We're all about the history of rock & roll at BoomtownAmerica.com!

Every week, we present “ROCK REMEMBERED,” a deep dive into the hidden history of rock & roll, the stories behind the artists and songs that changed the world. Join host, “Boomtown Bill” Cross each Wednesday at 7 pm (Eastern) with an encore broadcast on Saturday at noon (Eastern).

Join us this Wednesday as we reveal the true story behind "The Greatest Band That Kinda Sort Never Existed!"

We all remember Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley and Buddy Holly, founding fathers of rock who wrote and sang their own material. But one founding father has been almost totally forgotten.

He wrote and sang early rock rave-ups like “Bony Maronie” and “Short Fat Fannie,” but was dead and gone before the age of forty-five. If not for one kid from Liverpool, his contributions to rock & roll might be as forgotten as he is.

The man is Larry Williams and the kid from Liverpool who helped keep his music alive is John Lennon.

Williams was born in New Orleans in 1935. Twenty years later, he met and became friends with Little Richard, who was recording for Specialty Records in NOLA at the time. When Richard left the rock scene to become of minister in 1957, Specialty’s front man, Richard Blackwell quickly recruited Williams and started grooming him to be Richard’s replacement.

Williams’ first two singles for Specialty (the aforementioned “Bony” and “Fannie”) both hit the Top 20 on Billboard’s singles chart, each becoming a million-seller. But his subsequent singles failed to chart in the U.S. The situation was different over in the UK, particularly the northern part of the UK where he developed a strong following with the young teddy boys who were leaving skiffle music behind and catching up on American Rock & Roll.

Young John Lennon was quite taken with Williams’ music and so, worked quite a few of his numbers into the sets Lennon performed with his bands the Quarrymen and a little combo eventually named the Beatles. When it came time to record, the Beatles’ early albums are filled with Larry Williams covers, including “Bad Boy,” “Dizzy Miss Lizzie” and “Slowdown.” Lennon covered “Just Because” on one of his solo albums and many other artists have covered “Lawdy Miss Clawdy.”

Sadly, Williams had trouble with drug addiction that hampered his career as he moved into the 1960s. Eventually, he became part of Little Richard's band (after Richard dropped the ministry and went back to rock), even producing some of Richard’s albums for Okeh Records.

Williams was found dead of a gunshot wound in 1980. Officially ruled a suicide, there are those who claim the death resulted from his involvement with drug dealers and prostitution. If you love that old-time rock & roll, Williams’ greatest hits album is still in print and well worth a download or purchase.

If one comedy personified how Americans saw themselves in the early 1960’s, that comedy would be Pillow Talk. This first teaming of Doris Day and Rock Hudson was instant box office gold, racking up $18 million in ticket sales (back then, that was a blockbuster!) and leading to more on-screen teamings of the two.

Now, the entire premise of Pillow Talk makes it impossible to remake today. It revolves around something we once called a “party line.”

Most people would have trouble remembering a time without cell phones, let alone a time when even the most glamorous of people (like Hudson & Day’s characters in this comedy) had to share their telephone line with total strangers.

The gimmick is a clever twist on the mistaken identity meme quite common in farce. 

High level interior decorator Jan Morrow (Day) and skirt-chasing Broadway composer Brad Allen (Hudson) share a party line in midtown Manhattan. His monopolizing of that line leads to verbal fireworks and an on-going feud.

Until they meet when, of course, they immediately fall in love. However, Hudson quickly realizes who Day really is and invents a phony persona, Texas tycoon Rex Stetson to woo the unsuspecting and always virginal Ms. Day.

Enter an irony that makes watching the film today even more of a hoot. Brad Allen via the party line keeps suggesting to Morrow that “Rex Stetson,” the lover boy he’s pretending to be, may be “a little light in the loafers” as people used to say.

Knowing what we do now about Hudson’s private life, those scenes take on a surreal quality.

And scope out Hudson’s New York “apartment.” It’s a two-story number with a circular staircase between floors. Only slightly smaller than the Taj Mahal, one wonders where in Manhattan one could find such a showplace. And is it rent-controlled?

Anyway, the whole film is a delightful time capsule that shows us not as we really were, but as we wished we could have been.

Of course, the duo, along with sidekick Tony Randall, would be back in other comedies like Lover Come Back and Send Me No Flowers, with Doris somehow regaining her virginity. But this first entry is still the best, having earned an Oscar for Best Original Screenplay as well as nominations for Day and female co-star Thelma Ritter.

Pillow Talk is available on disc and streaming services online.

Just pick your favorite star! (That James Arness is sooooo dreamy!)

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