Don Dow Gililland (commonly misspelled as Gilliland; born 31 January 1939 Dallas, Texas) is a jazz guitarist and composer who recorded three rockabilly hits in 1956 on Sun Records with "Wade & Dick — The College Kids," led by Wade Lee Moore (born 1934) and Dick Penner: "Wild Woman", "Don't Need Your Lovin"', and "Bop Bop Baby".
Gililland got a part as a guitarist in the movie Rock Baby Rock It!, which was being filmed in Dallas in 1956. During the next year, he enrolled at North Texas State University, where he performed with the school's One O'Clock Lab Band. After graduating he worked in clubs with Buster Smith. During the day, he was employed by the Oak Cliff Tribune. He became managing editor, then worked for the Dallas Area Rapid Transit. [1]
"Bop Bop Baby" was included on the soundtrack of Walk the Line , the film biography of Johnny Cash.
Bill Haley & His Comets were an American rock and roll band, founded in 1952 and continued until Haley's death in 1981. The band was also known as Bill Haley and the Comets and Bill Haley's Comets. From late 1954 to late 1956, the group placed nine singles in the Top 20, one of those a number one and three more in the Top Ten. The single Rock Around the Clock became the biggest selling rock n roll single in the history of the genre.
Vincent Eugene Craddock, known as Gene Vincent, was an American musician who pioneered the styles of rock and roll and rockabilly. His 1956 top ten hit with his Blue Caps, "Be-Bop-A-Lula", is considered a significant early example of rockabilly. He was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.
The Jodimars was an American rock 'n' roll band that was formed in the summer of 1955 and remained active until 1958. The band was created by former members of Bill Haley & His Comets who had quit that group in a salary dispute. The name of the group was derived from the first letters of the first names of the founding members: Joey Ambrose (saxophone), Dick Boccelli, and Marshall Lytle. Other members included Chuck Hess (guitar), Jim Buffington (drums), Bob Simpson (Piano), and Max Daffner (drums).
Francis Eugene Beecher was the lead guitarist for Bill Haley & His Comets from 1954 to 1962, and is best remembered for his innovative guitar solos combining elements of country music and jazz. He composed the classics "Blue Comet Blues", "Goofin' Around", "Week End", and "Shaky" when he was the lead guitarist for Bill Haley and the Comets. He continued to perform with surviving members of the Comets into 2006. In 2012, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted Beecher as a member of the Comets by a special committee, aimed at correcting the previous mistake of not inducting the Comets with Bill Haley.
Buddy Wayne Knox was an American singer and songwriter, best known for his 1957 rock hit song, "Party Doll".
Herman "Junior" Parker was an American Memphis blues singer and musician. He is best remembered for his voice which has been described as "honeyed" and "velvet-smooth". One music journalist noted, "For years Junior Parker deserted downhome harmonica blues for uptown blues-soul music". In 2001, he was inducted into the Blues Hall of Fame.
Clifton E. "Cliff" Gallup was an American electric guitarist, who played rock and roll in the band Gene Vincent and His Blue Caps in the 1950s.
Dewells "Dee" Barton Jr. was an American jazz trombonist, big band drummer, and prolific composer for big band and motion pictures.
Jay Saunders(néJohn Henry Saunders III; born 29 June 1944 Sacramento, California) is an American trumpeter and music educator at the collegiate level. In the 1970s, Saunders was a lead trumpeter with big bands — notably the Stan Kenton Orchestra — and a session musician in the Dallas area. Saunders recently retired from the faculty at the University of North Texas College of Music where he taught jazz trumpet, jazz recordings, and directed the One O'Clock Lab Band.
Joseph Leon Williams, better known as Jody Williams, was an American blues guitarist and singer. His singular guitar playing, marked by flamboyant string-bending, imaginative chord voicings and a distinctive tone, was influential in the Chicago blues scene of the 1950s.
Jack Leroy Petersen is an American jazz guitarist and educator. He was a pedagogical architect for jazz guitar and jazz improvisation at Berklee College of Music, University of North Texas College of Music, and University of North Florida.
Robert "Bob" Earl Hames was an American jazz guitarist from Texas who had played with the dance orchestras of Jan Garber, Orrin Tucker, and Stan Keller – and, in the early 1950s, was a staff guitarist for live productions at WFAA-TV, a Dallas-Fort Worth broadcaster that, since its inception, was a pioneer of national rank producing live and studio music for regional and syndicated television. Down Beat magazine rated Hames as one of the top ten guitarists in the US.
Harold Leon Breeden was a jazz educator and musician.
James A. Hall, Sr. is an American percussionist of all idioms, jazz drummer, jazz guitarist, music educator, and Distinguished Professor Emeritus at the University of South Carolina School of Music.
Roy Orbison's Sun Recordings were made by Roy Orbison at Sun Studio with producer Sam Phillips. Sun Records was established in 1952 in Memphis, Tennessee, and during an eight-year period Sun Records signed such artists as Roy Orbison, B.B. King, Howlin' Wolf, Ike Turner, Rufus Thomas, Elvis Presley, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Harold Jenkins, and Charlie Rich. The musicians signed at Sun Records made music that laid the foundation of rock and roll in the 20th century.
Kenneth Neil Slater is an American educator, composer, and pianist. In 2008, he retired as professor emeritus. He has composed over 80 works for jazz ensemble and has written for symphony, chamber groups, a cappella choir, opera, and musical theatre.
Steve Wiest(néJohn Stephen Wiest; born 1957) is an American trombonist, composer, arranger, big band director, music educator at the collegiate level, jazz clinician, author, and illustrator/cartoonist. From 1981 to 1985, he was a featured trombonist and arranger with the Maynard Ferguson Band. Wiest is in his sixth year as Associate Professor of Jazz Studies and Commercial Music at the University of Denver Lamont School of Music. He is the Coordinator of the 21st Century Music Initiative at the school. Wiest has been a professor for thirty-one of the thirty-nine years that he has been a professional trombonist, composer, and arranger. From 2007 to 2014, Wiest was Associate Professor of Music in Jazz Studies at the University of North Texas College of Music and, from March 2009 to August 2014, he was director of the One O'Clock Lab Band and coordinator of the Lab Band program. At North Texas, Wiest also taught conducting, trombone, and oversaw The U-Tubes — the College of Music's jazz trombone band. Wiest is a three-time Grammy nominee — individually in 2008 for Best instrumental Arrangement and in 2010 for Best Instrumental Composition, and collaboratively in 2010 for Best Large Jazz Ensemble Album, which he directed. As of 2013, Wiest has in excess of 58 arrangements and compositions to his credit, which include 10 original compositions from his current project (see 2013–2014 project, below).
Julius W. "Jimmy" Mullins, who performed and recorded as Mercy Baby, was an American blues and rhythm and blues musician. A drummer, singer and songwriter, he recorded in the late 1950s.