Hardrock Gunter

In the summer of 1995 the Ragtime Wranglers were asked to accompany Hardrock Gunter at the international rock-a-billy / rock and roll meeting in Munich, Germany. Long before this event everybody in the band already was a big admirer of his music; after working with him you can say they became dedicated fans.

From left to right: Kaar (steelguitar); unknown; Sietse (drums); Hardrock Gunter; Erwin (bass); unknown; Caroline; Joe (guitar) and Mary Ann at Hemsby U.K..

On this show at one moment the Ranch Girls also shared stage: they sang "Sixty Minute Man" with Hardrock, backed by the Ragtime Wranglers. The show was a big success and in October 1996 they repeated this at the Hemsby rock and roll weekender in the U.K. In July 1999 they will meet again to play at Camden Town Hall in London U.K.

Sidney Louis Gunter was born in Birmingham Alabama on 27th February 1925.

Around 1938 he formed his first band: "The Hoot Owl Ramblers". After this he played talent shows under the pseudonym of "Goofy Sid", dressed in a "Hee Haw" comic style outfit, telling Hank Penny stories and playing novelty tunes.

After this he played with "Happy Wilson and the Golden River Boys". They recorded for the Birmingham based Vulcan label. Later, in 1950, while working as a booking agent and doing t.v. shows for kids he recorded his most famous song: "Birmingham Bounce" on Bama records.

Jim Dawson and Steve Probes have nominated this song as one of the first rock and roll records in their book: "What was the first rock and roll record?".

That same year he recorded "Gonna Dance All Night" for Bama. In this song Hardrock talks about rock'n roll, long before the rest of the world knew what this meant.

Then he went to Decca records and recorded 16 outstanding songs, like "Boogie Woogie On a Saturday Night", "Honky Tonk Baby" and "You Played On My Piano".

In 1952 and 1953 he worked as a d.j. and emcee for radio station WWVA in Wheeling West Virginia and recorded a song for MGM: "Like the Lovers Do".

Later he recorded songs for Seeco, D, Starday, Cullman and his own Gee Gee label. Together with Vulcan, Bama, Bullet, Decca, MGM, Sun, King, Cross Country, Emperor and Island this is an impressive list of companies he worked with.

Nick Tosches wrote a story about Hardrock Gunter in his book: "Unsung Heroes of Rock and Roll". In 1984 Charly records reissued his Decca recordings. Everyone will enjoy the compilation CD on Rollercoaster. Just released is another compilation CD on Hydra records, which contains all different tracks from the CD on Rollercoaster.

In 1998 Joe interviewed Hardrock Gunter on Radio Rijnmond 93,4 FM. A part of the interview is printed out on this website.

Hello Hardrock! I just played "Boogie Woogie on a Saturday Night" to start this special on Radio Rijnmond. Can you tell us something about how your career started?

I started in 1939 with Happy Wilson and the Golden River Boys in Birmingham Alabama. We weren't on a record label at that time, but on a radio station. I was only 14 years old and stayed in Alabama. We all went in the service. When we came back we reorganized the Golden River Boys in 1946, after the war when we got out of military. I stayed there and in 1950 I started recording. Birmingham Bounce was the first record that I made under my own name

I don't know whether there was a ban or not, but there was a big shortage of companies releasing records. Because most of the records at that time were made using a process that used shellac. Shellac was produced, as I understood it, from a Japanese beetle. They couldn't get supplies to make many records. They just curtailed the amount of records that were released.

I just played Birmingham Bounce. In the book "What was the first Rock and Roll record" by Jim Dawson and Steve Probes, this song is nominated as the first Rock and Roll record. Did you know that?

Oh, yeah, Jim Dawson got in touch with me before the book came out and had me prove the script about what they had to say about the record to be sure that everything was correct the way that they had it down.

That story goes back to 1939 Joe. The very first professional job that I played with the Golden River Boys that I told you about. Before that, when I was an amateur, I played under the name "Goofy Sid" (my name is Sidney). I was playing and doing comedy things.

The boys came to pick me up early in the morning to drive by automobile from Birmingham Alabama to Atlanta Georgia. We were gonna play 2 days of shows over there. When they came to pick me up early in the morning with the automobile. We were loading the trunk of the automobile with the instruments. The automobile had a trunk-lid that you raised up, it was on a prop. Not on springs as today but on a prop.

So I opened up the trunk-lid and propped it up and I reached to put my guitar in. When I did the trunk-lid fell, the prop slipped, ad it fell, and it hit me in the head. Well, I didn't say anything. I just pushed the trunk-lid back up and propped it up again, turned and said: "Hand over that banjo". The guys started laughing and one of them said: "Good lord, his head is hard as a rock". So they started calling me Hardrock.

Earlier on the phone you told me you recorded some songs on your own quite recently. How did you call the band?