JODIMARS

The JODIMARS
JOe, DIck, and MARShall
from Bill Haley's Comets


1956-59

It is impossible to recount the respective careers of the Jodimars or Bill Haley without mentioning both of them. The Jodimars were rock'n'roll's first spin-off group: it is well known by now that the nucleus of the band - Joey Ambrose, Dick Richards and Marshall Lytle - were originally members of Bill Haley's Comets.
We therefore begin this biography back in the Autumn of 1951, when an up'n'coming country and western quartet based in Chester, Pennsylvania, Bill Haley & The Saddlemen, experiences its first personnel change. Bass player Al Rex, dissatisfied with being the only salaried member of the group, leaves to pursue a solo career, eventually taking over Bill's chores at radio station WPWA. Recruited to take Al's place was seventeen year old Marshall Lytle, a long-time friend of the Haley-family.

Marshall was introduced to country music back in 1947 by Tex King, a member of Bill Haley's Four Aces of Western Swing. Tex was a boarder in the Lytle home in Upland, Pennsylvania, and spent his afternoons in the parlour singing and playing guitar. Young Marshall became entranced by this music and persuaded Tex to teach him a few chords on the family guitar. Marshall soon began singing on his own at local amateur contests, high school assemblies and at cousin Lee's Radio Park in Booth Corner, which at the time was run by Bill Haley. Marshall made it all the way to the nationally televised Paul Whitman Talent Show, where he came in second singing the Jimmy Dickens tune 'I'm A Plain Old Country Boy'. The TV appearance earned Marshall his own fifteen minute Saturday afternoon radio show on WPWA's competitor, radio station WVCH in Chester. It was at the radio station that the North Carolina native was offered the Saddleman post. "I was surprised to see Bill there, since he worked at the other station. After I finished my show he told me that he needed a bass player and asked me to come and work for him. I didn't want to do it because I didn't own a bass and never played one. Bill said that wasn't a problem - he knew where I could buy one for not much money and he'd teach me to play it, which he did".

Marshall soon became known for his 'clicking' slap bass technique. "Bill taught me that - he told me 'This is how I want you to play', and showed me how to do it. Many country bands liked that style because it gave them extra rhythm to make up for the lack of drums. But in order to play that way you had to go through the physical torture of developing callouses on your fingers. When you pull the strings constantly like that and you don't have callouses built up, it'll tear a blister on your hand. I suffered constantly until I got callouses, but once I got them my fingers got so tough you could almost drive a nail in them!"
While Marshall did not invent the slap technique, he was one of the first to perfect it in conjunction with the drums. "When I met Billy Gussak (Essex label session drummer) for our first session, we sat down together for about an hour playing all different ways to get a tight-knit sound between us for the records, and it sure paid off".
Fans of Bill Haley are well aware that even in his heyday he usually handled only a portion of the vocal chores on the Comets shows. This pattern began with the Saddlemen. "We were doing five 45 minute shows each night, six or seven days a week, and Bill couldn't do all the singing himself. He also liked to give the audience a variety show. So in a typical set Bill would sing the first two songs, then I'd do two, then Johnny Grande would do a couple of instrumentals, Billy Williamson would sing two - then we'd repeat the cycle. We all did country standards - the top twenty hits, whatever was popular locally. I'd usually do the Hank Williams or Jimmy Dickens numbers".
We now jump ahead a couple of years to the spring of 1953. Prompted by the success of 'Rock The Joint' the previous year, Bill Haley decided the time had come to abandon the traditional Western music he had played since his childhood in favour of the new 'jive' style that had caught the public's attention. In short order the Western gear was traded in for suits and ties and the Saddlemen became the Comets. One more move was needed in order to further the transition - the addition of a drummer to the group. Bill began using a session drummer on his third 'Essex' release, 'Real Rock Drive'/ 'Stop Beating Round The Mulberry Bush' and, satisfied with the sound, auditioned a fellow named Earl Famous to join the band full-time. Earl did not work out, so Bill proceeded to make the rounds of the local clubs in search of a drummer. His search led him to a small nightspot on the outskirts of Philadelphia called the Broomall Club, to hear a piano-and-drums duo named Richards & Lee.
"We alternated sets with Bill & The Comets", Dick recalls. "They did 40 minutes and we did 20. After our first set Bill introduced himself and told me he was about to put out a record called 'Crazy ManCrazy' and needed to take on a drummer. He asked me to sit in with the Comets on their next set, we went over very well. Bill offered me the job on the spot - and I turned him down! I still thought of his group as basically a glorified hillbilly outfit and that music was totally foreign to me".

