Hepcats & Rockabilly Boys

By Robert Reynolds

During the 1950s, country music merged with a rising new fad called Rock & Roll to form what would become known as Rockabilly.  In short, rockabilly was high energy, fast paced, guitar and bass driven tunes displaying thundering rhythms.  The songs were often unremarkable ditties made up with a conglomeration of silly lyrics and inane repetitious phrases like "bop," "shake," "mama," and "go cat!"  Cars, especially gaudy Cadillacs and hot rod Fords, stark colors like pink and black, and hep terms like "chicks" and "cats" were prevalent in many early rockabilly songs.  Songs titled "Ooby Dooby," Ubangi Stomp," "Be Boppin' Baby," and "Rockin' In the Congo" were common record chart contenders during those early years.  Many young, up and coming country crooners would cross over and go on to achieve widespread acclaim as names like Presley, Holly, Twitty and Orbison conquered radio station playlists.  They among others would become R&R legends.  Others like Jack Scott, Thomas Wayne, Boyd Bennett, Carl Mann, Dale Hawkins, and Ray Sharpe found success to a lesser degree, but still made their mark in the new genre. It's many of these "lesser knowns" that Hepcats & Rockabilly Boys explores. 

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Reynolds
• Release date: Feb 6, 2021
• ISBN: 9780359052004

Robert Reynolds

Robert Reynolds has penned many books, including: Mackinac Drift, Gray Wolf Pass, El Paso Run, A Dark and Curious Place, Thunder Bay, Showers in the Rain, Along the Quay, Outlast the Rain and many more. 

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HEPCATS & ROCKABILLY BOYS   

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Introduction

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During the frequently exhilarating crossover period of the fifties when America’s music began changing from mundane pop of the previous decade to amped up rhythms of newly emerging rock and roll, much of country music was also undergoing change. Plenty of old-time country and western artists remained to carry the genre forward, but many others, especially up and coming youngsters were enmeshed between the traditional country music they’d grown up on and this new fangled rock and roll that was beginning to sweep the nation.  In general, this new blend of music was a wilder, less refined sound. 

Dating back to the early 1950s, it’s one of the earliest styles of rock and roll, especially in the Southern USA.  Basically, the music is a blending of country and rhythm and blues. 

Breaking it down, rock of course came from the fledgling new music idiom being called rock and roll.  Billy evolved from the expression hillbilly, a term coined for the cornpone country music of the 40s and 50s.  Chucked into this potpourri of sounds might also be western swing, boogie woogie, bluegrass and jump blues. It was rock and roll at its most basic.  In due time someone dubbed the sound rockabilly and the terminology stuck. 

By the mid fifties, strong rhythms, exaggerated vocal twangs, thumping bass and frantic guitars often made their way to the forefront of this new sound.  With that often came raucous physical behavior—spastic knee jerks, spontaneous gyrations and loud, fast beats.  Each performer seemingly tried to outdo the others.

Whereas young white men on the East Coast were emulating black R&B groups and working on perfecting their doo-wop chops under moth-spattered streetlamps, kids in the rural reaches of America were directing their attention toward the more down-to-earth tunes of the heartland. 

Once that Presley and Bill Haley caught on and began cluttering the airwaves, others ventured forth, intent on achieving their own degree of stardom. 

New York City and the Eastern seaboard had its doo-wop hit maker at WABC radio and in the south were high-power stations out of Memphis, Nashville, and Shreveport pumping out country rock.  Moreover, the latter two cities had such country vehicles as The Grand Ole Opry and the Louisiana Hayride, both magnets for hot new country flavored music. There was no shortage of musical inspiration for those who were inclined.

Later, by the early sixties, artists such as Buddy Holly, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Conway Twitty, Marty Robbins, Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins and others would lead the way when rockabilly was mentioned, but for the most part, their music lightened over time as they moved toward a more pop oriented audience.  Generally, it was many of the less familiar artists who perpetuated the rockabilly sound.  Many of these aspiring rockers would never realize success beyond the small local venues where they sung and strummed their hearts out.  Some would manage to turn out an obscure record or two, leaving a few rare copies behind to authenticate their small contributions to the genre.  These rockabilly nobodies were plentiful, indeed.

Rockabilly peaked during the late fifties and waned during the sixties, finding new life decades later when rediscovered by European fans of the genre.  Artists who had simply disappeared from the American music conscience found new life on the airwaves of England, Scandinavia and the Netherlands.   The voices of forgotten songsters like Jack Scott, Carl Mann, Boyd Bennett and Jody Reynolds would come back into demand and reissues of their material grace the bins of record shops. 

