From:   "Dik de Heer" 
Date:  Thu Sep 26, 2002  1:19 am
Subject:  Born To Be With You : Rene Hall
 
RENE HALL

Born 26 September 1912, Morgan City, Louisiana
Died 11 February 1988, Los Angeles, California

Basically a jazz man, Rene Hall had a long, varied career in music,
but is primarily of interest to R&R fans for his prolific work in L.A. as
a session guitarist and arranger during the 1955-1965 period.
His recording debut was as a banjo player, with Joseph Robichaux and
his New Orleans Rhythm Boys in 1933. From the mid-thirties to 1942 he
was a member of the Ernie Fields Orchestra, before joining Earl Hines'
Orchestra as trombonist and musical arranger. During the late 1940s,
Hall built up a considerable reputation as a session musician in NYC
and around 1949 he formed his own Sextet, which recorded for Jubilee.
(Six of these tracks are on the Sequel CD "Saxophony", annotated by
Dave Penny, from whose liner notes I have borrowed heavily.) This was
followed by recordings on Domino, Decca, Regent and RCA Victor, with
credits alternating between the Rene Hall Trio and the Rene Hall Orchestra.
Circa 1955, Hall moved from New York City to Los Angeles and began
doing session work for many West Coast labels, notably Specialty, Class,
Aladdin, Del-Fi and Rendezvous. His jazzy guitar style was transformed
into an aggressive, easily identifiable rock 'n' roll style, best exemplied by
tracks like "Dizzy Miss Lizzie" (Larry Williams) and "Koko Joe" by Don
and Dewey, and his own instrumental singles for Specialty like "Flippin'"
and "Thunderbird". One of his most memorable guitar solos is the one on
Ritchie Valens' "La Bamba". In the studio he had daily contact with sax
player Plas Johnson and drummer Earl Palmer (whose roots, like Hall's,
also lay in Louisiana) and the trio can be heard together on hundreds of
R&R/R&B recordings. They were also responsible for many instrumental
projects, the most successful of which were a revived Ernie Fields Orchestra
(scoring a million seller with "In The Mood", 1959) and B. Bumble and the
Stingers, both on Rendezvous. Among the artists for whom Rene Hall wrote
arrangements were Eddie Cochran, Bobby Day, Sandy Nelson, Brook Benton,
Sam Cooke, Bobby Darin (during his Capitol period) and Marvin Gaye.