remembering riley
quelle: elvisunlimited
http://www.elvisunlimited.com/news.a...9&news_id=1506
Elvis Unlimited is sad to report that at 5:20 AM CST on August 2, 2009,
Sun Recording artist Billy Lee Riley passed away.
Bill Lee Riley has been battling stage four colon cancer since May.
His cancer had spread to his bones. Billy Lee was admitted to St. Bernard's Medical Center in Jonesboro,Arkansas on Saturday.
His wife Joyce was shocked by his death early Sunday morning at 5:20 AM. But says he went peacefully.
She also said they did not see the end coming. Especially since he had been feeling better lately. Billy Lee was 75 years old.
Billy Lee Riley was born on October 5, 1933 in Pocahontas, Arkansas.
His father was a sharecropper and the family lived on plantations. Billy Lee grew up picking cotton with black farm workers
where he learned the blues and to play guitar on the farm. We didn't see color. "We lived together, we played together,
we visited each other, all on one big farm with a bunch
of integrated people." Billy Lee recalled in an interview for Rocktober Magazine. His schooling was limited to two or three months a year
due to sharecropping which he did until the age of 13 when his family left the farm.At the age of 15 he joined the US Army.
After servicing four year in the US Army, in 1955 Riley met Jack Clement who at the time was starting Fernwood Records.
Riley met Clement who was hitch hiking in Arkansas. The men began to talk and next thing he knew, Billy Lee was recording for Jack in Memphis.
He recorded "Trouble Bound" and "Rock With Me Baby". Although his records were not released under the Fernwood label.
Clement took them to Sam Phillips at
Sun to master them and Sam bought them. They were released under the
Sun label.
Billy Lee's first hit was "Flyin' Saucers Rock and Roll" - "I Want You Baby" released February 23, 1957 (
Sun 260) after which he recorded
"Red Hot" - "Pearly Lee" released September 30, 1957 (
Sun 277) both with backing piano by Jerry Lee Lewis.
Riley formed a band called "The Little Green Men". Riley and his Little Green Men were the main
Sun studio band which played on many
Sun recordings. The band consisted of Riley, Roland James, J. M. Van Eaton, Marvin Pepper, and Jimmy Wilson, and later joined by Martin Willis.
In a Rocktober Magazine interview, Billy Lee said this about Elvis, "Elvis took a lot of flack, man.
Most of these other guys wanted to sound like Elvis,
so they say "Yeah, we took it too." I think a lot of that, just like a whole lot of history from the 50's is so distorted right now.
It's hard to find the real truth. Everybody's telling stories "Aw we took a lot of flack, they didn't want us playing black music."
I never did see that happen. The only one I ever did hear of that happening to was Elvis.
I didn't see anybody else having problems with it and I doubt if they did. Elvis said he had problems with it, so to be like Elvis,
everybody else claimed to have problems too. "
Billy Lee blames Sam Phillips for his lack of major success under the
Sun label. In a Rocktober Magazine interview he said,
"Sam didn't promote it, he sabotaged the record. He dropped my record for "Great Balls Of Fire."
That's why I had my greatest disagreement with him. Of course, we still worked together after that, but it never was the same.
But yeah, he had deliberately quit selling my record - right in front of me, with me standing there listening to him - he canceled my record.
So when he did that, I lost respect for him. He just forgot everybody but except Jerry Lee Lewis, and that doesn't make me feel bad at Jerry Lee!
That had nothin' to do with how I felt about Jerry Lee. Whatever I felt about Jerry Lee would be personal. That's what caused me to leave
Sun.
The same thing with Johnny Cash and everybody else. At one time, they've all made the same statement. Yet Sam denied it.
And it backfired on him dropping all of us for Jerry Lee when he went over to Europe and lost his popularity."
In the early sixties, he moved to Los Angeles and worked with various artists including Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr, and the Beach Boys.
In 1969, Billy Lee returned to
Sun Records which had been sold and worked under Shelby Singleton.
By the 70's he returned to normal life in Arkansas and had a very minor role in music.
In 1992, he was rediscovered by Bob Dylan. Dylan considered Billy Lee a hero. In 1997, Billy Lee's album, Hot Damn was considered for a Grammy.
In 2005, he had a slip and fall accident at a local store and suffered a broken hip. He had two surgeries.
In 2006, he released a country CD titled, Hillbilly Rockin Man. He played the Memphis In May celebration in 2007 in Memphis, TN.
His final performance came in June of this year, where he appeared with his old
Sun label mate Sonny Burgess during an event at the
Rock and Soul Museum in Memphis, TN.
Riley is survived by his wife, Joyce, their daughter Angela Johns, and three children from his first marriage, Erin Riley, Wendy Kennedy,
and Darron Riley.
Funeral arrangements are pending.
On August 30th, there will be a memorial show in Newport, Arkansas featuring Sonny Burgess and the Pacers, WS Holland and his band,
Travis Wammack, Carl Mann, Smoochy Smith, Ace Cannon and his band, Jr. Rogers, Warren Crow, J. M. VanEaton, Dale Hawkins, C. W. Gattin,
and the Blues Brothers Band.
Megan Murphy - Exclusively for elvisunlimited.com