Let's Go See About This Mess

The sexy ways of Hank Ballard and the Midnighters

The Midnighters, 1955 (l-r: Sonny Woods, Lawson Smith, Cal Green, Henry Booth, Hank Ballard)

Mama always said nothing good ever happens after midnight. That’s when the ne’er-do-wells start their tomfoolery; when the hoodlums run amok; when your best friend sneaks off with your sweetheart. Windows and hearts get broken, shots are fired. Houses, loves, and lives go down in flames. But there’s a thrill up on the hill. So put on your pretty red dress and let’s go see about this mess.

By 1954, the Royals figured they should change their name. Winston-Salem, NC’s “5” Royales were making a big noise with their mix of Gospel and R&B while on their way to helping invent soul music. The Royals in the meantime, had spent the first part of the ‘50s, after being discovered in Detroit by the legendary bandleader Johnny Otis, offering up a smooth style of doo-wop with future icons such as Jackie Wilson and Levi Stubbs passing through their ranks. However, the addition of John Kendricks in 1953 radically changed their approach. By the time he joined the Royals, Kendricks was going by his stage name: Hank Ballard. Fueled by his grittier attack and raunchier material, the Royals soon became known as the Midnighters.

Right out of the gate, Ballard amped up the raunch with “Get It.” It’s not necessarily the lyrics, although “Now ease on up here baby / don't you wanna see a good man with it” can raise an eyebrow, it’s all in the performance. You don’t need it spelled out when the Midnighters are chanting “Get it! Get it! Get it!” while Ballard intermittently injects an orgasmic “Yow!” throughout. You can figure out what “it” is pretty easily.

Hank, roused by the Dominos and their boastful “Sixty Minute Man,” decided not to beat around the bush, so he penned “Sexy Ways” in 1954. Ballard asks the object of his affection to shake and wiggle ‘til her hips get tired, upside down, all around, on the wall, and in the hall while her mama and daddy are gone. Do it, baby - ooo-wee!

Annie, Are You OK?

That same year, the infamous “Annie” entered the scene. Reportedly inspired by the pregnant wife of King Records’ engineer Eddie Smith - named Annie, of course - who stopped by the recording studio, “Work With Me, Annie” was ultimately banned on several radio stations due to its ribald lyrics. The idea that innocent little white kids would be subjected to such “primitive music” scared the bejeezus out of their parents and “decent” society as well. Still, hordes of Black and white kids headed to their local drug and record stores anyway, buying the record in droves, causing the newly-christened Midnighters to take “Work With Me, Annie” to number one on the R&B chart, where it remained for seven weeks in 1954.

The success of “Work With Me, Annie” kicked off a flurry of answer songs, from Etta James’ “The Wallflower (Roll With Me, Henry)” which itself had to be cleaned up (to the less scandalous “Dance With Me, Henry”) for airplay, to the Midnighters themselves, who answered their own hit with “Annie Had a Baby.” This time, Annie “can’t work no more” because, instead of spending time with our poor narrator, she has to take care of the little one. Like “Work With Me, Annie” before it, it sold a million copies.

But then came the El-Dorados’ “Annie’s Answer” with singer Hazel McCollum playing the part of Annie and muddying the waters by crying fake news, saying it was all a lie and that she “ain’t had no baby” (making this a perplexing turn of events if we’re building off the content of “Annie Had a Baby”).

But wait a minute. Acting as a stand-up guy, Danny Taylor appears and says he’s “The Father of Annie’s Baby.” Wait. What? What the hell, Annie?

Baby or not, and Danny Taylor’s involvement or not, after all this mess, poor Hank is still just trying to work with Annie, but now it’s not a baby (imaginary or not) in the way, it’s her damn Aunt Fannie butting in. What’s a guy to do?

A Thrill Up On the Hill

A few years pass, and one afternoon in 1959 Hank glances out in the backyard and finds his little sister shakin’ and rollin’ - and that ain’t all. Hey, mama! Come look at this! What will the neighbors say?

