Roy Hall Three Alley Cats (7inch, EP, 45rpm, PS)
Roy Hall: Three Alley Cats (7inch, EP, 45rpm, PS)
• Original Decca single from 1956 • A classic since it appeared on the ’Rare MCA Rockabilly’ LPs during the 1970s
• One of the top Rockabilly festival deejay favorites • The alternate version of Diggin' The Boogie first appeared on the Bear Family ’ROCKS!’-CD and is finally available, for the first time, ever!
• You Ruined My Blue Suede Shoes from 1956: previously unreleased on 45 or EP, and...
• ...conceived as an answer song to the Carl Perkins hit of the day
• full-color picture sleeve with liner notes by Marrtin Hawkins
Roy Hall made these sides in 1956 when he was a rotund 34year old hillbilly boogie pianist running a night club in Nashville and acting as road manager for country star Webb Pierce. Hall's wild and raucous sound was a blend of R&,B and rockabilly using Nashville's finest studio musicians featuring Hank Garland on guitar.
Three Alley Cats was written with Jimmy Rule about the impact of the new music with the crazy beat. A year earlier, Roy Hall had co-written Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On – and when he was involved, there always was.
Article properties: Roy Hall: Three Alley Cats (7inch, EP, 45rpm, PS)
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Interpret: Roy Hall
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Album titlle: Three Alley Cats (7inch, EP, 45rpm, PS)
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Genre Rock'n'Roll
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Label Bear Family Records
- Record Grading Mint (M)
- Sleeve Grading Mint (M)
- Geschwindigkeit 45 U/min
- Vinyl record size EP (7 inch)
- Price code BFEP
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Artikelart 7inch
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EAN: 5397102000195
- weight in Kg 0.07
Roy Hall
Hall, Roy There are two versions of the Roy Hall story. There is the one that plays up the legend about the wild two-fisted, blues-influenced piano-pounder with the tall stories, who took another man's name, wrote one of the anthems of rock 'n' roll, stayed drunk a lot, conned every man, woman and child he came into contact with, and who recorded some of the rawest music ever to come out of the piano cracks between blues, boogie, and honky tonk music.
And then there is the other story of Roy Hall. The country boy from the Appalachians who did indeed play a mean piano, did indeed write at least part of a famous song, did indeed pull a few alcohol-fuelled scams in his time, but who essentially was a country musician who spent most of his time as a back-up player and road manager, show promoter, night club owner, newspaper proprietor, and general hustler.
I'm going to tell you about the real Roy Hall, the man I first met one Sunday in 1974. He was in his office, wearing red trousers and a young blonde on his arm. He was hustling, talking on three phones at once, and telling me his life story. That story is interesting enough, and confusing enough, without any embellishments. And along the way he did happen to record a CD’s worth of classic rock 'n' roll.
Roy Hall was not actually 'Roy' Hall at all: his given name was James Faye Hall when he was born on May 7, 1922 in Virginia. He came from Big Stone Gap, a town smaller than it sounds, some twenty miles from Bristol. "That's the town that straddles the Tennessee state line," he told me. "I was born on the Virginia side."
Although writer Nick Tosches later promoted the legend that Roy learned piano from "an old coloured man" who taught him the blues, the boogie, and how to drink, Hall had actually given me a much more prosaic version when I first met him in 1974 and again in 1975. "Back there in Big Stone Gap, Virginia was where I learned music. I started to play piano through my mother's influence. She was the one that started me with that, playing hymns and old tunes. She got me some piano lessons too, but I play by ear. I just can hear it and follow it. I had two lessons from a professional teacher, but I gave it up because I was better at learning by ear. I could just listen to a tune, see, and play it right off. I could already hear what I wanted to know."
Hall made no mention to me of learning his piano style from bluesmen, though he did talk about Piano Red, and in fact he emphasised his roots in folk and hillbilly music. "When I started to play, we would work at all the little country dances and school halls and social events in little no-account hillbilly towns. We played music for dancing mostly. I learned the piano first but I also learned to play the accordion 'cos that was what was used in a lot of folk music at that time, and it was easier to carry round than a piano! Later on, when I got into the honky tonks and joints and all, then there was always a piano and I went back to that as my main instrument."