Today, recorded music and live performances overseas keep the rockabilly genre alive, as new fans have come to appreciate it. 

Although male artists dominate rockabilly, legendary female artists such as Janis Martin and Wanda Jackson also played an important part in the development of the rockabilly genre, however, this book is dedicated to a select few males of the species and their contributions to this music field.

Hep Cats and Rockabilly Boys explores several individuals who were primarily considered as rockabilly artists. 

Rock on, cool cats...

Chapter 1   Boyd Bennett

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Boyd Byron Bennett was born in Muscle Shoals, Alabama, on December 7, 1924.  Located on the south bank of the Tennessee River, this small river town had a population of less than 700 at the time.  Many years later it became the home of renowned music studios where the likes of The Rolling Stones, Lynyrd Skynyrd and Bob Seger would record many rock classics.  But back then; it was a sleepy little town almost equidistant from Birmingham, Chattanooga, Memphis and Nashville, roughly 150 miles to any one of four cities. 

Boyd’s childhood in Muscle Shoals was short-lived, as he grew up in Goodlettesville, North Davidson, Tennessee, near a wide bend in the Cumberland River, just outside Nashville proper.

At four years old, Boyd’s grandfather taught him to read music notes from church hymnals before the boy could read song lyrics.  In fact, grandpa taught many members of his church community to read music and sing biblical songs and the young boy often sang gospel songs with his grandfather.

Being the Great Depression years, Boyd did practically anything to make money, including singing with quartets and playing guitar for donations outside honky-tonk bars.  He formed his first band while in high school. 

About 1940, when he was sixteen, WWII caught up with Boyd and he served in the Navy, undergoing basic training at the San Diego Training Center in California.  Sailor Bennett served on various troop transports and suffered a serious leg injury in the Solomon Islands, east of New Guinea.  Note: A different source says Bennett suffered the leg wound during the Normandy Landing. Both sources can’t be right because the locations are half a world apart.  The Solomon Islands account seems more probable because the San Diego Training Center most likely supplied sailors for the Pacific Fleet.

The leg injury was obvious.  Less so was the asbestos dust many sailors breathed from insulation on exposed pipes inside the ships.  Lung cancer proved fatal to many Navy personnel later in life; but more about this later.

Using his occasional spare time while at sea or while recuperating from his injury, during his four years in service Boyd became a skilled musician.

After the war ended and he returned home, Boyd regularly sang in nightclubs, pleasing audiences with his instrumental prowess, vast repertoire and his excellent voice.  The young man was adept at satisfying an audience’s special requests.

During this time, he also performed with a variety of bands and worked temporarily as a drummer for Nashville bandleader Francis Craig.  Francis Craig and his orchestra had a #1 pop hit with the now classic Near You. It was the top song of 1947, spending twelve straight weeks at the top.  Two other versions of the song finished in the Top Twenty that year, #9 by Larry Green and #17 by The Andrews Sisters.  It’s unclear whether Bennett worked with Craig before or after this 2.5 million seller. 

Unable to make a living solely working nightclubs, Boyd worked as a radio announcer and disk jockey for local radio stations, becoming rather popular.

Although he was not a major celebrity, Internet Movie Data Base (IMDB.com) shows Boyd appearing in half a dozen motion pictures from 1944 to 1946.  His roles in these mostly musicals and B movies were minor and went uncredited. 

When the fifties came along, Bennett’s record shop owner friend in Owensboro, Kentucky, introduced him to a Columbia Records executive that signed him to his first recording contract. (Note: It does not appear that Columbia issued any records.) With agreement in hand, Boyd set about assembling his band, which he called Boyd Bennett and his Southlanders. The band performed on television variety shows and at local dances, soon gaining a devoted audience.

The Southlanders was an eclectic group to say the least. They played most any type music, refusing to be pigeonholed into a particular genre.  Likewise, they were a talented bunch. Trumpet player and funnyman Jim Big Moe Muzey was massive, weighing in at 425 pounds.  On the other end of that extreme was guitarist/comedian M.D. Allen, who weighed a mere 110 pounds. Kenny Cobb played bass fiddle and legendary Boots Randolph, later of Yakety Sax fame, played saxophone. 

In the racially charged south, Pianist Jimmy McDaniels was the first black musician to tour with a multiracial band, which kept Bennett on his toes solving myriad cultural problems.

While employed at Kentucky’s Louisville WAVE television station in 1952, the thought occurred to Boyd to create a musical variety show