Three weeks ago at Betty’s Blue Star Lounge, on the corner of Grand and Ashland, Hayden Thompson and Dale Hawkins took turns fronting the club’s usual Wednesday-night band, Rockin’ Billy& His Wild Coyotes. It was a rare treat for the country and rockabilly fans who’d caught wind of the underpublicized show: Hawkins is the man who wrote and originally sang “Susie-Q,” back in 1957, and at around the same time Thompson was recording at Memphis’s legendary Sun Studios. Thompson opened his part of the set with “Love My Baby,” a song he cut at Sun with producer Cowboy Jack Clement, and later he and Hawkins joined forces for a rousing rendition of Big Joe Turner’s 1954 R&B smash “Shake, Rattle and Roll.”
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The crowd was enthusiastic but not especially large. Though Thompson, a Mississippi native, has lived in the Chicago area for almost 50 years—he’ll turn 70 in March—his audience here consists mainly of hard-core fans and other, younger rockabilly musicians. (Thompson and Hawkins both make guest appearances on the new Rockin’ Billy album, Top Dead Center.) Most of Chicago’s sizable roots-rock and alt-country audience doesn’t seem to know about Thompson, and that’s a perfect crime. His career can be read as a strange tale of unlucky breaks and missed chances, but his reputation, such as it is, rests on a remarkable amount of excellent music. His discography spans more than half a century, beginning in 1955 with a wonderful country single by his group the Southern Melody Boys—”I Feel the Blues Coming On” b/w “Act Like You Love Me”—and culminating, at least for now, with an eponymous CD released this spring on the Bluelight label.
Thompson is quick to point out that he is not now and never has been strictly a “rockabilly” artist, even though his tune “Rock-a-Billy Gal,” recorded at Sun Studios in 1957, contains what must be one of the earliest uses of the word. “I think this term rockabilly was created in Europe,” he says. “We just didn’t use it back in those days. Maybe a little bit, but not like it is now. It was just rock‘n’roll, you know?” And the rockabilly look, he says, has changed over the years. “You didn’t see a whole lot of tattoos in the 50s, you know, at Sun Records.”
For Thompson’s gig at Martyrs’ this Saturday he’ll be backed again by members of the Western Elstons, including Sutton, guitarist Joel Paterson (also of Devil in a Woodpile), and keyboardist Scott Ligon (subject of a recent Reader cover story). The show should be a lot like his Martyrs’ date in May—and that’s a good thing.v
Sat 12/1, 10 PM, Martyrs’, 3855 N. Lincoln, 773-404-9494 or 800-594-8499, $12.
