yesterday, 1954, rock a billy was born, the baby had no name so rock a billy became a part of country music. where else was the new sound to go? to new york, cleveland, los angeles chicago, not a chance. the sound stayed in memphis until the regional radio stations in ark, texas, la, central tenn, and miss, got copies of the new sound. what is it ? who is it ? one thing for sure it’s different what ever it is. the dj’s at the country stations mixed the new sound in with the rest of their country music format. what do we have here what’s this new sound all about. it sounds kinda country, but it’s not country i’ll play the record cause i like it. later they would say (records) because not just one person was making this new sound. up in chester, pa, bill haley and his saddleman had a sound all their own. no one could figure out what his sound was. haley’s records were being played long before elvis got his new sound to radio stations in the south and southwest. what to do with the new sound? where do we fit it in, what do we call it? the established country artist had a name for it, “jived up country music” that should not be played along with country music. they “but” they had to do shows with him because he was “red hot” and it was wise to work with him because he drew a “big” bunch of people where ever he went. this new sound as time went on was pushing all established music off the air, blues, pop, country, jazz, all of it moved over and gave way to this “jived up country sound” or what ever it was. it seemed a thousand new labels just popped up every week with some wild kid making jerking, hick-up sounds loud and crazy with guitars drums and electric stand up bass. it was absolutely out of control the volume in in the control studio was turned so high all the equipment must have exploded before the recording was done. the well established labels were pulling their hair out, what the “hell” is going on, who in the “hell” is sam phillips? how can it be that a “hick” label in memphis,tenn, recording in a toilet, be getting air play ahead of us. they want to hear this “hay seed” named “elvis” instead of perry como? whats this world coming to? and anyway what’s this “nut” got a name like “elvis” for? it must be some very weird promotion stunt no one but one has a name like “elvis”. by 1956 “elvis” was signed by one of those “big” labels who chose to get on the band wagon while the getting was good. the little labels were turning out records faster than a mama rabbit could have babies and it seemed to have no end to it. up in cleveland alan freed gave the new sound a name and things were off and running faster than a greyhound bus two hours behind schedule. rock and roll that’s what this new sound is, what’s that again, rock and roll, “wow” this is “cool” man. hey man can you dig it, good golly miss molly, great balls of fire, i’m jivin to the beat and so it was. up until 1958 everybody was rockin’. thousands of good sounds had been heard, sanford clark, pat boone, fats domino, jerry lee lewis, dale hawkins, rick nelson, chuck berry, bill haley, buddy knox, gene summers, link wray, billy lee riley, bob luman, eddie cochran, buddy holly, gene vincent, conway twitty, jack scott, johnny burnette, joe bennett, carl perkins, bobby lee trammell, vernon taylor, norvell felts, sonny burgess, ray sharpe, and hundreds of other artist who had great sounding records yes even the “king’s” songs were played so much the teenage girls burned up their record players. and for a while those of us who were teens in the 50′s drove the adults completely “insane” with our loud music, loud mufflers, “loud” clothes, yep were the “cat’s ass” with a chain hanging down to our knees,peg pants and taps on our shoes and duck tail hair. aaaaah those were the days, yes they were. yea “bop cat bop” just hold that thing in one spot and shake it real easy now thats when you got “somethin”. and we truely did have somethin we had the best music the world has ever heard and it wasn’t reruns it was no rock a billy revival show it was live on stage and heard on the radio that very hour after hour after hour right then and there. yes sir, us teens drove the “adults” out of their minds and we had fun doing it, yes we did we were a “special generation” of teenagers and we made the most of it. that was “yesterday”. i wish those of you under “40″ could have been there, and possibly there are those of you 55 who missed out on all the fun filled days of the 50′s. it will never pass our way again. there are many days when i would like to return the 50′s and live 24 hrs in the life of a 50′s teen in love with rock n roll, time cannot be turned back, but the memories will be with me until i die. today i don’t see the fun and excitment we had in those “golden days” today nothing is new it seems everything has been tried and we get bored easy. cigarette’s were a big deal then, beer,yes,to be able to get some beer what fun that was, and to have a “cool” car lowered in the back, door handles leaded in and dual pipes that was it, and if you had all that you could get the girls. to cruise around town with a good looking “babe” sitting next to you, it didn’t get any better than that, “until” you got her to go parking with you then it could get as good as it ever was going to get, if you got “lucky”. yesterday we had it all, today you gotta look for it, chances are you won’t find it. electronic’s wise today there is no comparison to yesterday. tv had three channels, not much air conditioning, cars were functional at best the t-bird and the 57 chevy stood out as an exception. no traffic jams, the big cities weren’t as big bad or ugly “ike” was our man he and john wayne would take care of us, so would roy rogers, gene autry, lash lalarue, superman, we even liked buffalo bob smith and pinky lee. movies had a plot to them, and we had marilyn monroe, jane russell and janet leigh. today we got a lot of wanna be movies actors. no music to listen to at all, country has gone completely to, well let me say as far as i’m concerned, i don’t listen to it any more. oh lest i forget, we have wal-mart today, we didn’t have that parking lot insanity in the 50′s or people pushing carts around knocking things over running over you and in general just getting all in the way. then they bring the damn things to the parking lot and bang it into your brand new car and chipping some paint off it, $35.000.00 shot to “hell” by some idiot who has no business leaving their house let alone venturing out to cause havoc at a already out of control wal-mart insane aslysum. tomorrow, what will tomorrow bring music wise? it won’t bring back rock a billy. we need to do all we can to save our rock a billy hertitage for the generation of tomorrow. we move further and further away from the time frame when those great song were produced most of the studio’s they were recorded in are long gone. many of the artist are no longer with us and many others due to health reasons can no longer perform. we have lost in america much of our “artistic ability” artist are being created rather than learning to perform. today an artist has two hits and they are forgotton. dale hawkins has been performing susie-q for over fourty years and he still gets booked all over america to hear susie-q. “artistic ability” that’s what dale learned when he was fifteen years old riding to gigs on a bycycle. he learned to perform by getting on stage live with trial error in the rough bars along the strip in bossier city and shreveport’s nite life. dale wanted to be a performer and it wasen’t easy but he learned what worked and what didn’t work and when he got in the studio to record susie-q he produced the session. susie-q stands by itself as a “classic” even if he had,had no more hits susie-q was strong enough for dale to book on his name for the rest of his life. that doesn’t happen today, a recording session can cost as much as $300.000.00 after you add in all the extra’s and special people with their hand out kick backs and other idiotic monkey business you can still come up with nothing to release to the public and if it is released and flops all that money is sucked into the hands of a slick producer who couldn’t get blown up if you threw him into an out door toilet with a handgrenade that already had the pin pulled. so if you are planning a career in music live performing and selling cd’s you better learn all you can about this business of making music for a living. if you are anywhere near being sane where you are right now, you won’t be within six months in the music performing business. get some very ole “elvis” records listen to them till you know each song from memory then call scotty moore and ask him to give you some inside tips on “makin music for a living”. if he tells you to hire a band and hit the road, make you first stop ” graceland” “elvis” will be waiting at the front steps to hear your 1st performance live and in person.

~ Widmarc Clark