Hank Ballard

Hank Ballard and the Midnighters

I would like to ask the readers to do something a little different this time. Instead of placing the links to videos at the bottom of the blog I am placing them at the top. 


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I want to ask you to go to click and play the song "Broadway". I had never heard Hand Ballard and the Midnighter's do it before this morning. It was done in 1962 as a "B" side to one of his Twist songs. 

Hank Ballard and the Midnighters

I have always considered Hank Ballard to be a forerunner in good danceable rock and roll. But until this morning, some 49 years later, I had no idea how good a band he had with the Midnighter's. So please, take the time to listen to Broadway, the original "Twist" and so many other fine tunes. 




I'll give you a few links and be out of the way. I am literally blown away with "Broadway's" sax, guitar and especially the bass. Damn that bass is kickin. Have fun y'all.

Hank Ballard and the Midnighters

Now here's just a couple of things you should know about Hank Ballard. He is in the Cleveland Rock and Roll Hall of Fame without the Midnighters. Nobody knows why. He wrote the song "The Twist". Chubby Checker and Dick Clark covered it and made gillions. It is the only song to have gone to number one twice.

Hank Ballard and the Midnighters

He and the Midnighters early songs were considered too sexy for public consumption and were banned on many radio stations. Hank Ballard was in the music business for fifty or more years and died of natural causes in his seventies. He was by all accounts one of the first true rock and rollers. Great talent.