Billy Brown – Did We Have A Party

CD Review: Billy Brown – Did We Have A Party?

By Christian Lamitschka for Country Music News International Magazine

Bear Family Records

In front of us is a CD with 30 tracks, wonderfully put together from first-class rock’n roll, hillbilly, honky tonk as well as country and rock ballads, created between 1950 and 1969 in Nashville.

Billy Brown left behind a lot of meaningful and well-known songs without creating the big breakthrough. Probably wrongly, I would say.

On this CD we find a cult country music song “He’ll Have To Go” as well as the classic Rock’n Roll  “Did We Have A Party”, “Flip Out” and “Meet Me In The Alley, Sally”. Absolute dance music.

After his discharge from the army, Brown tried his hand at the music business. In Atlanta, Georgia, he was hired to perform regularly at the Anchorage Club and was discovered by Allen Bradley, who became his manager from that point on. Through Bill Lowery, who practically controlled Atlanta's music scene in the 1950s, he got his first record deal with Lowery's small label Stars Records. At the end of 1957 his first single Did We Have a Party / It's Love was released there. Both pieces were fast rock 'n' roll songs.

Brown's record sold well as Columbia Records re-released the record nationally. In October 1957, Brown was signed by the label and on December 18, 1957, a session was organized for Brown in Nashville, Tennessee, with the studio musicians Jerry Reed (guitar), Harold Bradley (guitar), Lightnin' Chance (bass), Ray Stevens (piano), Dutch McMillin (saxophone) and Buddy Harman (drums). This session produced two of Brown's best-known tracks, Meet Me In the Alley Sally and Flip Out, which are among his best songs and were re-released several times during the rockabilly revival.

By the spring of 1959, Brown's other records were released by Columbia, including a cover of Onie Wheeler's Run 'Em Off and the original version of He'll Have to Go; the song was later made a hit by country star Jim Reeves. However, sales of the records were anything but good, so Columbia did not renew the contract. Brown, who was living in Daytona Beach, Florida at the time, then moved to Gene Autry's Republic Records label, for which he recorded two records (including the Wayne Walker composition Lost Weekend). After another single for the small Chart Action label from Nashville, Brown disappeared from the record business. Although there were other Billy Browns on other labels, such as Challenge Records, Decca Records and, in the early 1950s, Columbia, these are not the same people or a connection could not be proven.

1. Flip Out
2. I Want You
3. High Heels But No Soul
4. He’ll Have To Go
5. Run ‘Em Off
6. Meet Me In The Alley, Sally
7. It’s Love
8. Did We Have A Party
9. Next
10. Don’t Hold Back
11. I’m Sending Back Everything But Memories
12. I Never Knew I’d Miss You
13. Tight Wad
14. Jealous Stars
15. Trusting Heart
16. Rich In Love
17. I Hope I Don’t Live Long Enough To Lose You
18. Drunk, Drunk Again
19. Echo Mountain
20. Once In A Lifetime
21. Be Honest With Me
22. The Last Letter
23. Lost Weekend
24. Just Out Of Reach
25. Look Out Heart (Here Comes Love)
26. It Don’t Take Long To Learn
27. Let There Be Love
28. Open Arms
29. One Of The Ten Most Wanted Women
30. I’ll Be Gone

A must-have CD for lovers of hillbilly, rockabilly, boogie and rock’n roll from the 50s.