How did you become the Upsetters Band?
My first job as the Upsetters Band was Oct 14, 1957. We were
playing in Houston, Mississippi in a little café and the owner
asked us what the name of the band was. Like most kids, we just
said, "We'll I don't know" This wino was walking down
the street and he said, "Ya'll gonna upset them tonight in
there aren't ya?" The owner of the café said, "Billy,
you got yourself a name. Billy Ball and the Upsetters."
How did you end up in Indianapolis?
I had a sister here I would visit when I was in the Military. When
I would come home during furlough she would take me around and we
would see the different bands. But I didn't see anything that
interested me because it was a Jazz city. There was one band that
played in a club called Ezz's. They were what you would call an
R&B group. They were the only group that was playing anything
similar to the style I was used to in Memphis. They were called
the Cantrell Mitch Combo.
What years were you in the Military?
I was stationed in Germany in 1955, 56, 57. I was in Tank Outfit
306.
Was that first show in 1957 your
earliest experience in music?
No. I had already been started with my father and the Ball
Quartet. Every time they practiced I would get up with them and
play. My uncle Andy Ball told my father, Grady Ball, "That
kid sounds pretty good!" They asked me if I knew the songs
and I said, "I dunno." Well, they asked me to play the
Ball reunion a few weeks later. I did pretty well. But that wasn't
my intention, because I got stuck playing with them every Sunday,
which I didn't like. I had no intention of playing in church every
Sunday.
Your dad was a musician?
No, he was just a singer. My grandfather, Richard Ball, was a
guitar and fiddle player, and he taught music.
This Ball Quartet, Tell me more about
it.
We traveled all across the south. We were one of the strongest
non-recording groups around that time. We were booked on those
Christian shows every Sunday and that's the part I didn't like,
because I was stuck with grown people and I didn't get to play
with the kids. Not only that, but all the kids laughed at me.
"(Billy) can't play, he has to go with his daddy!" they
would say. So that wasn't a good part of my life.
When was your big break?
I think it was 1952 or 53 with Bally Smith in Tupelo, Mississippi.
This is how it happened: (Smith) came to school to play for a
dance and he said, "Is anyone want to get up here and
play?"
Everybody said, "Go ahead, Billy, go!"
But I said, "No, no, no!"
So Bally Smith said, "Do you know any of our songs? Do you
want to play?"
I replied, "Yes."
"Do you want to play them?"
I said, "Nope!"
So he said, "Name one of the songs you know that we
play."
At that time Lloyd Price, out of New York, had "Lawdy Ms.
Clawdy." So he said, "You come up here and show us how
you play it"
I didn't realize I had been tricked. So I looked around and
everyone was clapping for me. I was probably in 8th
grade.
He asked after it was over if I wanted to play with them. I said,
"Yeah." So he came up and asked my mother that Monday if
it was possible for him to pick me up to practice on Thursdays. He
would give me five dollars.
My mother said, "Sure, he can play,
but he's going to church on Sunday."
So Bally replied, "We only play
Saturday nights and we come home.
Where did you play?
We played every Saturday night in Ripply, Tupelo, Batesville and
Greenwood. I made five dollars. By playing with those older guys,
they taught me the keys. So that's how I became a piano player.
How did you learn to play the
saxophone?
I helped a guy clean up a hay barn and I saw this case hid in the
barn. So when he got ready to pay me, I had already sneaked in and
seen it was saxophone. When he got ready to pay me, I said,
"I don't want any money."
He was a white fellow and he said, "Grady would kill me if I
didn't pay this boy."
So I said, "I don't want no money I want that there."
And pointed to the saxophone.
He said, "You can have it, but don't let my wife see it. It
belongs to my son who was a pilot." He had one son who was
shot down.
"I keep it hid from her. Take it and go! But I still got to
pay you."
Boy, was that a mess. I was terrible at the saxophone. I had no
way of knowing how to play it.
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| Billy Ball in 2000 |
How did you learn to play the
saxophone?
It was the white teacher, Gene Sullivan, over at the white school,
that hooked it up for me and gave me a reed. He said he would
start giving me lessons.
"This is what you have to do. Every night you have to come
over to the white school like you're cleaning up. "
You weren't allowed to go to the white
school.