Then around 1960, Hank finally gives up on poor Annie and sets his sights on a gal with a pretty red dress. He’s heard about a thrill up on the hill, so he picks her up and, along with the Midnighters, they go see about this mess.

One of the first rock’n’roll records I remember hearing (I still have the original 45), “Let’s Go, Let’s Go, Let’s Go” blasts out of the speakers with the unbridled joy and promise of a damn good time - one you’ll not soon forget. There’s no telling what actual thrill awaits - it may be the same as what drew Fats Domino to ol’ “Blueberry Hill” - but chances are, it’s more than likely not of the innocent kind, judging by the Midnighters’ previous recorded celebrations. We can let our imaginations run away with ideas. Hell, once they get there, it may even be “Finger Poppin’ Time,” so proceed with caution.

Twistin’, Twistin’, Twistin’

A year before they were poppin’ fingers up on the hill, Hank Ballard and the Midnighters (as they were now officially known) had a #4 R&B hit with “Teardrops On Your Letter.” Its flipside reached the top 20 but made virtually no impression on the pop charts until Dick Clark heard it and reached out to a teenage kid in Philadelphia, Ernest Evans, who was gifted at impersonating famous acts from Elvis to even the Chipmunks. He was so adept at mimicking Fats Domino that Clark’s wife, Barbara, suggested he use the stage name Chubby Checker.

Clark pitched Ballard's flipside, “The Twist,” to Checker, then 18 years old. He recorded it and it hit number one on the pop charts not only in 1960 but in 1961 as well, becoming the only song in the rock era to do so.

Checker’s “Twist” sounded so similar to the original that when Ballard first heard it, he thought it was his recording. When he heard the DJ backsell it, he reportedly yelled, “Who the hell is Chubby Checker?!”

Aside: About 20 years ago, while I was Operations Manager for an Oldies station, one of the artists my midday guy interviewed was Chubby Checker. Let’s just say the segment went over too well. Chubby started calling the station regularly. You’d often hear our receptionist on the intercom announcing, “Chubby Checker on line one…again.” He wanted to know if we could get him booked around our coverage area and - most memorably - if we could help him sell his beef jerky. Yes, Chubby had gotten into the snack food game. Next thing I knew, we received boxes filled with Chubby Checker’s beef jerky (“direct from the King of the Twist!”). I think he also tried to hock little weenies or sausages. I don’t know. No, I never tried them. Now back to our regularly scheduled programming…

Dick Clark declared “The Twist” the most important song in rock’n’roll because it was the first time parents accepted the music of their kids’ generation. He went on to say:

Before that, adults were ashamed to say they liked it.  They were folk fans, jazz fans — there was a sense that pop music was only for kids.  But this song became a darling of high society and every demographic.

Indeed it did. The whole damn world started twistin’. They twisted at the Peppermint Lounge. They twisted on the beach. They twisted at sock hops. They twisted at American Legions. They twisted in parking lots. Then, they twisted again, like they did the summer before.

Then everyone started writing songs about twisting, and just dancing in general. They strolled, walked, strutted, gyrated, ponied, and swam - for a time, the US was a land of a thousand dances (which, incidentally, was co-written by Chris Kenner and Fats Domino, to bring this all back around).

What was poor Hank Ballard to do but follow suit? He and the Midnighters started churning out “The Hoochi Coochi Coo,” “The Continental Walk,” and “Do You Know How to Twist?” - which was a depressing rewrite of the thrilling “Let’s Go, Let’s Go, Let’s Go,” to capitalize on both that hit and the twist craze Ballard unwittingly started.

Ballard was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1990, and again with the rest of the Midnighters in 2012. Even though by the mid-’60s he’d fallen prey to the dance-song trends of the time, Ballard and the Midnighters had made their mark on raunchy rock’n’roll even before rock’n’roll was a thing. They’d brought all the teens together under Annie and then they united both parents and kids to twist and twist again (albeit through Chubby Checker).

Workin’ and twistin’ - the Midnighters got it while the gettin’ was good.