Hot Rod Race
 | This article needs additional citations for verification. (May 2021) |
| "Hot Rod Race" | |
|---|---|
| Single by Arkie Shibley and His Mountain Dew Boys | |
| Released | November 1950 |
| Genre | Western swing |
| Label | Gilt-Edge |
| Songwriter(s) | Ronald George "Ron" Wilson (1930-2022) |
"Hot Rod Race" is a Western swing song about a fictional automobile race in San Pedro, California, between a Ford and a Mercury. Released in November 1950, it broke the ground for a series of hot rod songs recorded for the car culture of the 1950s and 1960s.[1] With its hard driving boogie woogie beat, it is sometimes named one of the first rock and roll songs. The song was recorded by Jesse Lee "Arkie" Shibley and the Mountain Dew Boys in late-1950.
The writing credit for "Hot Rod Race" is incorrectly given to George Wilson. The fact is, the song was written by Ronald George "Ron" Wilson (1930-2022), the 17-year-old son of George Ervin Wilson Jr. (1907-1988). Being 17-years-old, Ron could not sign a legal and binding contract, that is why George Wilson is typically given credit as the songwriter. Ron never received a dime for his song. Mark Alexander Shibley Trainor, a distant cousin of Arkie Shibley (1915-1975) confirmed this fact with the Wilson family in May 2024. The story goes like this ... On a November night, in 1950, at the Peedle Weezer Tavern at 2724 North Lake Way in Bremerton, Washington, one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music was born … Rockabilly. It's about 9 p.m. on a Friday night in a smoke-filled joint with hard concrete floors. The tavern was jam-packed with more than 300 sailors, shipyard workers, loggers, city folks and just plain country folk, all hungry for entertainment in a region that had known all too much grief and suffering from having fought in the World War II and the Korean War. On stage this evening was Jesse Lee "Arkie" Shibley and the Mountain Dew Boys. Arkie's band members were William Burman Pruitt "Leon" Kelly (1925-1991) on lead guitar, Phil Fregon (1914-1981) on fiddle, and Jack Corliss Hays (1919-1986) on stand-up bass. The band has been together for almost four years and had been experimenting with a new swing-country/rolling boogie-woogie sound which Kitsap County residents had responded to enthusiastically
George approached Arkie during intermission of his evening performance with his Mountain Dew Boys. George tells Arkie, “My son has written a song that I was hoping you could sing tonight.” Arkie was always looking for good material and he asked to see the song. The words weren't totally perfect so Arkie worked up some new words and in a few minutes he's over with his band and, after a bit of going over the lyrics and practicing their version they announce to the crowd they're going to play a new song that night. As soon as they lit into the "Hot Rod Race" song, guitarist Leon Kelly starts incorporating his rolling boogie-woogie guitar riffs into the rhythm. The crowd started clapping and cheering wildly then broke into dancing to the new sound. The crowd wouldn't let the band stop and they had to play the song over and over again. On the spot the tavern's owner Bill Reese bought the rights to the song, from George for $500 as if he was the songwriter, and offered to pay the bands expenses to Pasadena, California to record the song. They eventually did at William Asbury "Bill" McCall's "4 Star Records," after initially be turned down. "Hot Rod Race" became a major hit for Arkie Shibley and his Mountain Dew Boys (Gilt-Edge 5021), staying on the charts for seven consecutive weeks, peaking at #5 on the Country chart in 1951.[2] Trying to repeat his success, Arkie recorded four follow-up songs in 1951.
The Peedle Weezer Tavern was the first juke joint to usher in Rockabilly. Arkie Shibley and the Mountain Dew Boy's fame will always be tied to George and Ron Wilson. Long live “Hot Rod Race!”
Ramblin' Jimmie Dolan, Tiny Hill, and Red Foley, all released versions in 1951; Hill's version reached #7 on the Country chart and number 29 on the pop chart.
Arkie's record may have climbed higher and outpaced any of the others, but his second verse opened up with:
Now along about the middle of the night
We were ripping along like white folks might.
Eastern radio stations, never a fan of Western swing anyway, refused to play it.[3] Dolan changed the verse to say "plain folks"; Hill to "rich folks"; and Foley to "poor folks".
The song ends with:
When it flew by us, I turned the other way.
The guy in Mercury had nothing to say,
For it was a kid, in a hopped-up Model A.
These lyrics set the stage for an "answer song" by Charlie Ryan called "Hot Rod Lincoln," first recorded in 1955.
References[edit]
- ^ Hoffmann, Frank: Sports and Recreation Fads, p. 179, Routledge, ISBN 978-0918393920: "The record industry was particularly successful in eploiting the craze [hot rodding]. The first genre recording, "Hot Rod Race," released in November 1950, sold 200,000 copies."
- ^ Whitburn, Joel; The Billboard Book of Top 40 Country Hits, p. 313, ISBN 978-0823082919
- ^ Grushkin, Paul; Rockin' Down the Highway, p. 54-55, ISBN 978-0760322925: "... but stations back East considered themselves too progressive to play such intimations of racism on the air."