So every night, here I come. I had to put on a jacket and put on a
cap and put a broom and set it between my legs and then I would
practice. Then if someone came in, he would take the horn and
pretend he was practicing and I would start dancing. So when they
walked by all I had was a broom, like I was cleaning up. That's
how I learned to play the saxophone.
How far was the white school from the
black school?
In New Albany, the white school was on one side and the black
school was on the other side.
Wasn't that strange?
No, because in New Albany everybody new everybody. We had friends
that were white and we would walk to school together.
My mother worked for a white family named Billy. They both named
their kids Billy and we would walk to school together.
I came from an upper class family. What you would call a rich
family. We weren't poor. We owned a store, a café and drug store
and a thousand acres of land. We didn't think anything about it.
As kids, we didn't really understand, because we didn't think
anything of it. We didn't quite understand what was going on,
because we played together all the time anyway.
Because I came from a family with a good name I could do things
the other black kids couldn't do. You have to understand that
about the South.
For instance, I never owned a driver's license when I was in
Mississippi. Never! I didn't even know what a driver license was.
If anybody pulled me over, which they did, they would say
"Let me see your drivers license."
I would say, "I don't have one, sir."
They would say, "What's your name,
boy?"
I would reply "Billy Ball."
"Billy Ball, of the Balls in New Albany?"
"What's your daddy's name."
"Grady Ball."
"You'd better tell Grady I stopped you and go ahead on."
You would go into a store and someone would say, "Hey nigger,
move back a little bit!"
Then they would say, "Hey, what is your name?"
I would say, "Ball"
"Aw! Ok."
That would often happen, but we didn't think about it that much
about it in the South. . The problem was, I was young, but the
blacks that didn't have a good name caught it hard.
When did you first learn to play
Piano?
I had a first cousin named Hugh Souter. Everything we did in music
we did together. His mom and my mom were sisters. He lives in
Milwaukee Wisconsin. I think we taught each other 50-50. He played
piano and guitar
Tell me about Bally Smith.
We called him Bally Smith because he was bald-headed. But his real
name was George.
How long did those gigs last with
Bally Smith?
Three or four years. I learned how to run a band during those
travels. He had his meetings and he was a strict disciplinarian.
When I went into the Army those guys dispersed.
Tell me about the first Upsetters
Band?
The first Upsetters band was Willy Joe Edwards on Guitar, Jessie
Louis Dykes on drums, Eugene Kemmer on bass and myself on piano.
And I was singing. Boy, that was a mess!
Did you play while you were in the
army?
Yes, I played with the 55th Field Marching Band TDY. We
played all over Germany and in England. Wherever the army soldiers
were we had to go and put on a parade. We formed a band with a guy
from Hartford, Connecticut. His name was Countwright. He formed a
little band in the unit, because he was head of the marching band.
We played downtown at the Charlie Star Bar every Friday and
Saturday night. Plus we did shows at the Army clubs.
What kind of music did you play?
"Shake Rattle and Roll," "Honey Hush," "Lawdy
Ms. Clawdy," "Stagger Lee," "Hound Dog"
and "Blueberry Hill." Same songs we did with Bally Smith
So this was about the time R&B was
starting to be formed?
To black people, there wasn't but two kinds of music in those
days. Blues and Gut-Bucket Blues. B.B. King and those guys did
what you'd call blues. Lightening Hopkins and Muddy Waters - that
was Gut-Bucket Blues. Big Joe Turner, Fats Domino and Little
Richard. At that time, that was R&B. Black people didn't have
any Rock and Roll.
Why did they call it Gut-Bucket Blues?
In some instances, this guy had a thing on him with a harp, a foot
pedal and an old guitar. Then they sang songs like, "Lord
have mercy, my baby's gone away. She sounds just like that
Rooster, howling ohh all day."
That was Gut-Bucket Blues.
"That cotton patch is wearing my back, making me look North
and think about my baby,"
THAT was Gut-Bucket. Then the BB King type was with the horns and
that was blues.
So how did you get to Indianapolis?
I was visiting my sister one time and I wound up playing with some
guys at the Flame - I played with some guys called Harvey and the
Blue Tones. They got to fighting and I backed up. So the owner of
the club said the band is fired! Harvey Anderson owned the club.
"You didn't do anything, so I'll tell you what. You want a
job?" asked Anderson.
