BILLY LEE RILEY

ROCKABILLY'S UNSUNG HERO
RETURNS TO HIS BLUES DRENCHED ROOTS
A MUST READ: "LIFE OF RILEY, Sun Records' rock 'n' roll pioneer survives cult-hero status." by Brian Smith.
ALSO SEE: Another Brief Bio on Billy Lee

BILLY LEE RILEY












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(By Tony Wilkinson) Posted on Billy's 69th Birthday. Oct. 5, 2002
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).

BIO

BILLY LEE RILEY ... He was part of the legendary Sun Studio package between 1955 and 1960, along with a few other new artists by the names of Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Carl Perkins, Charlie Rich, and Jerry Lee Lewis. His Sun recordings, "Red Hot" and Flyin' Saucers Rock 'n' Roll have become classics, and remain benchmarks of wildcat rockabilly today. His band, The Little Green Men (which included Jerry Lee Lewis in 1956) played backup for nearly every rockabilly side recorded at Sun.
He had no way of knowing it at the time, but 22-year-old Billy Lee Riley was playing a major role in the historical change that was taking place in the American music coming out of Memphis in the fifties. The man was in fact one of the original pioneers of rock 'n' roll. Even Bob Dylan has publicly proclaimed him to be his idol.
When the folk legend tracked Riley down in 1992 in Newport, Arkansas, and asked him to open a show for him in Little Rock, Arkansas, he introduced Riley onstage as "my hero," then stood alongside him - not singing, but smiling broadly - something Dylan is not known to do often in public. It was written in the local paper back then that Dylan had been trying to get in touch with Riley for years.
"Bob said I was his favorite singer and he had been looking for me since 1985 - he'd even been to my old house in Murfreesboro, Tennessee looking for me," says Riley. "He said he's always admired two of my songs, Trouble Bound and One More Time. He knew more about me than I did - he reminded me that I had recorded "Like A Rolling Stone" on guitar and harmonica on an instrumental album for Mercury Records in 1965. He even knew I cut a song under another name, Sweet William."
Dylan was quoted as saying after Riley's energetic performance (he asked Riley to open two more shows for him in Nashville the following year) that he was "a hard act to follow." In the early years, Billy Lee Riley was an act who was in demand on the road because of his "fire-eyed, hell-raising" rockabilly style. It was written in one review that "when Billy Lee hit the stage the crowds went wild, the girls screamed, and critics noticed."
Though he's been inducted into the Smithsonian Institution as one of the pioneers of rock 'n' roll, and is being considered for the Rock 'n' Roll Hall Of Fame, 63-year-old Billy Lee Riley has spent his 42-year career in virtual obscurity.
He's tasted success as a producer and one of the best session musicians around during the 60's (Riley is a soulful wiz on the harmonica and his lead guitar is featured on Herb Alpert's "Lonely Bull), has been frustrated time and again as label politics and misunderstandings have thwarted a golden opportunity to break through. But he never gave up. And even today when he looks back over his star-crossed career that has taken hm from Memphis to California to Florida to Georgia to Europe and finally back to his roots in Arkansas where he resides today, Billy Lee Riley refuses to blame it on bad luck.
"It's just being at the wrong place at the wrong time with the wrong people," he says. "I've come real close to some hits, but I've never been able to break through. I've always done a lot of different kinds of music, but nothing seems to work."
What has worked for Billy Lee Riley ever since he can remember is the blues. It's where it all began for him, as a 6-year-old boy, when he was hanging around the juke joints on the black side of town in Osceola, Arkansas, playing the harmonica and singing the blues. And it's where it has all come together for him today with the release of his first blues album for Capricorn Records, "Hot Damn"!
The album found Riley coming full circle in his career, back to the legendary Sun Studio to record the project. The album features 16 echo-dripped, harp-blown songs that range from gutbucket shuffle to the delta blues so languid, so thick and sultry, it wraps around you like a hot, magnolia-scented southern night. Seven cuts were written by Riley, who was likened by one critic to "an old hep cat finding solace in a timeless sound."

1959-60	Rita unissued		Mud Island [instr.] {c,d} My Baby's Got Love {c,d} Red Hot [alt. vers. 3] {1h} That's What I Want To Do [alt. vers.] {c,d}
	[unissued]		Dance With Me Honey (Rock With Me Baby No. 2) {I , 1V} Long Gone {o} Memphis Blues {p}
	[need info]		Just One More Time {F} Little Green Men {2w}

1. as by Billy Riley
   
2. as by Billy Riley And His Little Green Men
   
3. as by Billy Riley / The Little Green Men
   
4. as by Bill Riley
   
5. as by Lightnin' Leon
   
6. as by Skip Wiley
   
7. as by Billy Riley / Bill Justis Band
   
8. as by Good Jelly Bess
   
9. as by Darron Lee
   

• SEE ALSO: Rockin Stockin