The son of a blind concert singer, Luigi Boccelli (billed as 'The Blind Caruso'), Dick was first exposed only to 'serious music'. He discovered big band jazz as a teenager, but initially had no interest in playing music, preferring to spend his after-school time on the playing field or baseball diamond. His older brother was the musician in the family, playing drums until he was drafted into the army in World War II. Dick then decided to try his hand on his brother's drum kit, and after studying for a few months became proficient enough to sit in with some local combos, intent on pursuing a career as a physical education teacher and football coach. However, the elder Boccelli persuaded his son to continue his musical studies, so Dick played drums in the college band and studied voice, earning him the nickname of 'the mimimi guy' among his teammates because of his habit of working on his vocal exercises during football practice. After graduation Dick worked for his father, who ran a booking agency for blind performers, and worked nightly gigs as a vocalist in the local clubs. Dick was usually backed by the 'house' band, which on several occasions consisted of local legends "Little Ernie's Four Horsemen', featuring Comets-to-be Rudy Pompilli and Ralph Jones.
In 1952 Dick put together a lounge act with a pianist named Stan Lee. A full drum kit wasn't appropriate for their act so Dick got himself a set of 'cocktail drums' - snare, cymbals, and brushes. It was this duo that Bill Haley heard at the Broomall Club in 1953. Given Dick's jazz/pop background, it's not surprising that he was reluctant to join Bill Haley's outfit, whose principal solo instruments were still the steel guitar and accordion.
Fortunately for Dick he got a second chance to join the Haley ranks in the summer of 1953, when the two crossed paths again in Wildwood, New Jersey. By this time 'Crazy Man Crazy' had become a huge hit and the Comets were doing phenomenal business at the Hofbrau. Richards and Lee were booked to work the afternoon lounge for the summer, while Bill and the Comets played evenings in the main room. Bill's shows were MC'd by one Al Antonio, a comic billed as "The One Man Riot'. Bill soon tired of this fellows routine, so Dick was hired to take over the MC chores in addition to his own afternoon gig.
As the summer ended the Comets had a falling out with their young drummer Charlie Higgler, whom they had hired out of Eddystone High School after Dick had turned down Bill's offer. Charlie, egged on by his father, unwisely decided to insist that he be made a full partner, earning himself a quick exit from the band. Once again, Dick was asked to join. "By then, I realized Bill was doing a lot better than I was as far as music was concerned, and I took the job. I figured he might not get around to asking me again. So I became a Comet on Labor Day, 1953".
A few months later Bill decided it was time to add a sixth member to his band. The Comets had begun to take on a new direction on their recordings with the addition of a baritone sax, played by Tony Lance. 'Farewell, So Long, Goodbye' was making some noise in Philly, but the group found it difficult to promote the record at their shows without a sax player. In these early days before the Decca megahits, the group spent a good portion of their time promoting releases by doing unpaid gigs at local DJ record hops. It was at once such promotion, at a dance hall on North Broad Street in Philly, that Bill asked the proprietor if he knew of a sax player who'd be interested in joining his band. Bill wanted a tenor sax man as he felt the sound of the baritone sax didn't blend well with the rest of the group. He was given the name of a local teenager, Joey Ambrose, who had played the dance hall the night before with his own band.
Joey D'Ambrosio was born and raised in North Philadelphia, and took up the saxophone at an early age, studying alto and tenor with local legends Carmine 'Spags' Spangola and Mike Guera, Benny Goodman's clarinet teacher. He took a keen interest in jazz music, wishing to emulate his idol Charlie Parker. However he was soon won over by the meaty sound of the great R&B tenor honkers such as Red Prysock and Tiny Bradshaw, whose music was very popular in the big cities of the North East in the early 1950s. Joey formed a combo of his own in 1952 and soon found regular work at teenage dances, as well as bars and strip joints where he would walk the bar following strippers with endless choruses of 'Night Train'.
"The owner of this ballroom told me Bill was looking for a sax player", Joe recalls. "I got in touch with Lord Jim (Ferguson, Bill's manager) and he set up an audition for me at Dick's house. They hired me on a try-out basis for $56 a week and I started as a Comet on stage that same night, in November 1953. No rehearsals - I just started playing! A couple of weeks later we went down to do a record promotion for Buddy Deane, a DJ in Baltimore. We did these almost every Sunday afternoon. The kids were really getting into it, so then I went into this wild stuff - 'house rocking music', we used to call it. I went into the audience, jumping around, playing on my knees - the kids went wild!"

ritchy54 a écrit:

jolie bio pearly ! cool et de plus que du bon pour bopper! think et bonne nuité.