Rip Bill Hayes

[echo beach]

Hands up if you’ve never heard of Bill. Yes, well, I think that’s about everyone, including me.

He was the chap who sang the ‘Ballad of Davy Crockett’ from the 1955 Disney film ‘Davy Crockett,  King of the Wild Frontier’ and he’s just died aged 98.

That sparked a schoolboy craze for raccoon skin hats with bushy tales (my aunt bought me one as a birthday present from Woolies) and replica flintlock cap-firing pistols. I bought the 78rpm vinyl record which, if I remember correctly, had the theme tune of the Robin Hood TV series on the other side.

Marc Bolan of T Rex once recalled that having heard the Davy Crockett ballad his dad went out to buy it but mistakenly bought Bill Hayley’s ‘Rock around the Clock’. He was disappointed at first but having heard the latter started rocking and threw the Crockett record away and the rest is history, as they say.

 

echo.

Edited January 17 by echo beach

[Jim Hardie]

2 hours ago, echo beach said:

Hands up if you’ve never heard of Bill. Yes, well, I think that’s about everyone, including me.

He was the chap who sang the ‘Ballad of Davy Crockett’ from the 1955 Disney film ‘Davy Crockett,  King of the Wild Frontier’ and he’s just died aged 98.

That sparked a schoolboy craze for raccoon skin hats with bushy tales (my aunt bought me one as a birthday present from Woolies) and replica flintlock cap-firing pistols. I bought the 78rpm vinyl record which, if I remember correctly, had the theme tune of the Robin Hood TV series on the other side.

Marc Bolan of T Rex once recalled that having heard the Davy Crockett ballad his dad went out to buy it but mistakenly bought Bill Hayley’s ‘Rock around the Clock’. He was disappointed at first but having heard the latter started rocking and threw the Crockett record away and the rest is history, as they say.

 

echo.

I seem to recall a lot of cats went missing around that time.