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| Such a sweaty photo... |
Yeah, you’ve got it. It is pronounced “sha-NEL.” Of course that’s how you’d say it.
On the other hand, Bruce Channel, individual, sounds like he plays very much against that type over the course of one long, undated, and just fun interview. It covers a lot of ground - e.g., from the rock ‘n’ roll scene in late 1950s east Texas (he hails from a town called Grapevine) to his original manager, Major Bill Smith, and his fixation on Elvis Presley still being alive - and Channel comes off equal parts humble and charming through it all. It also offers a remarkable history of how music got made and promoted at the time. That includes how Channel and Delbert McClinton (a session player Major Bill introduced him to) played with The Beatles when they were small enough to “open” for Bruce Channel. That was back in 1962, when they still had Pete Best on drums. (For what it’s worth, Channel floats a couple theories on why they let go of Best, one probably true, the other with a wink.)
If there’s one anecdote/myth that seems to keep coming up across what I’m reading about Channel and McClinton, it’s the story about McClinton teaching John Lennon “everything he knew” about getting the most out of the harmonica. Channel laughed that off as a joke McClinton tells, but the statement McClinton puts on it a separate (also fascinating) interview puts it plainly enough to feel accurate:
“John did mention to me that he was inspired by ‘Hey! Baby.’ Of course, it's hard to show anybody anything on a harmonica. But later, he told someone I showed him everything he knew. Just like anything, it gets romanticized.”
Dang. If I could share a beer and a conversation with only one of Channel and McClinton, it wouldn’t be an easy choice, but leaning McClinton.
Two Beatles songs (arguably) feature inspiration from McClinton’s “harp” lessons: “Love Me Do” and “Please Please Me.” (You don’t get the harmonica in the live performance of “Please Please Me” that I dug up, but you do get to see The Beatles play live, if with muddled audio.) Both men clearly admire and marvel at the enormity of Beatles-mania, and the way they talk about it shows how well they understand the distance between them and the Liverpool legends. (McClinton’s quick revelries about being a small-town Texas kid in London are worth the glance). All the same, they had their taste of life as an overnight sensation.
Channel wrote “Hey! Baby” with an older woman named Margaret Cobb. It’s a remarkably simple song - as Channel’s notes, “It turned out to be two bridges and a chorus. (laughs) I don't think we have a verse in the song.” - and it hooks so smoothly into your ear that barely notice it. Because I’d first heard it in TV commercials for “oldies” collections growing up, I had a slippery sense of where it fits in rock ‘n’ roll history. From its sound, I would have guessed later in the 60s, but Cobb and Channel wrote it in 1959, and Channel never played it outside the regional Texas circuit before finally recording it in 1961. One of the more amazing things in all this, is that he actually met McClinton at the recording session.
“Hey! Baby” gained popularity in the Dallas and Houston markets through radio air-play, sometimes “dueling” against another song that listeners would phone into the station (proto-Total Request Live!). Major Bill Smith - a real character in his own right, even outside the Elvis stuff – released the single on his own label, LeCam, and then leased it to larger label called Mercury’s Smash label. Smash made “Hey! Baby” a national hit that carried Channel all the way to England. Channel hints that he expected more from another song, “Dream Girl,” which he spent some time trying to shop to the Platters, and that went on to become the b-side for “Hey! Baby.”
Fame, at least on the biggest stage, didn’t last long for Channel and McClinton, but not as quickly as the “one-hit wonder” title implies - again, I started this project to rail against hanging that shit on an artist. Channel went on a couple tours that reasonably come under “national” - e.g., one called Dick Clark’s Caravan of Stars and another he remembered as “The Spring Tour,” which featured Fats Domino, Brooks Benton, The Impressions, and The Duke of Earl - and he would tour on his own later in the 1960s backing a single called “Keep On,” and again in 1970 on a single titled “Mr. Bus Driver.” The latter dipped into the Billboard Hot 100 at Number 90, but Channel left his last regular band around the age of 40. McClinton hasn’t stopped performing regularly - his passion for music seems to burn hotter, at least based on the interviews I’ve read - though he schedules fewer gigs and doesn’t care enough for touring to do it. (Back to who I’d rather crack a beer with, it’s comments like this that point to McClinton: “I never wanted to be a superstar. That's the biggest bunch of shit in the world. I know too many people whose lives are a mess because they can't even go out in public anymore.”)
To push back harder against the one-hit bullshit, both men carried on as songwriters. McClinton scored a good-sized hit with “Givin’ Up for Your Love,” apparently, and it sounds like Channel has written a few of his own (he doesn’t name them, or I can’t find them). He didn’t stop putting out his own stuff either - and I’m happy that I was able to find the album for a late-life project called Original Copy, a group he put briefly put together with two guys (other songwriters, I think) named Larry Henley and Ricky Ray. He did write a couple more songs somewhere around his prime - “Number One Man” (No. 52, and dodgy lyrics), “Going Back to Louisiana” (No. 89), and, my personal favorite out of everything Channel did, “Come on Baby.” The lighter production on that song would’ve carried it higher than No. 98 for me, but I’m not in charge of these things…
It’s hard to tell how hard Channel pushed for fame (McClinton’s feelings are clearer, obviously). One of the two remastered collections on Spotify - both of them called “Hey! Baby” - includes three, four songs made more famous, and probably first, by other artists - e.g., “Chantilly Lace” (The Big Bopper), “Baby, It’s You” (The Shirells), “Dream Baby” (Roy Orbison), and “Love Me” (Elvis, right?). (There’s also a sucker-punch titled “Breakin’ Up Is Hard to Do" (which I can't find, dammit!), but that’s not the same song as Neil Sedaka’s.) When a man (or a band) puts out songs like that, it could be grasping after relevance, his twist on the standards the day, like they did in the old crooner days, or something else.
All the above notwithstanding, “Hey! Baby” gave Channel and McClinton their shot, and both made livelihoods out of music. Based on the brief introductions I’ve made with both of them, it couldn’t have happened to two nicer, more deserving guys. It’s a pretty song, “Hey! Baby,” and they’ve got good stuff around it.
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