and Motown.

4. The Hackneys – Growing Up in the 60s

During the remainder of 1964 and the beginning of 1965, David, Dannis, and I were busy with school, paper routes, and dipping and dabbing into attempts at playing instruments, which had mostly been acquired through Christmas gifts and other means. Earl Sr. and Majora, although legally separated, managed to conceive and give birth to their seventh child, Yvonne. The two main musical influences at the time were The Beatles and Motown, which, along with many other local and national artists, were seeping into our home. From 1964 to the end of 1965, The Beatles dominated record sales, the airwaves, the bars, and the minds and hearts of just about every music listener in Detroit, including us young Hackney boys. But by the end of 1965, Motown came up with a viable answer to the Beatles saturation, and that answer was called The Supremes. The Supremes were the first group I could think of that truly bridged the generation gap; we liked the Supremes, our mom liked the Supremes, and our dad, Earl Sr., did not care much for Motown until he was exposed to two acts: Marvin Gaye and The Supremes. I think that out of all Motown artists, we had more Supremes and Marvin Gaye 45s than any other artist in our family record collection, except for the Beatles. The year 1966 also ushered another musical influence into the Hackney household by way of David; he brought in the first 45 record we ever owned by an exciting Soul singer by the name of James Brown, who proclaimed that Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag. Brown’s advent echoed the dawning of a new era of dancing soulful singers such as Otis Redding, Sam and Dave, Joe Tex, Edwin Starr, and Rufus Thomas, just to name a few. David really liked those dancing Soul singers and loved to imitate the repetitive soulful riffs on the guitar heard on our James Brown 45s.

The small clock radio positioned on the counter of Majora’s kitchen was always on, and it was always fixed on one of two popular radio stations: CKLW-AM, which broadcasted from Windsor, Ontario – right across the shores of the Detroit River – and WJLB-AM, which broadcasted from Broderick Towers in downtown Detroit. CKLW played a mixture of Pop, R&B, Rock’n’Roll, and even Country music, while WJLB had become the radio station of choice in the Black community of Detroit, playing strictly Blues and R&B. Most mornings, as we Hackney kids sat at the kitchen table eating breakfast before going to school, we listened to CKLW and we thus became exposed to a variety of artists like The Rolling Stones, The Ventures, Jimmy Dean, Johnny Cash, Del Shannon, and Paul Revere and The Raiders, all of whom introduced us to a whole range of musical styles. We also heard great local acts like Mitch Ryder and The Detroit Wheels, Bob Seger and the Last Herd, The MC5, Suzie Quattro, and many others. When we came home for lunch, the radio would be tuned to WJLB, which often featured Martha Jean the Queen and her inspirational hour. Our mom liked that show a whole lot.

By the end of 1966, the Vietnam conflict was turning into a major war, and many young men were finding themselves faced with the possibility of being drafted into military service. Earl Jr., approaching the age of seventeen, found himself in this very situation. That year, Earl Jr. and his friends introduced a different style of music into our household, the music of Jazz. On more than a few nights each week, Earl Jr. and his friends would gather in the basement of the Hackney home and replace the bright light bulb with a red or blue party light bulb and play vinyl albums, on the record player, of artists like John Coltrane, Miles Davis, Cannonball Adderley, Nancy Wilson, The Jazz Crusaders, Nina Simone, Wes Montgomery, and other great Jazz artists. Occasionally, a can of weed would make its way into the basement by way of one of those friends of Earl Jr.’s, with the aroma permeating the downstairs each time the basement door was opened. Earl Jr. was rapidly approaching his late teenage years in 1966 and 1967, and these years saw him usher into the household an onslaught of Jazz albums, soulful 45s, and various chemically slicked down pompadour hairstyles better known in the Black community as Dos.

5. Mack Street

By the summer of 1967, we were rapidly reaching maturity; David was fifteen, Dannis was fourteen, and I was eleven. Our older brother, Earl Jr., now just turning seventeen, had become quite a newspaper route mogul; he controlled two separate neighborhoods in the morning and east Mack Street from the Chrysler plant to Beaniteau Street at night, areas served by the Detroit News and the Detroit Free Press respectively. Upon turning seventeen, Earl Jr. set his aspirations on more gainful employment to support cool clothes, hairdos, and late teen maturity. He turned over all the newspaper routes to David, Dannis, and me – I worked the morning routes while David and Dannis ran the Mack Street operations at night. Within months, I also joined David and Dannis on Mack Street. The Mack Street paper route was where we got a lot of musical and street education. The routine consisted of all three of us arriving in front of the Chrysler plant at 9:00 PM, waiting for the Free Press truck to come and drop off two or three bundles of newspapers for us to sell. One of us would stay stationed at the gate of the plant to meet workers on the way out during shift change; another brother would take a pull wagon filled with one bundle of papers and go two long blocks to the other end of the factory to sell to workers coming out of that end; finally, one of us (usually David) would take a bunch of newspapers under his arm and cover the line of bars and nightclubs that lined Mack Street and the adjoining area.

This line of bars and nightclubs on Mack Street provided us with an education in street smarts and musical knowledge that no school could ever match. Two notable nightclubs on Mack Street known for live music performances were The O’Mack nightclub – where Country and Western acts played nightly – and the Blue Goose Blues club located across the street from the O’Mack. The Black Chrysler factory workers frequented the Blue Goose heavily. Blues bands and players played nightly to factory workers, pimps, prostitutes, drug dealers, and hustlers of all sorts (mostly planted in the clubs to separate workers from their hard-earned pay on Thursdays and Fridays). If, by the end of the night, you could not find David, Dannis, or me when we covered the bars, chances were you could find us at one of these two establishments. We also had a shoe-shine box that we carried along the way to the bars, which served us quite well as an additional source of income, which was no surprise given the presence of sharp-dressing pimps, players, entertainers, and musicians, all of whom gave Mack Street its reputation.

At the O’Mack, we would sit and listen to the Country and Western bands that would play there on a nightly basis after selling newspapers to bar patrons and those sitting at the tables. We were really impressed by the flamboyant and colorful outfits that the Country and Western bands would wear. Usually, if time allowed, we would then make our way across the street to the Blue Goose, where the scene was a little more raw, to see a Blues band or performer. Under one blue light hanging from the center of the stage, a band, or blues performer with an acoustic guitar or harmonica, would play to the often unruly crowd of patrons at the bar. The time we spent on Mack Street as paperboys played a big part in our street and musical education. Of course, according to Mom’s rules, we had to be in the house by 11:00 pm, no excuses. During the spring and summer of 1967, the paper route on Mack Street on the East side of Detroit turned out to be a very real, fun, and at times even dangerous experience for us. In July of 1967, something was about to happen that would change the make-up and direction of Detroit streets from that point on. It came to be known as the 1967 Detroit Riot. After the Detroit Riot subsided, and all the curfews were lifted, Majora Hackney put an end to our selling newspapers on Mack Street at night. David – in spite of the protest, anger, and disappointment of Earl Sr. and Majora – dropped out of school and continued to play and learn various acquired guitars. Dannis and I continued in school; I was going into middle school and Dannis, having just finished middle school, was starting high school.