Billy Lee Riley 
Birthdate - October 5, 1933
Birthplace - Pocahontas, Arkansas
Curent Residence - Newport, Arkansas
Billy Lee Riley was born to a sharecropper family at the end of the great depression. His carear has spanned 5 decades and he has made his mark in each one of them.
In the 50's he recorded Flying Saucer Rock and Roll which was his first hit record. Recording at Sun Studio's in Memphis, Tennessee, Riley ended up backing up many of the performers who came through the door to do session work at Sun. His guitar and harmonica work was called into play for any performer without a band. Joining him during these sessions were Roland James and J.M. Van Eaton. These three formed a group called the Little Green Men the name drawn from Riley first hit.
During the 60's Billy Lee moved to Las Angeles. The first year was hard but eventually he became one of the hottest session men in LA working with such greats as Herb Alpert, Sammy Davis Jr., The Beach Boys, Pearl Bailey, and many more. Riley say's that working with Sammy Davis Jr. was one of the high points of his long carear.
The 70's found Billy Lee with a new audience. Europe had discovered Rock and Roll and the original rock and rollers were hot comodities. The Europeans loved the real stuff and they wanted it in the flesh. The music that had been just rock and roll was now called Rockabilly and the Rock and Rollers from the 50's could play all they wanted if they were willing to go abroad. England, France, Sweeden, Germany, were all part of the tours. Just about everywhere on the European continent there was some kind of Rockabilly Festival. There were Sweedish Rockabilly Bands, and English Rockabilly Bands, German, Austrian, etc. all on stage playing the music and getting into the style of the early rockers.
The 80's brought more touring in Europe, with long sabitcals in Newport. Billy Lee began playing the music he grew up on. The music of the plantations, call it Gut Bucket Blues or Deep Blues, or Delta Blues it was the foundation for Rock and Roll and it was the foundation for Billy Lee Riley's new carear in the Blues. Billy Lee's choice to turn to the Blues genre was not a big step for him; the Blues were always part of his performances but now they were the major part.
In the early 90's the Smithsonian found Billy Lee and interviewed him for their archives, he released his first all Blues CD "Blue Collar Blues" in 1992, and he does a lecture concert series all over the world about the Blues and the Delta and growing up as a sharecropper. Catch his act you'll be glad you did.
Billy Lee Banned It's 1957 and Rock and Roll is happenin'. Billy Lee receives a call from ASU to play at the old field house. Agreeing to play he shows up with his band and starts his gig. The show is cookin and the crowd's getting excited. Billy Lee climbs up on the piano and begins to dance while standing on the piano. Just a little leg jerk here and a hip shake there.
Now about this time the band really starts hopping and the piano is on wheels; so as the band is dancing around on the stage the piano begins to roll. Billy Lee is doing his dance on top of the piano, the rest of the band is boogyin' away and he begins to notice that the piano seems to be moving. When he realizes that the piano is rolling off the stage he reaches up and grabs on to one of the steel girders that runs the width of the field house. He's hanging on with one hand using the microphone with the other and trying to get someone's attention to his plight. The piano is by now tipping off the stage on one side and Billy Lee is hanging suspended from the ceiling.
When the song finally ends and the piano is moved back on stage Billy Lee finishes his set and figures that alls well that ends well. .... But, the dean is waiting for him as he packs up to leave and he say's "Boy, that was a vulgar show you just put on and you are banned from this school."
Now the next year rolls around and the students want him back so they call and say Billy Lee come and play at the dance again this year. "I can't, he says, "I've been banned from playing at ASU. The dean says I can't play there again."
They say, "The dean doesn't know your name. Change your band name to something else and come back and play." So Billy Lee changes the band's name and goes to ASU to do the gig. Once again the show is hot and everyone is having a great time. Once again the dean meets him at the end of the performance and say's "Boy, you are banned from ASU"
Billy Lee Riley In His Own Words ... Billy Lee Riley 1933-1941
Billy Lee Riley 1942-1946
Billy Lee Riley 1947-1952
Billy Lee Riley 1953-1957
Billy Lee Riley 1958-1960
Billy Lee Riley 1960-1966
Billy Lee Riley 1966-1979
Billy Lee Riley 1933-1941 Copyright Billy Lee RileyMy name is Billy Lee Riley, I was born October 5, 1933 in Pocohantas, Arkansas. A small rural town in northeast Arkansas in the foothills of the Ozarks. At the age of three my family moved from Pocahontas to Osceola, another small rural Arkansas town founded on the banks of the Mississippi River. Osceola was a cotton farming town and we moved onto what was once a large plantation owned by Mr. Hal Jackson. Therefore it's name was "Jacksonville." The houses on the farm was used as rental property.
If a tenant wanted to live there and work on the farm his rent was free. But if a tenant preferred working jobs other than farm work the rent was one dollar per week. My father was a house painter by trade so he chose to pay the dollar a week rent. But in the fall and winter months when painting work was scarce, my dad and my older sister worked in the fields picking cotton.
I learned to play the harmonica at the age of six and my love for blues music started at that age. Some of my black friends, playmates and I would go over to the black section of town and listen to the black blues singers playing on the streets or sit by the doors of the honky tonks and listen to music from the juke boxes. Saturday afternoons for most other kids my age was a Saturday matinee western movie. I did that, too, but most of the time a Saturday matinee for me was the sound of the blues coming from the juke boxes at the beer joints.
source http://deltaboogie.com/deltamusicians/rileyb/
Sujet: HAPPY BIRTHDAY MISTER BILLY LEE RILEY -OCTOBER 5, 1933 
Slap, 
