Review: Bill Haley - Bill Haley's Chicks (1959)

Tracks: 1) Whoa Mabel!; 2) Ida, Sweet As Apple Cider; 3) Eloise; 4) Dinah; 5) Skinny Minnie; 6) Mary, Mary Lou; 7) Sweet Sue, Just You; 8) B.B. Betty; 9) Charmaine; 10) Corrine, Corrina; 11) Marie; 12) Lean Jean.

REVIEW

Had more Fifties’ artists adopted that particular practice after Bill Haley — namely, building a concept LP around a successful hit single or two — art-rock might have been born, baptized, graduated, become the basic laughing stock currency of the Addison DeWitts of pop music, and buried six feet under way before the hippie movement even started. It is, consequently, unclear if we should be thankful to Fifties’ artists for refusing to follow the advice, or pouting at them for such conservatism. It probably depends on whether the idea of, say, Gene Vincent as the author of the first rock opera rather than Pete Townshend appeals to you or not. Either way, it’s fun to think back on all those golden opportunities that Fifties’ rock passed over for future generations to pick up.

That said, in this particular case the «concept» of Bill Haley’s Chicks is restricted to song titles and choruses, rather than actual music themes — which suggests that the man’s penultimate LP for Decca would probably sound less odd to the general ear, but might have the potential to beat all previous experimental records in terms of pure entertainment. Which is exactly what it is: even more of a joke record than Rockin’ The Oldies or Rockin’ Around The World, but a far more consistent and generally enjoyable one.

On March 3, 1958 the Comets released ‘Skinny Minnie’, a song credited to Bill and some of his mates, which went on to become their last significant chart success. Lyrically and, uh, conceptually it was clearly inspired by Larry Williams and his ‘Bony Moronie’ (it is hard to believe that Williams and Haley were independently obsessed with their imaginary girlfriends’ anorexia), but musically, it was quite an original creation — not so much rock’n’roll as blues-pop-meets-nursery-rhyme and crowns it with a glorious proto-surf rock guitar trill. Despite the overtly comic tone (the verses are so funny that the song even gets by without a proper hook for the chorus), the song became so widely popular that even Tony Sheridan would record it on several different occasions in Hamburg (not with the Beatles), and even such wild guys as the Sonics would be bringing it into the mid-Sixties garage era.

The unexpected popularity of the song, which temporarily returned Bill to the chart area from which the Comets had fell off a whole two years earlier, defined 1958 for the band — all through the year, they would be trying to capitalize on its success by releasing more and more singles with the same verbal formula, both self-penned and covers: ‘Lean Jean’, ‘Mary, Mary Lou’, ‘Whoa Mabel!’, ‘Corrine, Corrina’. Alas, of these, only ‘Lean Jean’ briefly made the charts, although it is the least interesting of the four — essentially just a musical variation on ‘Skinny Minnie’, but with the guitar trill hook replaced by a simple and much less exciting brass mini-riff. Undeterred and determined, Bill would push on and ultimately release this entire LP, focused on a variety of named girls — perhaps in the hope that at least all the Mabels, Idas, Eloises, Dinahs, Mary Lous, Sues, Bettys, and Maries in the world would be interested in owning a copy?

The bad news is that the Comets’ songwriting energies were not enough to back the concept with fully original songwriting, which meant that they would still be obligated to delve into the Great American Songbook — which means quite a bit of overlap with the spirit of Rockin’ The Oldies: not necessarily a good thing, no matter how much rockabilly makeup is applied to the faces of old swing numbers and crooner tunes. I mean, ‘Charmaine’? the most popular version of that song was recorded in 1951 by the Mantovani Orchestra — what else is there to say? ‘Ida, Sweet As Apple Cider’? They probably got that one from the Mills Brothers rather than Bing Crosby, but that only makes it more vaudeville in spirit.

The good news is that there are many sides to this story — for every unfortunate lottery pick in an affair like this, there will always be a corresponding lucky number. Thus, the project gave Bill a pretext to make another solid cover of Big Joe Turner: his ‘Corrine, Corrina’ relates to Turner’s version exactly the same way as ‘Shake, Rattle, & Roll’, transforming black R&B into white rockabilly and slightly sanitizing it, but with the purest of intentions at heart. Personally, I much prefer the classic Atlantic vibe of Turner’s version (that opening tight-as-hell boogie guitar line alone is worth the admission price), but Bill’s cheery delivery is hard to resist as well, unless you want to consciously make one of those «stealing the black man’s music» virtue-signaling stands or something.

Other points of interest include reserving a spotlight for Billy Williamson, who provides a funny, slightly asthmatic-paranoid-sounding lead vocal on the original (somewhat Chuck Berry-influenced, I’d say) composition ‘B. B. Betty’ (unfortunately, no solo steel guitar part). Another original composition, ‘Whoa Mabel!’, returns us to the world of nursery rhymes, but this time at an insanely fast tempo even for the Comets — and, for what it’s worth, the song may have provided some inspiration for Procol Harum’s Keith Reed almost a decade later (remember ‘Mabel’ from the band’s debut? "Mabel, whoah Mabel, please get off the kitchen table", that one? it also had a nursery rhyme echo running through it — "put the peas in the pot, put the pot on the hot, in the cellar lies my wife, in my wife there’s a knife". Gee, I wish some smartpants post-rock outfit made a medley of these two...)

Unfortunately, fans of Franny Beecher will have to be disappointed: he only gets to thoroughly shine on Irving Berlin’s ‘Marie’ — most of the other songs either do not have instrumental solos at all, or most of the soloing goes to Rudy’s sax; only on ‘Marie’ do the two lead instruments get a chance to shine on their own, as well as engage in some friendly sparring. Whether this oversight, in any way, reflected a rift between Bill and Franny that would eventually lead to their parting ways in 1960, I have no current way of knowing, but that’s simply the way it is on the record. Regardless, this is just a minor nitpick, since, after all, most people would probably associate the classic Comets sound with Rudy rather than Franny, and with a sax player of that caliber, we can step away from fetishizing the electric guitar for a bit.

In any case, Bill Haley’s Chicks is probably the last Comets album that makes perfect sense to own and hear as an album, rather than just pick out the obvious highlight and run with it — that is, the last time when the whole is somewhat greater than its individual parts. You can read it as a set of consecutive pages from Don Juan’s diary if you wish, or just a bunch of harmless, friendly love letters arranged in the Comets’ usual inoffensive, entertaining style. Most importantly, it is still an inspired musical statement from a band that feels it is still somewhat relevant for its time.