THE MAN WHO TURNED THE MACHINE ON . . .

Photograph and YouTube performance found on www.steinski.com/

I've just learnt of yet another death, I'm sorry to say: this time of Billy Lee Riley, who, according to The Times' obituary, "played his final show in June 2009 at the Rock and Soul Museum in Memphis, by which time he had an advanced cancer" and died on August 2nd, aged 75.

Here's his (unupdated) entry in The Bob Dylan Encyclopedia:

Riley, Billy Lee [1933 - ]
William Lee Riley was born into a family of sharecroppers in Pocohontas, Arkansas on October 5, 1933. He was a country singer who wanted to be a blues singer but ended up in Memphis doing rockabilly for Sam Phillips at Sun from late 1956 until he left to form his own label, Rita, in 1960.

He was a session-man and multi-instrumentalist (quite good on bluesy harmonica); JERRY LEE LEWIS and Charlie Rich played piano on Riley’s records, the best-known being his 1957 titles ‘Red Hot’ and (as by Billy Lee Riley and his Little Green Men) ‘Flyin’ Saucers Rock’n’Roll’. He also revived the 1940s hit ‘Open the Door, Richard’, a title Dylan makes into the refrain of his own 1967 song ‘Open the Door, Homer’ (see separate entry).

More importantly, Riley is the man who had the gumption to turn on the tape recorder when Sam Phillips and fundamentalist bible-study boy Jerry Lee were discussing the evils of secular music at the Sun session that later yielded Lewis’ ‘Great Balls Of Fire’ (a discussion first issued on a Dutch bootleg in the 1970s), and more than a decade later he was a guest performer at ELVIS and Priscilla Presley’s New Year’s Eve Party at the Thunderbird Lounge, Memphis in 1968.

In the end he was able to cut records in every genre he liked: as one rock historian catalogued it, he ‘recorded country for Sun, Mojo, Pen, Hip, Sun International, Entrance, backwoods blues for Rita, R&B for Dodge, Checker and Hip, rock for Brunswick and Home of the Blues, and soul for Smash, Fire, Fury, Mojo and Myrl.’ He cut many of his blues sides, including ‘Repossession Blues’, under the pseudonym Lightnin’ Leon. In the 1960s he moved to LA and did session work and in the 1970s-80s toured Europe many times.

Bob Dylan sang ‘Repossession Blues’ at a rehearsal for the 1978 World Tour in Santa Monica (February 1, 1978) and subsequently twice in concert (in Osaka, February 24 and Tokyo four nights later), and he performed Riley’s ‘Rock With Me Baby’ at six US concerts in 1986.

On September 8, 1992, when Dylan’s Never-Ending Tour hit Riley’s home patch of Little Rock, Arkansas, Bob brought Billy onstage as a guest. He was introduced fulsomely by Dylan, who stayed onstage to play back-up guitar as Riley sang ‘Red Hot’. Riley went on from this heartening evening’s encounter to re-activate his own performing career. The Smithsonian interviewed him for their archives and he released his first all-blues CD, Blue Collar Blues, that same year. Now based in Newport, Arkansas, he gives combination lecture-concerts about the blues, the Mississippi Delta and his childhood as a sharecropper. He disappoints everyone who admired his work by revealing that he regards working with Sammy Davis Jr. in the 1960s as a high points of his career.

[Billy Lee Riley: ‘Flyin’ Saucers Rock’n’Roll’, Memphis, 11 Dec 1956 (w Jerry Lee Lewis), Sun 260, Memphis, 1957, reissued The Sun Story 1952-1968, Sun 6641 180, London, 1974; ‘Red Hot’, Memphis, 1957, Sun 277, Memphis, 1957; 2-CD set Classic Recordings 1956-1960, Including The Complete Sun Recordings, Bear Family BCD 15444-BH, Vollersode Germany, c.1990; Blue Collar Blues, Hightone HCD 8040, US, 1992; ‘Repossession Blues’, nia, Rita 1005, US, 1960. Lewis-Phillips discussion 1st issued Good Rocking Tonight, Bopcat LP-100, Holland, 1970s.]

And here's a pretty good committed performance of 'Red Hot' from 2003, and splendidly authentic rockabilly at that (which in my opinion puts Dylan's current level of performance energy very much to shame; likewise the keyboard player):

Meanwhile tomorrow (August 7) Dylan band member Denny Freeman turns 65.