Reconsidering Rocky Hill
"It doesn't stop being magic because you can you explain it"― S.M. Stirling
The first time I had heard of guitarist Rocky Hill was around the turn of the last century, when I ventured into Aquarius Records and left with a 10-inch reissue of his first band, American Blues. Released on the questioningly-legit Akarma Records, Allan at AQ enticed me by relating that the American Blues wasp a Texas psych/garage band and their debut Is Here featured a pre-ZZ Top Frank Beard (drums) and Dusty Hill (bass)…and yeah, Dusty’s brother Rocky on guitar. Throwing it on when I got home, the first blast heard was a full-on reverbed-out heavy blues jam of Tim Hardin’s If I Was a Carpenter with Rocky Hill providing sweet leads. Is Here travels the listener through a well manufactured groovy 60s wonderland, with said listener’s added intrigue knowing that two of the band’s members would meet up with Moving Sidewalk’s guitar slinger Billy Gibbons to create a trio that would take over the world with their definitive style of Texas rock.
So what happened to Rocky Hill after the days of American Blues? At the time, I did not even consider the question…and there was no obvious next known place for me to jump in and start listening. As it turns out, Hill had a career…albeit a “rocky” one…bouncing around a few different labels, releasing a few marginal records along the way, getting a reputation for career suicide at every almost-positive turn and eventually dying young of “undisclosed causes” with the known understanding that he lived life fast and hard.
I was talking to John Lomax III a few years ago about his career, which included managing singer-songwriter legend Townes Van Zandt, when he asked me if I had heard of one of his other former clients, Rocky Hill. To him, Hill (who was tutored by Lightnin’ Hopkins) was the greatest guitarist he had ever seen, an underappreciated wizard whose records never got to the soul of his art…and whose penchant for self-destruction blowing up any potential for a legacy to honor his skills. Had I heard the recordings he helped compile and release more recently? Recordings Hill had done with stripped-down combos in the late 70s? If I hadn’t, he had a few platters left in stock and would send them to me.
Two LPs came to my house soon after…and I promptly threw them on, the first titled Lone Star Legend, a record Lomax co-produced in Garland Texas in July and August of 1977. Recorded at Autumn Sound with famed Engineer Phil York, who recorded Red Headed Stranger by Willie Nelson and Texas punk rockers The Nervebreakers, Lone Star Legend was Hill’s down home greasy rock ‘n’ roll record that he was destined to make. Opening song Take a Message To Garcia could have been an early hit for his brother and that “other” band…with catchy Skynyrd riffs and a tattooing title line. Side two opened staged a ramped up, desperate and heavy version of Townes Van Zandt’s Waiting Around to Die. With a band that included a-listers from Merle Haggard and Delbert McClinton groups, the songs on Lone Star Legend are Southern hard driving killers.
The record got interest from A&M and Capricorn, but after Hill surprisingly dumped Lomax to sign a management deal with Bill Ham (ZZ Top’s manager), the record went nowhere. It would be eleven years before Hill would get a proper debut record…produced by Ham…that showcased his guitar prowess. But the record’s production had less of a bite, less of a razor’s attack.
The second record John sent me was Houston Blues Throwdown, a stripped down trio record featuring drummer/vocalist and Stevie Ray Vaughn conspirator Doyle Bramhall and Dobie Malone on bass (from Archie Bell and the Drells). Taped a month before Lone Star Legend in a two-day studio tear, this record is the rawest offering in Rocky Hill’s catalog. Starting off with a blazing Hill original, Bad Year For The Blues, followed up with driving covers songs from Blind Willie McTell, Sonny Boy Williamson, and Muddy Waters (and later Freddie King)—with Bramhall taking vocal duties as well and Hill riffing all over it (and showcasing a great slide on Can’t Be Satisfied)—Throwdown is a lost southern rock classic, still not available on digital platforms, only made available through limited edition pressings (there are three on discogs right now). It would have been great to see what would have happened if this trio pressed on!
During his lifetime Rocky Hill released three albums, each on different labels. While there are definitely tracks on those records that show off the powerhouse guitar player that Hill was, tracks like My Guitar and Preaching The Blues on 1988’s Texas Shuffle, few show the true potential Hill could have unleashed onto the world as these resent two releases John Lomax III produced.
This is HORRIBLE news….Eric Isaacson and the great folks at Mississippi should never had had this happened. Someone threw a Molotov cocktail into the store last night. Horrible horrible horrible. If you are in the Portland area and have some time, they need hands-on help. For all of us NOT there…it will become more clearer in the next few days how we can help. I will keep you updated. This is just so wrong.
John Lomax III presents The Origin Of The Chocolate Chip Cookie
Speaking of John Lomax III, he has recently started his own newsletter, Of American Origin which features great stories like this one.
Book Tour: At home with Jennifer Egan
It is always great to be able to go through someone’s book (or record!) collection and Egan’s seems pretty incredible…and her way of organizing her books is inspired as well…
New Pharoah Sanders Boxset From Luaka Bop
In 1977 Pharoah Sanders was (once again) reinventing himself…and the record he produced was a thing of beauty. Yale and the rest of the good folks at Luaka Bop, who released Sanders’ final record, Promises, another genre-pushing endeavor with Floating Points and the London Symphony Orchestra, have put together a beautiful reissue including tons of photos and essays….
GERMAN EX–MUSEUM WORKER GETS PRISON TIME FOR PAINTING THEFTS
“A technical staffer at Munich’s Deutsches Museum has been sentenced to a year and nine months in prison for stealing paintings from his employer, replacing them with crude forgeries, and selling the originals through one of the city’s auction houses.”
Owners of storied SF bar Trad’r Sam embattled in lawsuit amid rumors of closure
Local hometown news: the neighborhood Tiki Bar is in trouble. I grew up 5 blocks away from Trad’r Sams…but actually didn’t venture into it until my late twenties…loving their Hot Buttered Rums on a foggy San Francisco eve. And now infighting might end it. Sad.
While Conde took home the big trophy for his incredible work, this article also showcases the other top entries and winners in the ArtPrize competition. “ArtPrize is an annual, international art competition and cultural event in Grand Rapids, Michigan. It’s a celebration of ideas, conversations, experimentation, inclusiveness, and of this city we love.”
The River Of Bees
By: W. S. Merwin
In a dream I returned to the river of bees
Five orange trees by the bridge and
Beside two mills my house
Into whose courtyard a blind man followed
The goats and stood singing
Of what was older
Soon it will be fifteen years
He was old he will have fallen into his eyes
I took my eyes
A long way to the calenders
Room after room asking how shall I live
One of the ends is made of streets
One man processions carry through it
Empty bottles their
Images of hope
It was offered to me by name
Once once and once
In the same city I was born
Asking what shall I say
He will have fallen into his mouth
Men think they are better than grass
I return to his voice rising like a forkful of hay
He was old he is not real nothing is real
Nor the noise of death drawing water
We are the echo of the future
On the door it says what to do to survive
But we were not born to survive
Only to live
THIS SIGNAL IS DEDICATED TO THE MEMORY OF MIMI MINDEL WHO LOVED THE POETRY OF W.S.MERWIN…
All of this. Thank you for it.