"Nope. I'm leaving at 6 a.m. tomorrow and going back to
Mississippi," I replied.
"Why don't you stay here a couple weeks? I'll give you the
job if you form a band."
"What? OK, I'll do that"
I went searching in the city. I thought the kind of music I wanted
to play, they didn't know how to play. They told me there was a
bass player called Charles White. He was a good R&B bass
player. Then there was a guitar player named Sonny Spells and I
got him. Then there was a singer named Little John. By this time,
Cantrell-Mitch had broke up. Well, he was a pretty good drummer so
I went and got him.
We practiced for 14 days from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Because I'm
changing their style. We would practice some of those records I
brought up from Memphis then.
Later we got another drummer called Jamie and we called him
"Freeze." When you saw him you would say "FREEEEEEZE."
"Hey Freeze, you know the beat I want?" (We called it
the Memphis Beat.)
He said, "No, how does that go?"
Then I demonstrated it for him and he said,
"No! That's the Motown Beat!"
"Well, it's the same thing!"
In different parts of the country, they were calling it different
names. In California they were calling it the Popeye Beat. Young
people, when you started playing it, really got on the dance
floor, because it fit the kind of dancing they were doing at the
time.
Freeze taught the beat to Robert Dykus who recorded for us. Then I
recruited a saxophone player called Mike Brown from Shortridge
High School. Charles went into the Military and I got Richard
Corbin out of Attucks (High School) to play bass. When Mike Brown
went away, I got Darnell Dawson to play saxophone. Then I
recruited a guitar player from Cincinnati called Clint Jones.
Also, from St. Louis I recruited a singer named Roosevelt
Matthews. Bobby Banner came after Roosevelt.
So what was the lineup for most of the
recordings you did for King and your own label, Apollo?
Mike Brown.
Robert Dykus on drums.
Charles White on bass.
Chuck on guitar.
Pedro on guitar.
Billy Ball.
Ron Hetrick on trumpet. And Clint Jones on guitar ( on some
recordings). We had a lot of stuff that never did get released.
Clint Jones came in on some of them when we were finishing it up.
Some of those musicians... I bet we had another 12 or 14 songs,
but they just put them on the shelf.
Tell me how your first recordings came
about?
Lewis Ennis and I were in a tank outfit together. He indicated
that if I ever wanted to get into any music, I should look him up.
But that didn't mean anything to me because I was from Mississippi
and he was from Cincinnati.
But then, down through the years, the band got good enough where
we thought we could do some recording. I tried to get on Stax,
because I knew all those guys on the Stax label. Then we tried to
get on the Hi label, with Willie Mitchell. Willie Mitchell didn't
want me on the Hi label because he was instrumental group and had
Bill Black and he was instrumental. Stax label was more or less
sticking just to the family then. So I tried to indicate that I
spent more time in Memphis than I did in New Albany, Mississippi,
which was just across the line. I was sitting around thinking and
I said to Roosevelt Matthews, "You know, I was in the army
with a guy that told me whenever I needed to do recording to give
him a call. He said his parents owned King label. Back then
everybody thought James Brown owned King label, because back then
it was good to think of black people owning something.
So I called Ennis and told them that "Old Mississippi"
is on the phone.
The next thing I hear is "You son of
a bitch! This can't be 'Mississippi!' "
I said, "Yes it is ‘Mississippi' "
He said, "Man, what are you doing"
I said, "Man, what did I do in the Army?"
He said, "Play basketball and football and music! What can I
do for you?
So I said, "Believe it or not, I have a pretty good group and
we want to do some recording."
He said, "Anytime, anyway! You got it."
So that's how I got on King label. Back in that time, to get on a
label as an unknown person… Hell, there were a thousand bands
around, so that tells you I must have had some inside pull to get
onto the King label.
So "Tighten Up Tighter" (on
King) must have come out after Archie Bell and the Drell's
version!
Believe it or not, we had ours out before the rest.
We were in Huntsville, Alabama and we got a job from this white
guy.
This guy says, "My brother's got a club. I don't know if
he'll let you play."
Anyway, these girls were dancing and doing the twist. So I said,
"Hey lady. What is it you're doing?"
So she said, "I don't know. We're just tightening up."
I said, "Oh yeah? What is that? I don't know what that is
either."
So she said, "You asked me, and I just said it."
