The sound of the Great American Hinterland 1956: Jerry and Narvel rock the radio

Jerry Mercer & Narvel Felts, 1956

I remember Bruce Springsteen once talking about the sense of mystery and romance created by superb rockabilly classics cut by obscure artists in tiny recording studios in the middle of the night somewhere in the great American nowhere forty or fifty years ago. I think the record which had set off this train of thought was Hank Mizell’s glorious “Jungle Rock”, which was originally released in 1958 to no interest whatsoever, but which astonished the pop world by reaching No 3 in the British charts in 1976! (It was later covered by, among others, The Fall and Showaddywaddy, two bands you wouldn’t normally expect to find in the same sentence.)

I was reminded of Springsteen’s insight while reading Max Décharné’s utterly splendid history of rockabilly, A Rocket in My Pocket: The Hipster’s Guide to Rockabilly Music (buy it here and buy it now - it's brilliantly researched, well-written and witty). Décharné (who’s English – there’s no Gallic pseudery in the book) talks about how the profusion of tiny US radio stations helped the explosion of rockabilly across the land  back then: in those anarchic, pre-Top 40 playlist radio days, hundreds - probably thousands - of unknown, unrecorded youngsters were able to strut their stuff on their local station.

And because a handful of performances by one of those bands later resurfaced on the Radio Rockabillies album in 1986, we can get a flavour of what American kids were hearing. Led by Jerry Mercer and Narvel Felts (who later recorded for Sun), the band recorded tracks for their weekly afternoon slot on KTCB Malden, Missouri on a portable recorder in a variety of locations, including a room at a band member's house, a music store in Dexter, and a club in nearby Hayti (sic), in late 1956.

Here’s the sound of young, small town, rural America for a few glorious years in the mid-50s:

I think that's just wonderful - cool, spare, relaxed, insanely rhythmic, and fun. Here Jerry (double bass) and Narvel do a great version of Roy Orbison's Sun single, "Go Go Go":

And here's a version of hillbilly boogie merchant Wayne Raney's "Jack and Jill Boogie":

What a glorious hodge-podge of styles and influences: rock 'n' roll, boogie-woogie, blues, bluegrass, country bop, R&B, black and white, city and country - bliss was it in that very dawn etc.

"Boogie Woogie Country Girl" is one of those songs that allow us to follow a thread through the history of American roots music. Co-written by the great Doc Pomus, it was originally recorded as a rock 'n' roll/R&B stomper by Big Joe Turner in 1955, as a rockabilly number by Ray Pennington in 1956 and by N.A. Stephenson in 1959, then went on to be covered by everyone from Sleepy Labeef, Hank C. Burnette and Linda Gail Lewis to Jools Holland, Roomful of Blues and Bob Dylan (no, honestly - try the link). But for me, the version by Narvel Felts and Jerry Mercer's band of kids stands comparison with any of them.