The first important thing that happened to James Faye Hall in music was when he was hired to back up a travelling WSM radio 'Grand Ole Opry' show featuring the legendary pre-War star of pre-country music, Uncle Dave Macon. Roy told me, "I started playing piano professionally as a sideman with Uncle Dave Macon, from the Grand Ole Opry. I was eleven years old."
The next significant thing was that James Faye became 'Roy' sometime around 1945 or 1946. "About then," he told me, "I worked some around Roanoke, Virginia with some other boys, and we were the Hall Brothers. That was my first professional band really." He didn't specifically say so, but the brothers were probably banjoist Clayton Hall and his brother Saford, who played fiddle. The brothers had formerly worked with their older brother, Roy, as part of Roy Hall's Blue Ridge Entertainers, firstly out of South Carolina and latterly in and around the Virginias. They had recorded on Vocalion and Bluebird in the late 1930s and early 1940s. When guitarist Roy Hall died in an auto wreck in 1943, his brothers continued playing with a number of other musicians including, it seems, James Faye Hall.
Roy Hall Roy Hall - Roy Rocks
Read more at: https://www.bear-family.com/hall-roy-roy-hall-roy-rocks.html
Copyright © Bear Family Records
(h)all now !!!
Well the old jukebox was toarin' out the beat
The cats and the gators were shakin' their feet
The tune they were playin' was right in the groove
And I'm tellin' you man they were startin' to move
Then all of a sudden, standin' in the door
Were three shaggy cats we never dug before
They said, as we started, to give 'em a heave
Let us play one crazy before we leave
And they were rockin', yeah they were rockin'
They were rockin' and rollin' with the real gone crazy beat
Now man the way they started was something to see
Two drums and a trumpet and eighty-eight keys
The cat on the ivories was givin' them the sock
The skins and the horn, well they started to rock
We stood flat footed, our eyes on the stem
We dug the music, looked straight at them
We said, who are you fellows and where do you hang your hats
They said we're three Georges they call the Alley Cats
And they were rockin', yeah they were rockin'
They were rockin' and rollin' with the real gone crazy beat
Well the Alley Cats started to turn on the steam
We hit the floor dancin' and we started to scream
The Joint went wild as the night got old
But time didn't matter 'cause we rock an' rolled
The moon went down, the stars did too
We kept on a-dancin' the whole night through
I'm a tellin' you man and you can bet your hat
We got a date saturday with those Alley Cats
And we'll be rockin', yeah we'll be rockin'
We'll be rockin' and rollin' with the real gone crazy beat
5 Stars
Wonderful re-issue of a very hard to find 45.
It's a rock n roll dance floor filler and even better it now comes with great new sleeve and artwork.
A limited press special which will surely become a collectors item in the future.
Roy Hall - Three Alley Cats EP
Being a 45rpm collector I have to thank Bear Family for helping to bring the early rockabilly, r&b and rock & roll back to life on vinyl. the sound is always excellent and the variety is very welcome. This EP is no exception, the quality is five star all the way.
Starker Rock 'n' Roll
Oldiemarkt 10/17 "Starker Rock 'n' Roll mit Wurzeln im Rockabilly. Diese EP zeigt ihn auf der Höhe seines Könnens und bringt zudem einen bislang unveröffentlichten Take des Titelsongs."
Funken sprühen!
Rocktimes 11.10.2017 "Schlagzeug, eine swingende Rhythmusgitarre, scharf akzentuierter Gesang, das ist Musik, die Seele und Extremitäten gleichermaßen anspricht, das ist Musik, die wie ein Feuer lodert, und die Funken sprühen lässt, das ist wild, das wirkt ungezügelt und besitzt so viel Spielfreude, dass man glaubt, dieses aus den Boxen perlen zu hören."
Bin gespannt
Bin gespannt, welche Version von three alley cats drauf ist. Aber egal, ist eh der Hammer!
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