Guitars at half mast, please. Billy Lee Riley, the Sun Studio rockabilly artist who recorded atomic age classics such as “Flying Saucers Rock and Roll” and “Red Hot” is dead. It was recently reported that Riley, who had been in poor health since taking a bad fall in 2005, was suffering from the final stages of terminal cancer.
On August 30th, there will be a memorial show in Newport, Arkansas, featuring Sonny Burgess and the Pacers, WS Holland and his band, Travis Wammack, Carl Mann, Smoochy Smith, Ace Cannon and his band, Jr. Rogers, Warren Crow, J.M. VanEaton, Dale Hawkins, C.W. Gattin, and the Blues Brothers Band.
We’ll have more to say about this influential and under-sung Memphis artist, in the meantime here’s a clip from a live performance in 2003.
