Ronnie Haig born 21 March 1939

Ronnie Haig (21 March 1939 - 18 September 2024) was an American Rockabilly singer, songwriter, and guitarist who became a well-known dynamic performer and earned his induction into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame in 1988.  

The Five Stars

Ronald D. Hege was born in Indianapolis and started playing guitar at age 6 and played his first gig at 16. While attending Arsenal Tech High School, he played in a multi-racial student doo-wop group called the Twilighters.  Around the same time, he also performed and recorded with the vocal group the Five Stars. 

Following graduation in 1957, he recorded songs with Chicago’s Chess Records (where he informally jammed with Chuck Berry). His best known song, "Don't You Hear Me Calling Baby" was originally recorded (in the Chess studio in Chicago, with jazz man Wes Montgomery on rhythm guitar) for the small Note label from Indianapolis, owned by Jerry and Mel Herman. It caught the attention of ABC-Paramount, who took over the distribution from Note. Though it didn't chart nationally, the record earned Ronnie an appearance on Dick Clark's "American Bandstand" and it did well enough locally to warrant a second single, recorded on May 10, 1958, again in the Chess studio. 

                                  

The harvest of this session (a split session with the Students, who laid down "I'm So Young") was the excellent single "Rockin' With Rhythm & Blues"/"Money Is a Thing Of the Past". This single never made it to ABC-Paramount because of an unfortunate incident. "Don't You Hear Me Calling, Baby" had just started getting airplay on the East Coast when a listener in Boston called in to a local deejay and told him that played at 33-1/3 rpm the end of the record sounded obscene. Instead of checking this at home, the deejay tried it on the air and immediately got a call from the station owner. The result was a ban of the single in Boston because it supposedly contained a swear word in the final seconds. 

In spite of this setback, Ronnie kept on performing and touring with some of the greats like the Everly Brothers, Bo Diddley, Ricky Nelson and Don Gibson. He recorded another rocking Note single (with Jerry Seifert) in July 1958, "Dirty White Bucks And Tight Pegged Pants", coupled with "Never Baby Never" and again recorded at the Chess studio. His next recording session was in February 1961, resulting in four tracks which remained unissued until the early 1990s. 

Then Uncle Sam came knocking and on September 21, 1961, Ronnie began a 3-year stint in the US Army. After his discharge, he found out that the music scene had dramatically changed and he signed on with Prudential Insurance as a salesman, retiring from the music business until the mid-1980s. Haig began leading a 50s style Rock-N-Roll band in Indy for many years following his brush with fame.  In fact, Ronnie Haig and the Pletchers (name taken from back-up singers Carla Sue and Roxie Pletcher) became the first house band at the Fountain Room, which opened in the historic Fountain Square Theatre building in 1994. 

Also in the 1990s, Haig released some more CDs, with new material, one in the country field "Branching Out", a few  gospel albums including "Treasures Of Time" and two rock and roll collections, "Up Close And Personal" and "Still Kickin' Butt" (2002) still playing his Gibson ES – 295 Gold, which he bought in 1956. It's been said that only 50 of this model were made until the reissue made by Gibson. During his later years Ronnie suffered from a bone degenerative disease that put him out of the performing business. He died 18 September 2024, in his home town of Indianapolis, Indiana.

 (Edited from This Is My Story & Voy Forums)