From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Sat Oct 5, 2002  2:18 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Billy Lee Riley

BILLY LEE RILEY (By Tony Wilkinson)

Born 5th October 1933, Pocahontas, Arkansas

Riley is probably the greatest talent who recorded for Sun that failed to make
the big time. A multi-talented instrumentalist, excelling especially on
harmonica, he is equally at home roaring out hard driving rock 'n' roll or
moaning the blues plus he is adept at rockin' tinged country. He was and remains
a master showman on live appearances and this was reconfirmed during the Green
Bay Rockin' Fest in July this year. Justifiably famous for the six cult classic
single singles he cut for Sun, there is however far more to the talent that is
Billy Lee Riley.

Born into relative poverty, he and his parents plus seven other children were
constantly on the move and on occasion were living together in ex army tents.
The family worked on cotton plantations where Billy gathered a musical heritage
in the blues. He also became immersed in the honky tonk hillbilly coming forth
from the battery-operated radio. His dad taught him how to play the harmonica
and at the age of nine, he bought a Silvertone guitar from a girlfriend. Tommy
Hamblin taught him basic chords.

Around 1947, he made his first public appearance on radio station WELO but in
1949, he enlisted in the US Army (one of his sisters falsifying that he was aged
18). He served two stints in the armed forces, eventually returning to civilian
life circa 1953/54. Upon discharge, he became more and more involved in music
and joined two bands in the Jonesboro Arkansas area, namely CD Tennyson & The
Happy Valley Boys plus the KBTM Ranch Boys and also appeared regularly on three
local radio stations.

He then moved to Memphis and joined his brother in law in a setting up a
restaurant, which failed. From here he worked as a meat cutter and as a truck
driver. He linked up with another truck driver, Slim Wallace, and joined his
Dixie Ramblers group, which also included Jack Clement, Wayne McGinnis, Bob
Deckleman (brother of 'Daydreaming' Bud) and Ramon Mauphin. Clement and Wallace
formed the legendary Fernwood label and the first intended release, in 1956, was
Billy's 'Think Before You Go' and 'Trouble Bound' which were taken to Sam
Phillips for some reason. Phillips did not care for the country music of 'Think
Before You Go' and so 'Rock With Me Baby' replaced it. The masters were either
leased or sold to Sam and Billy found himself as a Sun recording artist when the
two sides were issued as Sun 245 but bearing the original Fernwood matrix
numbers. Also as a consequence, the guitarist on the session, Roland Janes
became the Sun house guitarist whilst Jack Clement became an engineer at 706
Union. (Fernwood Records eventually came into existence in 1958).

Gathering around him James Van Eaton on drums and Marvin Pepper on bass as well
as the aforementioned Janes, Riley and his group evolved into the Sun house
band. His second release for Sun was the stunning 'Flying Saucers Rock 'n'
Roll', a song written by Ray Scott and inspired by the then UFO near epidemic.
The band were renamed as The Green Men and the outfit hit the road. One of the
band's stage attire was to wear green suits made out of billiard tablecloth.
Only trouble was that when the guys started to sweat during a performance, the
dye ran from the cloth onto their skins and was only removed with difficulty.

The follow up release was Billy's classic version of Billy Emerson's 'Red Hot',
eclipsing the original, coupled with 'Pearly Lee'. This record was starting to
take off when Phillips released Jerry Lee's 'Great Balls Of Fire' and put all
his efforts behind this disc and effectively pulled 'Red Hot'. Riley found out,
got drunk and set about wrecking the studio but silver-tongued Sam calmed him
down with the promise that he would make him the next big Sun star. The next
record 'Wouldn't You Know/Baby Please Don't Go' (Sun 289) sold around 3,200
copies in the first four months of release in 1958 with the result that Riley
left Sun Records for a one off deal with Brunswick and the Owen Bradley produced
'Rockin' On The Moon/Is That All To The Ball Mr. Hall'.

Billy was then offered a recording contract by Dick Clark with Swan Records and
was also approached by Steve Sholes with a view to joining RCA. Riley did
neither but returned to Sam Phillips and Sun Records. This saw two more releases
'Down By The Riverside/No Name Girl' (Sun 313) and 'Come Back Baby (One More
Time)/Got The Water Boiling (Sun 322) but neither sold in significant quantity.

There were actually another two releases by Billy for Phillips during this
tenure with Sun. The first was the rockin' pair of instrumentals in 1958
'Itchy/Thunderbird issued on Sun 304 but only credited to Sonny Burgess with the
second being 'Yulesville USA/Rockin' Old Lang Syne' under the name of The
Rockin' Stockings (originally issued in 1960 on Billy's own Mojo Records).

On leaving Sun, Riley and Roland Janes established Rita Records but Riley sold
out his share just as the label's 'Mountain Of Love' by Harold Dorman started to
break out big. However this was not before Riley released 'Dark Muddy
Bottom/Repossession Blues' as Lightnin' Leon (and which gained cult status as an
authentic blues record with bluesologists). He also released 'That's What I
Want/Too Much Woman For Me' on the label although there are stories that this
was originally cut for Jack Clement's Summer Records). But before this, 1959 saw
the release of the Riley & Janes as The Spitfires with 'Fireball Mail/Catfish'
on the Top Rank subsidiary label Jaro (#77004).

