Bill Black’s upright bass is the heartbeat of rock’n’roll, driving the first few hits of Elvis Presley. This is my favourite.
It’s the B-side of his second single, Good Rockin’ Tonight, and for my money a better tune. It’s also a reminder that in his youth Elvis had quite a high voice, in contrast to the deep “uh-huh-huh” of memory.
As with his first single, That’s All Right, and the next three after this – Milkcow Blues Boogie, Baby Let’s Play House, I Forgot To Remember To Forget – Presley played acoustic guitar, accompanied only by Black and guitarist Scotty Moore.
In fact those first five singles – this one was recorded on September 10, 1954 – were originally released under the trio’s name: Elvis Presley, Scotty and Bill.
Drummer DJ Fontana didn’t join until Presley’s sixth single, Heartbreak Hotel, the following year, when the band became The Blue Moon Boys.
Bill Black had two distinct phases of his career in which he made an indelible mark on early rock’n’roll music: first as Presley’s rockabilly bass player, an ebullient stage presence slapping his stand-up bass.
Secondly – and far more profitably – as a bandleader with Bill Black’s Combo, who enjoyed numerous instrumental hits in the early Sixties. But no one remembers those any more, such was the stratospheric success of Elvis.
Black had first recorded for Sun Records in early 1954 as a member of a country band, Doug Poindexter and the Starlite Wranglers, who also included guitarist Scotty Moore.
Their solitary single for Sun, a tearstained ballad called Now She Cares No More, was enough for studio boss Sam Phillips to put the pair together with his new teenage singer, Elvis Presley.
Black and Moore continued to work with Presley until 1958, leaving his band in large part due to disputes over financial terms. Black and Moore had taken one-quarter of the royalties at the outset of Presley’s career, but even after he became a superstar they were on a mere $200 a week wage.
Although Moore would eventually work with Elvis again, Black never did, joining a Memphis group that evolved into Bill Black’s Combo in 1959. Their instrumental Smokie, released late that year, made the Top Ten.
They stuck to the formula for subsequent singles: a basic shuffle beat, simple bluesy R&B riffs, and some rinky-dink organ and smoky saxophone lines on top. They weren’t too imaginative, but they were quite successful, recording eight Top 40 hits between 1959 and 1962.
Sales were greatly boosted by the suitability of their instrumental rock for background music at bars, clubs, and diners, with many of their discs placed in jukeboxes.
They were still charting as late as 1964, the year they also toured with The Beatles during their first nationwide tour. Tragically, Black died from a brain tumour the following year, shortly before his 40th birthday.