The Memphis Scene (Remastered) Bill Black's Combo

• 1 Rings 03:07
• 2 Resurrection Shuffle 03:25
• 3 Make It with You 02:56
• 4 Memphis Shuffle 02:10
• 5 Beale Street Connection 02:12
• 6 Mighty Clouds of Joy 02:33
• 7 Oh Happy Day 03:06
• 8 Cotton Carnival 02:48
• 9 Mississippi Current 02:43
• 10 Sugar Cured 02:34
• 11 Summer Sand 03:06
• Total Runtime 30:40

Info for The Memphis Scene (Remastered)

By the time this album came out on Mega Records in 1971 all the core members of the Bill Black's Combo that scored a number of instrumental hits in the 1960s were long gone. In fact leader Black had died of a brain tumor in 1965, at age 39.

Black, of course, was the bass player on all the early Elvis Presley recordings for Sun and the first sides that Elvis recorded for RCA Victor.

Black formed his own combo in 1959 and scored a number of instrumental hits, among them Smokie, Part 2, White Silver Sands and Don't Be Cruel.

The band heard on The Memphis Scene is under the direction of producer Larry Rogers, who had opened a Memphis recording studio, Lyn Lou Studio, with Black in 1962. Saxophonist Robert Gladney is the only musician identified on the album, although road manager and bassist Bob Tucker, who joined the combo in 1963 and had taken over leadership of the group after Black's death, likely also was part of this recording.

The Memphis Scene retains the basic sound of the classic Bill Black's Combo of the '60s, but adds a few funk elements as well.

Bill Black's Combo

Digitally remastered

Bill Black
had two distinct phases of his career in which he made a notable mark on early rock & roll music: first as the rockabilly bass player for Elvis Presley and then as a bandleader of Bill Black's Combo, which scored numerous instrumental hits in the early '60s. Such is the way of the world that his most artistically important contributions, as one-third of the rockabilly trio that Elvis Presley fronted at the beginning of his career, brought him much less commercial reward than the far less remarkable hit records under his own name.

Black first recorded for Sun Records in early 1954 as a member of a country band, Doug Poindexter and the Starlite Wranglers, who also included guitarist Scotty Moore. That group issued just one single for Sun, but that was enough to make the talents of Black and Moore known to Sun head Sam Phillips, who put the pair together with Elvis Presley. Under the billing of Elvis Presley, Scotty, and Bill, they put out five records on Sun in 1954 and 1955, which are usually acknowledged as some of the finest rockabilly records ever done and Presley at his most youthfully uninhibited. Black was an important part of the early Presley sound with his slap stand-up bass and ebullient onstage manner.

Black and Moore continued to work with Presley until 1958, leaving his band in large part due to disputes over financial terms. Black and Moore had taken one-quarter of the royalties at the outset of Presley's career, but even after Presley had rocketed to stardom with RCA starting in 1956, they were on a mere 200 dollars/week wage. Although Moore would eventually work with Presley again, Black never did, joining a Memphis group that evolved into Bill Black's Combo in 1959. Their instrumental "Smokie," released late that year, made the Top Ten.

Bill Black's Combo stuck to the formula of "Smokie" for many of their subsequent singles: a basic shuffle beat, simple bluesy R&B riffs, and some rinky-dink organ and smoky saxophone lines on top. They weren't too imaginative, but they were quite successful, placing eight singles in the Top 40 between 1959 and 1962, including "White Silver Sands," "Josephine," "Don't Be Cruel," "Blue Tango," and "Hearts of Stone." Their sales were greatly boosted by the suitability of their instrumental rock for background music at bars, clubs, and diners, with many of their discs placed in jukeboxes. They were still charting in the Top 100 as late as 1964, the year they also toured with the Beatles during the British stars' first nationwide American tour.

Black, sadly, developed a brain tumor and died in 1965, shortly before his 40th birthday and before rock historians had a chance to allow him to tell his side of the Elvis Presley story. (Richie Unterberger, AMG)

This album contains no booklet.