Updates

• Added info on Jimmy Ford, thanks to Volker Houghton. • Extended and corrected the post on Happy Harold Thaxton (long overdue), thanks to everyone who sent in memories and information! • Added information to the Jim Murray post, provided by Mike Doyle, Dennis Rogers, and Marty Scarbrough. • Expanded the information on Charlie Dial found in the Little Shoe post.

Wednesday, October 28, 2009

Something about Ruckus Tyler

Here we go with the story of Ruckus, an unknown rockabilly singer that was featured on a total of six re-issues during the last 27 years.

Ruckus Tyler was born in Louisiana, but spent - as far as I know - most of his career on the west coast in California. He first appeared as a recording artist on Fabor Robinson's label Fabor Records in the summer of 1956 with the two outstanding performances "Rollin' and a-Rockin'" / "Rock Town Rock", which have a western swing feel to it. Interesting enough, Billboard used in his review of this single (Fabor 135-45) the term "rock-a-billy" - it was one of the first times this term appeared in the press. However, the record didn't show up in the charts. After Tom Tall had some success with Ginny Wright in 1954 ("Are You Mine" reached #2), label owner Fabor Robinson searched for new duet partners to record with Tall. One of them was Ruckus Tyler; Robinson may considered him as a talented guy (which he was indeed). However, the duet "Don't You Know" / "If You Know What I Know" also went nowhere. According to Tom Tall, Tyler and Tall never met before the recording session, they just went into the studio, cut the two songs and then went out and never saw each other again. Unfortunately, Ruckus Tyler died in a car accident around 1957.

Download Ruckus Tyler's (almost) complete recorded work

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

First off I don't know where you get your information about his birth or his death but you are 100% totally wrong. Ruckus Tyler was my dad and was born in Wilkinson County MS. His stage name was known as Ruckus Tyler and if you would have looked up the copyright ownership you would know exactly who he was. He resided in Louisiana all his life and only went to CA for his recordings. He also did NOT die in a car accident. He died December 15th 2005.

Mellow said...

Hello, thank you for your message. I got this info from a booklet of the "Classic Rockabilly" CD set written by Adam Komorowski. I will clearify that of course!

Unknown said...

The comment about his death is true. This is my grandfather. He passed two days before his birthday on December 15, 2005. His birthday is the 17 of December.

Anonymous said...

Ok I will get in touch with Mr. Adam Komorowski and find out where he got his information. I understand that when a person just falls off the grid that nobody has accurate information, but surely nothing should be published falsely.