Bill Black born 17 September 1926

 

William Patton "Bill" Black, Jr. (September 17, 1926 – October 21, 1965) was an American musician who is noted as one of the pioneers of rockabilly music. Black was the bassist in Elvis Presley's early trio and the leader of Bill Black's Combo. 

Bill Black had two distinct phases of his career in which he made a notable mark on early rock & roll music: first as the rockabilly bass player for Elvis Presley and then as a bandleader of Bill Black's Combo, which scored numerous instrumental hits in the early '60s. Such is the way of the world that his most artistically important contributions, as one-third of the rockabilly trio that Elvis Presley fronted at the beginning of his career, brought him much less commercial reward than the far less remarkable hit records under his own name. 

Bill was born in 1926 in Memphis, Tennessee, the oldest of nine children of a motorman for the Memphis Street Railway. His father played popular songs on the banjo and fiddle to entertain the family. Black learned to play music at the age of 14 on an instrument made by his father—a cigar box with a board nailed to it and strings attached. At the age of sixteen, Black was performing "honky-tonk" music on acoustic guitar in local bars.  

During World War II, Black was stationed with the U.S. Army at Fort Lee in Virginia. While in the Army, he met Evelyn, who played guitar as the member of a musical family. They married in 1946 and returned to Memphis. Black worked at the Firestone plant. 

Black began playing the upright bass fiddle. He modelled his "slap bass" technique after one of his idols, Fred Maddox of Maddox Brothers and Rose. Black also developed a "stage clown" persona in the same way that Maddox entertained audiences. Black performed as an exaggerated hillbilly with blacked-out teeth, straw hat and overalls. According to his son, Black said his goal was always to give his audience "a few moments of entertainment and maybe a little bit of humour that'll tickle 'em for a while." 
 

In 1952, Black began playing club and radio shows with guitarist Scotty Moore. Along with two other guitarists and a fiddler, they performed country music tunes by Hank Williams and Red Foley in Doug Poindexter's band, the Starlight Wranglers. Black and Moore also played in a band with Paul Burlison, Johnny Burnette, Dorsey Burnette on steel guitar, and a drummer. 



Black first recorded for Sun Records in early 1954 as a member of a country band, Doug Poindexter and the Starlite Wranglers, who also included guitarist Scotty Moore. That group issued just one single for Sun, but that was enough to make the talents of Black and Moore known to Sun head Sam Phillips, who put the pair together with Elvis Presley.



Scotty Moore, Elvis Presley and Bill Black - The Blue Moon Boys


Under the billing of Elvis Presley, Scotty, and Bill, they put out five records on Sun in 1954 and 1955, which are usually acknowledged as some of the finest rockabilly records ever done and Presley at his most youthfully uninhibited. Black was an important part of the early Presley sound with his slap stand-up bass and ebullient onstage manner.      

 

Black and Moore continued to work with Presley until 1958, leaving his band in large part due to disputes over financial terms. Black and Moore had taken one-quarter of the royalties at the outset of Presley's career, but even after Presley had rocketed to stardom with RCA starting in 1956, they were on a mere 200 dollars/week wage. Although Moore would eventually work with Presley again, Black never did, joining a Memphis group that evolved into Bill Black's Combo in 1959. Their instrumental "Smokie," released late that year, made the Top Ten. 

 

 

Bill Black's Combo stuck to the formula of "Smokie" for many of their subsequent singles: a basic shuffle beat, simple bluesy R&B riffs, and some rinky-dink organ and smoky saxophone lines on top. They weren't too imaginative, but they were quite successful, placing eight singles in the Top 40 between 1959 and 1962, including "White Silver Sands," "Josephine," "Don't Be Cruel," "Blue Tango," and "Hearts of Stone." 
 

Their sales were greatly boosted by the suitability of their instrumental rock for background music at bars, clubs, and diners, with many of their discs placed in jukeboxes. They were still charting in the Top 100 as late as 1964, the year they also toured with the Beatles during the British stars' first nationwide American tour.

 

 

Black, sadly, developed a brain tumour and died in 1965, shortly before his 40th birthday and before rock historians had a chance to allow him to tell his side of the Elvis Presley story. (Info edited from All Music Guide & Wikipedia)

Here’s “Yogi”  from The 1961 Movie "Teenage Millionaire"
 

   

Elvis Presley born 8 January 1935

 

Elvis Aaron Presley (January 8, 1935–August 16, 1977), was an American singer, musician and actor. He is a cultural icon, often known as "The King of Rock 'n' Roll", or simply "The King".