After Rita Records , Riley established Nita Records followed by Mojo Records and
for the latter in 1960, he released 'Fast Livin'/Hill Country Music' under the
name of Skip Wiley. May 1961 saw his versions of 'Teenage Letter/Flip Flop and
Fly' on Home Of The Blues (#233) but Billy is adamant that he cut these sides
earlier. Later that year, he and his band (Pat O'Neil on bass, James Van Eaton
on drums, Jimmy Wilson on organ and Martin Willis on sax) went to the Pepper
Sound Studio in Memphis and recorded the instrumentals 'Shimmy Shimmy Walk Parts
1 and 2" which were released under the name of The Megatons on the Dodge label
(#808) out of Ferriday, Louisiana. This disc was subsequently issued on Checker
1005 and made position #88 on the Billboard charts in January 1962.

The band returned to the Pepper Studio in March 1962 and laid down a further ten
sides. These were leased or sold to the Chess brothers who erased Riley's
harmonica and added Bo Diddley on guitar and released the tracks (with new
titles) in 1963 as Bo's 'Surfin' With' album on Checker LP-2987. The band
subsequently recorded a further ten titles at the Ter-Mer studio in Chicago but
these remain unreleased. Riley had earlier cut two of these sides, 'Everybody's
Twisting/I've Been Searching' and these were issued on the Myrl label, sister to
the aforementioned Dodge Records, under the name of Darron Lee in 1961.

Sometime around 1962/1963, Riley went over to the west coast of America and
established himself as an in demand session player and was featured on
recordings by such as The Beach Boys, Herb Alpert, Dean Martin, John Prine and
Wilson Pickett. He also signed to the Mercury, GNP Crescendo and Crown labels
with a few album releases, some of which were similar to the Johnny Rivers 'Live
at The Whisky A Go-Go' style. Others were harmonica led instrumental sets. He
also released a single on the Era label under the name of Sandy & The Sandstorms
which has Riley playing every instrument apart from the drums plus has an
obscure single on the Denver based Enterprise Records (#2142) in 1963 with
'Nightmare Mash'

Circa 1966, Billy relocated back south and reactivated his Mojo label. He
released a few singles and an LP plus was featured in the dreadful B-movie
'Speed Lovers'. Also in the sixties, he recorded for Atlantic and Hip Records.
Contrary to some sources, records by Bill and Will plus Prince Albert are not by
Billy under another name.

When Shelby Singleton reactivated the Sun label in 1969, one of the first
artists signed was Riley and he had two singles issued, the excellent
'Kay/Lookin' For My Baby (Sun 1100) and 'Pilot Town Louisiana/Working On The
River' (Sun 1105). The closest to a chart breakthrough that Riley had came about
in 1971 with his original version of 'A Thing About You Baby' on the Entrance
label produced by Chips Moman. The disc was starting to build nicely when a
certain Elvis Presley rush released his version and killed Riley's record dead
in the water.

For a while thereafter, Billy gave up the music business and made a living as a
house decorator but come 1978, he returned to the studios and made a couple of
singles which were issued on his Mojo label. He also returned to playing live
shows and came across the Big Pond to England. This is where I made his
acquaintance, a friendship I am glad to say continues to this day.

Since then, he has issued quite a few albums, including three very good blues
sets, and is still stomping the boards. Thankfully he is showing no signs of
slowing down and has just released a CD of recordings made recently at the Sun
Studio. Catch a Billy Lee Riley stage show if you can, they are generally magic.

Recommended listening:

Bear Family BCD 15444 'Billy Riley Classic Recordings, 1956 - 1960' (2xCD set)
(1990)

(Charly) CD Sun Box 3 'Rockin' With Riley' (3xCD set) (1992)

Hightone HCD 8040 'Blue Collar Blues' (1992)

Star Club CD1995-2 'Everybody Let's Rock' (1995) contains much otherwise not
available material)

Icehouse ICD 9413 'Rockin' Fifties' (1995)

Capricorn 314 534 785-2 'Hot Damn!' (1997)

Icehouse IHR 9434 'Shade Tree Blues' (1999)

Sun Up SR-3391 'One More Time' (2002)

In addition to the foregoing, there have been at least three single CD
compilations of Billy's Sun material issued by Charly and/or AVI Records. Sadly,
none of his Mercury or GNP Crescendo recordings have been re-issued on CD.

Finally, there is the various artists 'Tribute To The Legendary Billy Lee Riley'
CD on BSC Records BSC 95-007 which was issued in 1995 and contains one otherwise
unavailable track by Billy ('All My Rockin' Friends')

Official website: http://www.rockabilly.net/main.shtml

Also worthwhile: http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/issues/2001-07-19/music4.html