Sidney Louie Gunter Jr. (February 27, 1925 – March 15, 2013), known as Hardrock Gunter, was a singer, songwriter and guitarist whose music at the turn of the 1950s prefigured

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African-American music such as jazz, rhythm ...

and

rockabilly Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the South. As a genre it blends the sound of Western musical styles such as country with that of rhythm and b ...

music.

Biography

He was born in

Birmingham, Alabama Birmingham ( ) is a city in the north central region of the U.S. state of Alabama. Birmingham is the seat of Jefferson County, Alabama's most populous county. As of the 2021 census estimates, Birmingham had a population of 197,575, down 1% f ...

. He formed his first group, the Hoot Owl Ramblers, in his teens, and also performed a solo novelty act in talent shows. In 1939, he joined Happy Wilson's Golden River Boys, a country swing group, and acquired his nickname when a van trunk lid fell on him before a show and he never flinched.Matthew Loukes, ''Obituary'', "The Guardian", 28 March 2013
Retrieved 29 March 2013 After wartime service he returned to work with the group, before leaving to become their agent and starting to appear on local TV. As a popular local personality, he was approached to record by Birmingham's Bama label. He recorded his own song " Birmingham Bounce" in early 1950, the Golden River Boys being renamed the Pebbles on the record. It became a regional hit, and led to over 20 cover versions, the most successful being by

Red Foley Clyde Julian "Red" Foley (June 17, 1910 – September 19, 1968) was an American musician who made a major contribution to the growth of country music after World War II. For more than two decades, Foley was one of the biggest stars of the gen ...

, whose version reached no.1 on the ''

Billboard A billboard (also called a hoarding in the UK and many other parts of the world) is a large outdoor advertising structure (a billing board), typically found in high-traffic areas such as alongside busy roads. Billboards present large adverti ...

country chart Hot Country Songs is a chart published weekly by ''Billboard'' magazine in the United States. This 50-position chart lists the most popular country music songs, calculated weekly by collecting airplay data from Nielsen BDS along with digital sa ...

and no.14 on the

pop chart A record chart, in the music industry, also called a music chart, is a ranking of recorded music according to certain criteria during a given period. Many different criteria are used in worldwide charts, often in combination. These include re ...

. Gunter's original version has become regarded as a contender for the first rock and roll record, predating " Rocket 88" by a year. Gunter followed up with "Gonna Dance All Night", one of the first records to feature the actual words "rock'n'roll". When the Bama label folded, Gunter signed to

Decca Decca may refer to: Music * Decca Records or Decca Music Group, a record label * Decca Gold, a classical music record label owned by Universal Music Group * Decca Broadway, a musical theater record label * Decca Studios, a recording facility in We ...

, and his 1951 duet with Roberta Lee, "

Sixty Minute Man "Sixty Minute Man" is a rhythm and blues (R&B) record released on Federal Records in 1951 by the Dominoes. It was written by Billy Ward and Rose Marks and was one of the first R&B hit records to cross over to become a hit on the pop chart. It ...

," was one of the first

country A country is a distinct part of the world, such as a state, nation, or other political entity. It may be a sovereign state or make up one part of a larger state. For example, the country of Japan is an independent, sovereign state, whi ...

records to cross over to R&B audiences. In 1953 he began working at a radio station, and also remade "Gonna Dance All Night" and recorded "Jukebox Help Me Find My Baby", both of which were issued by

Sun Records Sun Records is an American independent record label founded by producer Sam Phillips in Memphis, Tennessee in February 1952. Sun was the first label to record Elvis Presley, Charlie Rich, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny ...

and became regional hits. In 1958 he was one of the first musicians to use both

echo In audio signal processing and acoustics, an echo is a reflection of sound that arrives at the listener with a delay after the direct sound. The delay is directly proportional to the distance of the reflecting surface from the source and the lis ...

and

overdub Overdubbing (also known as layering) is a technique used in audio recording in which audio tracks that have been pre-recorded are then played back and monitored, while simultaneously recording new, doubled, or augmented tracks onto one or more av ...

on his recording of "Boppin' to Grandfather's Clock", released under the name Sidney Jo Lewis. He continued to record with limited success, and in the 1960s left the music business to develop a career in insurance, based in Colorado. He retired to Rio Rancho, New Mexico. In 1995 he began to perform again at festivals in England, Germany and the United States. He died in 2013, from complications of

pneumonia Pneumonia is an inflammatory condition of the lung primarily affecting the small air sacs known as alveoli. Symptoms typically include some combination of productive or dry cough, chest pain, fever, and difficulty breathing. The severit ...

,Hardrock Gunter home page
Retrieved 29 March 2013 at the age of 88.

References

External links

Official website
* * *

Allmusic AllMusic (previously known as All Music Guide and AMG) is an American online database, online music database. It catalogs more than three million album entries and 30 million tracks, as well as information on Musical artist, musicians and Music ...

br> Interview from 2005 - see Interviews with Musicians That Recorded for Sun Records, Memphis
{{DEFAULTSORT:Gunter, Hardrock American rockabilly musicians American country singer-songwriters American rock singers King Records artists Starday Records artists Charly Records artists 1925 births 2013 deaths Musicians from Birmingham, Alabama