Hank Ballard Let 'Em Roll (CD)

Hank Ballard

Original material of their own, often with fairly risque lyrics, always well-placed backing harmonies and wild choreography - before the rise of Motown, Hank Ballard's Midnighters were the pride of Detroit's R&B vocal-group scene. Hank knew how valuable an outstanding lead guitarist is to a group. Over the course of the 1950s the Midnighters featured Arthur Porter (who played the solo on their 1954 smash 'Work With Me, Annie'), then the Texan Cal Green and finally Billy Davis. Like the other members, Davis lived in Detroit and joined the Midnighters in 1959 when Green was jailed for marijuana possession.

Mississippi-born Davis proved his immense worth with two razor-sharp solo choruses on 'Look At Little Sister', a recording made on August 6, 1959 at the King studio in Cincinnati with John Faire on second guitar, pianist Jimmy Johnson, tenor saxophonist Hank Moore, the superb electric bassist Navarro Hastings and either George DeHart or Philip Paul on drums. Alongside lead tenor Ballard, the Midnighters consisted of the tenor voice of Henry Booth, baritone Lawson Smith and bass singer Norman Thrasher, who recalled the origins of 'Look At Little Sister' for the booklet of Bear Family's five-CD Ballard box ('Nothing But Good - The Federal/King Recordings 1952-1962').

'We were in Kansas City when Hank came up with the song,' says Thrasher, who had been a member of the Serenaders and the Royal Jokers before joining the Midnighters.

The short-statured Ballard came from Detroit, where he was born John Henry Kendricks on November 18, 1927. He joined the group in 1952, when it was still called The Royals and had already cut a first session for King's Federal subsidiary. Ballard proved to be the group's best source of material: he wrote their 1954 top hit 'Work With Me, Annie', which brought them their breakthrough, the suggestive follow-up single 'Sexy Ways' and the most successful dance song of its time, 'The Twist', which the group recorded for King in 1958 and on which Hank's name appeared before the Midnighters for the first time. Immediately afterwards came more irresistible dance fare: 'Finger Poppin' Time', 'Let's Go, Let's Go, Let's Go' and 'The Hoochi Coochi Coo', all hits in 1960/61 and written by Ballard.

King boss Syd Nathan held on to Hank for a long time, even after he had gone years without a hit and the Midnighters had broken up in 1963 - the vast income from the publishing rights to 'The Twist' may have been the reason. In 1968, with the production talent of James Brown, Ballard briefly revived his career with his black-power anthem 'How You Gonna Get Respect (When You Haven't Cut Your Process Yet)'. When he toured with a new line-up of the Midnighters in the 1980s, Ballard again took Davis as his guitarist. Ballard died on March 2, 2003 in Los Angeles, having seen the whole world twist (even if in the end it was Chubby Checker who demonstrated the steps). Bill Dahl, Chicago, Illinois.

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