Raise
a glass also to Rock'n'Roll singer Boyd Bennett who died on 2nd
June 2002 at home in Florida. He was born on 7th December 1924 in
Muscle Shoals, Alabama but was raised from childhood in North Davidson,
Tennessee. Boyd’s grand-father instructed local Church members how to read
music and to sing hymns, which was passed on to the young Boyd. Singing in
Church choirs as a child, as a youth playing the guitar and singing for loose
change in the streets or outside all the local Honky Tonk bars.
At
the age of 16, in 1941, Boyd trained at the San Diego naval training centre and
served on different naval troop transports throughout much of the Second World
War. Severely injured taking part in the Normandy landings, unfortunately he did
not realise until much later that his lungs and those of his shipmates were
filled with deadly asbestos dust from the insulation on the exposed pipes.
Cancer of the lungs became a fatal curse of the sailors that served on navy
ships during the war. Boyd was a miracle survivor which he claimed was due to
alternative medical therapies. The immediate post war years would see Boyd
working in bars and clubs in various Western Swing outfits along with working as
a drummer and singer in a dance band run by Francis Craig and supplementing his
income further by working as a disc jockey and radio announcer for various local
radio stations.
The
early 1950s would find Boyd recording for Columbia Records, although without
success. The company could not decide whether to market him as a country singer
or a pop ballad stylist. Boyd assembled a band with a bunch of top league
musicians that started out as the Southlanders but were quickly renamed to the
Rockets, which included the near legendary Boots Randolph on saxophone along
with Jim Muzey on trumpet, M D Allan on guitar, Kenny Cobb on bass and Jimmy
McDaniels on piano. One of the first examples of a black musician to tour with a
multi-racial band, Boyd had to constantly battle against racism across the South
Lands; some clubs would allow Jimmy to play on the bandstand but not to eat in
the dining room. By all accounts, Boyd had a unique way of dealing with the ugly
problem whenever it reared its head.
Boyd
Bennett and his Rockets now signed to King Records, producing marginal returns
with a couple of country singles before hitting paydirt with the record he will
be forever associated ‘Seventeen’. Bill Randall, a disc jockey in
Cleveland, Ohio, was the first to pick up on the record; Alan Freed in New York
followed suit. Other tracks the band cut during the same period were their
version of ‘Poison Ivy’ along with ‘You Upset Me Baby’ and
‘Boogie At Midnight’, 1953. The huge success of ‘Seventeen’
kept the band busy on the road but they still found time to provide the backing
on Moon Mullican’s classic ‘Seven Nights To Rock’ (1956) and Boyd
played drums behind Bill Doggett on ‘Honky Tonk’ and with Moon
Mullican again on ‘Sail My Ship Alone’. Boyd and his Rockets cut ‘My
Boy Flat Top’ as a follow up to ‘Seventeen’ but sales were
curtailed through cover versions on both sides of the Atlantic.
The band continued to cut some fine tracks – ‘Move’ and ‘Clock Ticking Rhythm’, both 1958. As the 1950s gave way to the 1960s their Rock'n'Roll glory days had passed, Boyd working in broadcasting administration for many years as well as cutting a number of gospel albums for various labels over the decades. Poor health through war injury took its toll. Ironically Boyd was booked to make his UK debut at this year's Rhythm Riot at Camber Sands, this coming November robbing 'Tales From The Woods' the opportunity to witness him in action.