So we started putting our words to music. When we played that and
went to Nashville, Tennessee the floor collapsed.
Back then we just said, "Tighten it up." We didn't have
breaks in it or nothing. Every so often we would say,
"Tighten it up!" When we got back home we put some words
to it. We actually tried to get on a label, because we hadn't
thought about the King label yet.
Bob Riley came to see us play at the Fred Douglas social club. We
played that Tighten Up and man, the floor collapsed. At that time,
we had nothing more than "Tighten Up, Tighten Up, just
Tighten Up. Go down to the floor and Tighten Up." We would
just throw junk on it.
The next thing we know, Archie Bell came out with it.
What about the record you put out on
Apollo?
That was distributed by Westin, out of Atlanta, Georgia. I think
we pressed 15,000 copies of that and split the profit 50-50
Where was it recorded?
It was recorded on Jefferson Street in Nashville, TN. Welt's
Studio.
I read in the Indianapolis Recorder that you were supposed to
put out a 45 on (Herb Miller's) LAMP Records. "Soul for
Sale" b/w "Carmel Corn." Did that ever come out?
No
Did you record it?
Yes, we recorded it. I got a lot of stuff laying around here, but
I have no idea where this stuff laying around here. I'm being
honest with you. When I was travelling on the road I just threw
stuff everywhere. That was a fast life back then.
When did your sound change from "Lawdy
Ms. Clawdy" style R&B to the heavy funk we all know you
for?
The sound changed in the 60s.
Was that James Brown's influence?
Truth of it is, he didn't! All the local Memphis guys were already
playing it. Here's a guy with a big name. All he had to do was
recruit and record what was already out there. Nobody seems to
know how it got so big. It just kind of eased in. The local guys
were already doing it. We can't pinpoint how the Memphis Beat came
about. We can't seem to nail it down. It would be like asking who
started rock and roll!
What other clubs did you play?
We played at the Fred Douglas Social Club, every night after hours
from 1 to 7 a.m. 6 days a week. I had a book one time that listed,
in alphabetical order, all the groups we played behind. Everybody
I ever played with I made sure to shake hands with and snap a
picture.
You opened for lots of acts, and
sometimes backed up big name singers who were on the road. How did
that work?
Most of the time their booking agent would send the music ahead.
Most of the time, they would send us a live tape and say,
"Forget the record, here is how we are going to do it live.
Just like we did this show in Buffalo, New York, we're going to do
the same show, so learn it." So we would learn the live
version, which would be longer, because they are going to do
little acts in it.
Was it hard to learn those intricate
live shows?
Sometimes, sometimes not. A lot of times we had a little tape
player. When Tyrone Davis came here, Roosevelt already sang all
his songs. When we had to go down and play for him - because his
band was snowbound - he asked if we knew his songs. Well,
Roosevelt knew them all, because he was a Tyrone-style singer
What was the strangest show you
remember?
In Jacksonville, Florida. A guy booked us for Kool and the Gang.
He said, "What do you have?"
I said, "Four horns. A trumpet, a trombone, an alto and a
tenor. "
He said, "I'm going out to get you some outfits. Do you want
to make $1,500?"
I said, "Yeah!"
He said, "Do you want to be Kool and the Gang?"
I said "Oh no! You ain't gonna get me sued."
He said, "Who's going to get you sued? Leave it to me and
I'll take care of it."
So he went out and got us outfits just like Kool and the Gang. We
had been in Rochester, New York and played a few shows with them.
We knew their songs, so when we got down there, we turned the
place out. Most of the major black groups… well, people had
never seen them. Back at that time you couldn't see black bands on
T.V.
You dropped out of music for a while
to go back to college, right?
Yes, I finished college at Indiana State and started teaching at
Lawrence North in 1974. I taught drafting, vocational and
industrial arts. I taught at Lawrence North for 25 years.
Sometimes, like during Black History Month, I would go down and
take over the school band for a while.
You reassembled the Upsetters in the
early 90s and started playing shows again. What is the lineup of
today's Upsetters?
Arnold Banks - Guitar
Tony Davis - Bass
Keith Jordan - Bass
Big John - Drums
Billy Ball - Sax/Piano
Bobby Banner - Vocalist
Clint Jones - Guitar
Jeff - Guitar
Walter Webb - vocalist.