Presley is born to Gladys and Vernon Presley in a two-room cabin on North Saltillo Road in East Tupelo, Mississippi on January 8, 1935, and grew up surrounded by gospel music of the Pentecostal church. In 1948 the family moved to Memphis, where he was exposed to blues and jazz on Beale Street. After graduating from high school in 1953, an 18-year-old Presley visited the Memphis Recording Service - also the home of Sun Records - to record his voice. Owner/producer Sam Phillips was struck by the plaintive emotion in Presley’s vocals and subsequently teamed him with guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black. In July 1954 the trio worked up “That’s All Right” and “Blue Moon of Kentucky” - blues and country songs, respectively - in a crackling, up-tempo style that stands as the blueprint for rock and roll.

After five ground-breaking

singles, Presley’s contract was sold to RCA Records on August 15, 1955: Elvis Presley signs a management contract with “Colonel” Tom Parker, whose other clients included country-music stars Eddy Arnold and Hank Snow. The relationship with Parker will continue till Presley’s death. “I Forgot to Remember to Forget” - his last single for Sun and first for RCA - went to #1 on the country charts. “Heartbreak Hotel,” a haunting ballad, became his first across-the-board hit, holding down the top spot for eight weeks.

On January 28, 1956: Elvis Presley makes his first appearance on network TV as a guest on Stage Show, hosted by jazz bandleaders Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey. Throughout 1956, Presley’s hip-shaking performances on a series of TV variety shows, including Ed Sullivan’s, generated hysteria and controversy. From blistering rockers to aching balladry, Presley captivated and liberated the teenage audience. His historic string of hits in 1956 and ‘57 included “Don’t Be Cruel,” “Hound Dog,” “Love Me Tender,” “All Shook Up” and “Jailhouse Rock.”

 

 

Presley’s career momentum was interrupted by a two-year Army stint in Germany, where he met his future wife, Priscilla. For much of the Sixties, he occupied himself with movie-making and soundtrack-recording. His albums of sacred songs, such as How Great Thou Art, stand out from this otherwise fallow period. On May 1, 1967: Elvis marries Priscilla Beaulieu, at the Aladdin Hotel in Las Vegas. Their daughter, Lisa Marie Presley, is born exactly nine months later, on February 1, 1968.

 Presley’s standing as a rock and roller was rekindled with an electrifying TV special, simply titled Elvis and broadcast on December 3, 1968. He followed this mid-career renaissance with some of the most mature and satisfying work of his career. Recording in Memphis, he cut such classic tracks as “In the Ghetto, “Suspicious Minds” and “Kentucky Rain” with the soulful, down-home musicians at American Studio.

 

If the Fifties were devoted to rock and roll and the Sixties to movies, the Seventies represent the performing chapter in Presley’s career. He toured constantly, performing to capacity crowds around the country until his death. Presley died of a heart attack at Graceland, his Memphis mansion, on August 16, 1977. He was 42 years old.

(info from www.rockhall.com/inductee/elvis-presley )

Elvis Presley - It's Now Or Never

On this day in 1960, Elvis Presley started a five week run at No.1 on the US singles chart with 'It's Now Or Never', also No.1 in the UK.




"It's Now or Never" is a popular song recorded by Elvis Presley and published by Gladys Music, Elvis Presley's publishing company, in 1960. The melody of the song is adapted from the Italian standard, "'O Sole Mio", but the inspiration for it came from the song, "There's No Tomorrow", recorded by U.S. singer, Tony Martin, in 1949. The lyrics were written by Aaron Schroeder and Wally Gold.

In the late 1950s, while stationed in Germany with the U.S. Army, Presley heard Martin's recording. According to The New York Times, quoting from the 1986 book Behind The Hits, "he told the idea to his music publisher, Freddy Bienstock, who was visiting him in Germany...Mr. Bienstock, who many times found songwriters for Presley, returned to his New York office, where he found songwriters, Aaron Schroeder and Wally Gold, the only people in that day. The two wrote lyrics in half an hour. Selling more than 20 million records, the song became number one in countries all around and was Presley's best selling single ever...a song [they] finished in 20 minutes to a half hour was the biggest song of [their] career."
In 1960, "It's Now or Never" was a number-one record in the U.S., spending five weeks at number one and the U.K., where it spent eight weeks at the top in 1960 and an additional week at number one in 2005 as a re-issue, and numerous other countries, selling in excess of 25 million copies worldwide, his biggest international single ever. Its British release was delayed for some time because of rights issues, allowing the song to build up massive advance orders and to enter the UK Singles Chart at number one, a very rare occurrence at the time. "It's Now or Never" peaked at number seven on the R&B charts.
Barry White heard this song in 1960 when he was in jail for stealing tires. The song had such an impact on White that it convinced him to pursue a career in music.

A live version featuring "O Sole Mio" is available on the 1977 live album Elvis in Concert. "O Sole Mio" is sung by tenor Sherrill Nielson.

In early 2005, the song was re-released along with the other Presley singles in the UK, and again reached number one on the UK Singles Chart for the week of February 5, 2005. The song also appears in the TV mini-series Elvis.(Info Wiki)