Hill, Tommy - Get Ready Baby (CD)

Eines abends 1958 rief Tommy Hill (Autor von Webb Pierce‘s Slowly und später Techniker von Starday Records und Songschreiber) seine Freunde D.J. Fontana, Ace Cannon, Hank Garland und Floyd Cramer. Sie zogen alle ihre rockenden Schuhe an und nahmen ein Band auf, das für Decca gedacht war aber nie dorthin gelangte. Dreißig Jahre später entdeckte Tommy es und spielte es uns vor. Wir griffen die Chance, das zu veröffentlichen, beim Schopf. Zu den Songs gehören Life Begins At 4 O‘Clock, Get Ready Baby, Ain‘t Nothin‘ Like Lovin‘ . Tommy Hill. Not a household name, nor ever likely to be now. There was a time when Tommy wished it otherwise, but he‘s alive, sharp, and in good health, knowing well that many of those who once shared a stage with him are dead or somehow laid low by the life they chose. For the last thirty years or so, Tommy has been very much behind-the-scenes in the studio or the office. There‘s still a part of him that wants to step into the spotlight and bow before the sweet wave of applause, but at heart he knows he‘s better off doing what he‘s doing.  These recordings are something of anomaly in Tommy Hill‘s career, a career that has otherwise been spent solely in country music. One evening in 1958,  he downed a few glasses of Ripple, put on his rochin‘ shoes and for an hour or two he was ready to shake the rafters. Then the tape was stored until quite recently. Tommy forgot about it because most of the last thirty years have been spent under a mountain of recording tape. He rediscovered it and played it for German born, Texas-based record collector Jurgen Koop who arranged for its release on Bear Family. That‘s the story of the tape; now the story of Tommy Hill. Tommy was born on April 27, 1929 on a farm four or five miles out of Coy City, Texas, which is itself about 50 miles from San Antonio. "1 was 6ountry boy, picked cotton and all that," he says. Like most of the folks in that area, he grew up listening to the border radio stations like XERF. Wayne Raney, the Delmore Brothers, Cowboy Slim Rinehart and others broadcast from the powerful, unregulated stations just across the Mexican border, but no-one could eclipse Jimmie Rodgers in Tommy Hill‘s eyes. For a couple of years, the Hills lived in Ingram, about six miles from Rodgers‘ old house, Blue Yodeler‘s Paradise, in Kerrville. It was Jimmie Rodgers who gave Tommy Hill the inspiration to become a musician. "I knew when I was draggin‘ that Old cotton sack that if I ever got out with my old guitar, I was gone," says Tommy. "I was determined to be a musician when I was eleven or twelve." On guitar, his big influence...