Bill Haley Part 2 – Elvis and Saving Chuck Berry’s Life
- Place – Fame Studios, Alabama
- Time – 25th June 1979
- Artist – Bill Haley
- Producer – Kenny Denton
Fame Studios, Alabama
In June 79 I headed off to Fame Studios to record with Bill Haley. Rod Buckle, the MD of Sonet Records UK, accompanied me on the trip to Alabama as they were releasing for the forthcoming album.
I ended up in Huntington and was very surprised to find it was a dry county, there were no bars, restaurants or stores that sold any booze at all.
I was informed by Rod that it had been known previously Bill had had a problem with alcohol.
So, to deter any temptation whilst recording, coupled with the legendary Fame Studios and their fine studio musicians, this was the ideal place to finish recording the album with Bill.
We arrived on the 25th of June, and checked into the Howard Johnson Motel in Huntington, some two days before Bill would arrive.
This gave me a chance to adjust to the time change and would also allow me to make a much-anticipated trip to Memphis to visit Graceland, the home of my hero, Elvis Presley.
Bill arrived on the 27th chaperoned by his wonderful wife Martha.
Over the next two days we set about deciding, from a wealth of material, the final selection of songs we would record for this album.
It was great as we did have the choice of some very strong material.
A Little Help From the Best
I had asked a couple great songwriter friends to come up with a couple of songs for Bill.
Tony Wilson, founder member, songwriter and singer of Hot Chocolate came up with the song, Everyone Can Rock ‘n’ Roll, which became the title of the album.
One of the best rock ‘n’ roll writers around that time was Ronnie Harwood.
Ronnie came up with Bill’s favourite song on the album, God Bless Rock ‘n’ Roll.
Ronnie went on to have major success writing, You’re Driving Me Crazy, for Shakin Stevens.
I wanted to record fourteen or fifteen titles; this would give me the option to pick the very best product for the album. I especially wanted to record Mockingbird Hill, originally a big hit for The Migil Five, but sadly we could only record nine songs.
Bill clarified, “We’ve already recorded three in England; I only get paid for twelve tracks so I only record twelve tracks.”
I realised this had nothing to do with Sonet Records specifically but just an inherent dislike towards a business that had treated him so unfairly over the years.
Picking the Tracks
The UK recordings, in my view only had one reasonable title, Hail Hail Rock ‘n’ Roll so I really couldn’t afford to allow anymore inferior material.
Although I was happy with the final choice of songs, I realised that Bill had chosen several tracks he had recorded before, such as That’s How I Got to Memphis, Juke Box Cannonball and Heartaches By The Number and So Right Tonight.
This took the pressure off of him learning new material but really wasn’t the best route we could have taken.
My least favourite song was So Right Tonight. I really didn’t like this song, but time was becoming an enemy, so my thoughts were that we didn’t want to end up with an album with only eleven track album.
We started recording on the 28th from 10am until 1pm and 2pm until 6pm, with the following musicians.
Owen Hale (drums); Chalmers Davis (bass); Jimmy English (guitar); Walt Aldridge (guitar}; Dave Baroni (piano); Ed Logan (saxophones); Wanda Hale (backing vocal/harmonica); also, Chalmers Davis doubling piano; all the above participated in the backing vocals. The recording Engineer was Mike Daniels.
The recordings were a lot of fun, but I would say the real highlight of the trip was spending each evening with Bill and Martha at dinner.
I would ask Bill a question about his early career then sit back and enjoy the anecdotes.
I could see he was reliving each and every moment of the story as he was telling it.
Bill and Elvis
One evening I mentioned to Bill that I had been to Graceland a few days before which of course introduced Elvis into the conversation.
I asked Bill about the last time he had been together with Elvis, he said it was in Germany in the late fifties.
My memory of this story was that Bill was having a reasonably rough time with life in general.
At this particular gig he had left instructions that no one was to come back stage for the usual meet and greet adulation.
At one point Bill’s road manager came into the dressing room to tell Bill there was someone outside who would like to say hello.
Bill reacted angrily
“I said no one’s to come back here!”
“You may wanna see this guy.” Said the road manager.
Bill looked up to see the head of Elvis peaking around the door.
“Hi Bill, I brought some friends who would love to meet you.”
Bill immediately invited them in.
Bill told me how good he felt chatting and reminiscing and all the other problems he had at that period in his life were forgotten for a while.
I asked Bill about the rumours that he and Elvis had met in the early seventies, he told me this never happened.
Haley said when he heard that Elvis was having, as he put it, a very tough time, he wrote him a letter and sent it to Graceland. In it he assured Elvis that if he ever needed to talk to an old friend, he would always be there for him.
Unfortunately, he never received a reply.
Saving Chuck Berry’s Life
Bill also told me a story of how, in the mid-fifties, he believed he had saved Chuck Berry’s life whilst they were touring together in the Southern States.
After one particular gig, everyone was sitting on the tour bus waiting to leave.
Chuck was always the last to get on the bus due to his penchant for spending time with young girls after the shows.
This particular night everyone agreed they could wait no longer.
As the bus started to drive away one of the Comets spotted Chuck dressed in his bright pink suit, white shirt and white shoes running hastily across the car park towards the bus.
The bus stopped to let Chuck on, flustered and out of breath he climbed aboard.
A few miles down the road the tour bus was brought to an abrupt stop by two pickup trucks.
Out of the vehicles jumped several hostile looking rednecks.
Chuck, realising these guys were not autograph hunters, ran and hid at the back of the bus.
The rednecks started to get on the bus but Haley stood up to stop them and said,
”Hi I’m Bill Haley, can I help you guys?”
“We’re looking for the n****r in the pink suit!” said one of the none too friendly rednecks.
Haley promptly replied “Do you really think we would let one of them travel with us?”
Satisfied with Bill’s retort they apologised for stopping the bus and left without further incident.
Chuck was forever thankful to Bill for this narrow escape and Bill’s quick thinking.
Jerry Lee Lewis
Bill told me another great story about Chuck Berry involving the amazing character, Jerry Lee Lewis.
It took place on one of the rock ‘n’ roll revival tours.
Chuck and Jerry Lee both made an agreement to take advantage of the promoters in America as they were convinced had taken advantage of them over the years.
They would arrive at a venue and look to see whose name was top billing, the other would then refuse to go on, stating that he was the bigger of the two stars and his name should be at the top of the bill.
The problem was easily solved with a large cash payment which they both split between them after the show.
This continued throughout the tour and made them a tidy amount.
All Done and Dusted
Eventually on Sunday the 1st of July Bill left the studio to return back home to Texas. I stayed on to finish overdubbing and make safety copies of the multi-track masters before returning to the UK.
During the following month I re-mixed the album.
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