Hayden Thompson, a rockabilly musician popular in Europe, dies at 87

Suburban-based rockabilly musician Hayden Thompson enjoyed great success with European audiences, beginning with a rockabilly revival in the late 1970s.

“Hayden’s voice was incredible,” said Spike Barkin, a longtime event planner who started and produced for more than 30 years the Roots of American Music Festival at New York’s Lincoln Center — a production in which Thompson participated. “He put on a great show. And he was just a gentleman to work with – he was an absolute pleasure.”

Thompson, 87, died of pneumonia Dec. 31 at Endeavor Health Glenbrook Hospital in Glenview, said Georgia Thompson, his wife of nearly 60 years. Thompson had lived in Wheeling for 27 years and was previously a longtime resident of Highland Park.

Born in Mississippi in 1938, Thompson grew up in Booneville, Mississippi, about 120 miles southeast of Memphis. Thompson’s mother worked in a garment factory and his father was a truck driver and sawmill worker.

Growing up, Thompson spent his evenings listening to blues and R&B music on Nashville’s WLAC radio, he told the Tribune in 1990. His first group, the Southern Melody Boys, focused on country music, performing at parties and playing songs heard on Booneville’s WBIP radio. In 1954 – when Thompson was just 16 – the group released a single, “I Feel the Blues Coming On,” which he recorded in the radio station’s studio, on the small Von label.

In July 1954, the world of Southern music was transformed when a teenager named Elvis Presley recorded a cover of blues singer Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s song “That’s All Right, Mama” at Sun Studio in Memphis. Some consider this song to be the first rock’n’roll record.

“I remember hearing ‘That’s All Right, Mama’ for the first time like it was yesterday,” Thompson told the Tribune in 1990. “It was so different from the country music I was listening to. It had the look, the personality and the timing was perfect.”

Attracted by this new sound, Thompson persuaded the Southern Melody Boys to add a few Elvis songs to their repertoire. After Thompson graduated from high school in 1956, the group toured the South with the musical film “Rock Around the Clock,” playing songs before and after showings of the film.

With some of his classmates less interested in rock ‘n’ roll, Thompson formed a new group with some friends from Booneville, the Dixie Jazzlanders, in 1956.

“Everybody was trying to capture that sound,” Thompson told the Tribune in 1990. “All of a sudden, rock ‘n’ roll bands started popping up all over the South. Every record company in Memphis was trying to find another Elvis.”

The Dixie Jazzlanders recorded four songs in 1956 at Sam Phillips’ Sun Studio in Memphis – which remained unreleased until the 1970s, when they were released in Europe. Shortly after these recording sessions, Thompson’s band broke up and he began working with another group, the Little Green Men, touring throughout the South. Thompson sang Presley tunes while bandmate Billy Lee Riley covered Little Richard songs.

In the mid-to-late 1950s, Thompson was squarely at the center of the influential but short-lived “rockabilly” musical movement, which was a blend of country and bluegrass music with R&B, all at the beginning of the rock era. Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and others popularized the rockabilly sound, and later in 1956, Thompson returned to Sun studios to record a cover of the song “Love My Baby”, featuring a young Lewis on piano. Thompson’s troubled voice imitated Presley’s style.

Sun delayed the release of “Love My Baby” by 10 months. Once released, it was overshadowed by another Sun release which became a major hit. This disappointed Thompson.

“When that record (“Love My Baby”) finally came out, I was so happy — it was like I was holding pure gold in my hands,” Thompson told the Tribune in 1990. “I thought I was going to be a star.”

Thompson stayed in Memphis a little longer, singing in the popular regional band Slim Rhodes. Eventually, however, he moved to Chicago’s North Shore to join a friend who had purchased the Tally Ho Club in Highwood.

Thompson led the Tally Ho’s house band for five years. He also sang country music in the house band on weekends at the Rivoli Theater Country and Western Club at 4380 N. Elston Ave. in the Irving Park neighborhood until Rivoli closed in the late 1960s.

Thompson performed on stage at Nashville’s Grand Ole Opry three times in 1966, and he released his first solo album, “Here’s Hayden Thompson,” in 1967. Thompson later played shows and released singles on obscure labels – including a cover of Presley’s “I’m Left, You’re Right, She’s Gone” – before walking away from music altogether in 1975 and focusing solely on his work of a limousine driver.

“It just made me sick after a while,” he told the Tribune, referring to his diminishing fortunes in the music business in the early 1970s. “I told my wife, ‘If this is the best I can do, I’ll just hang it up for a while.’ »

However, rockabilly music remained popular in Europe, and beginning in the early 1980s, concert promoters across the Atlantic began courting Thompson to tour Europe. He hesitated, but other rockabilly artists also began to pressure him.

Thompson eventually agreed to a three-week tour of the Netherlands, Sweden and Britain in 1984. At his first show, at a festival in Holland, Thompson received an enthusiastic reception.

“I will never forget this as long as I live,” he told the Tribune. “When they introduced me, I came out behind the curtain, you’d think I’d sold 10 million records from the reception I got. I was only a small part of the Sun Records scene, but you’d never know it from the way they treated me. What makes the trips to Europe so great is that I see the same type of crowd that I played with in the ’50s: mostly kids in their 20s The guys have long sideburns and these crazy outfits, and the girls wear hoop skirts, ponytails and patent leather shoes.

In Europe, “Love My Baby” became a rock’n’roll standard.

Back home, Thompson continued to drive a limousine, and a meeting in the mid-1980s with Chicago-based filmmaker John Hughes nearly placed one of Thompson’s songs in the Hughes film “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off.” During a casual conversation, Hughes revealed that he had wanted to use the Presley song “Are You Lonesome Tonight?” for a scene, but the licensing fees were too high. Well familiar with recording Elvis songs, Thompson recorded a demo of the song for Hughes, who initially refused.

Thompson then reunited with a friend with whom he had recorded several singles, longtime recording engineer Timothy Powell, who used a vintage microphone similar to the one used by Presley. They re-recorded the song.

“Hayden sang a perfect take (and) I remixed the song while referencing the original, making sure the reverb was perfect,” Powell recalls. “Hayden played the revised version for John. He loved it (and)… took Hayden to Hollywood, where they re-recorded the song with some of the original musicians.”

“Are you alone tonight?” was to be used in a scene in which Bueller and his friends, seeking to dodge his father while Bueller interrupted class, entered a nearby bar and played the song on a jukebox, with Bueller lip-syncing. Ultimately, Hughes cut the entire scene from the final version of the film.

“Hayden was understandably sad, but he told me he had a great time in California,” Powell said.

Over the next two decades, Thompson continued to tour Europe and perform, often dressed in 1950s attire consisting of black pants, a black shirt, a loud sports jacket, and a colorful tie.

“It’s like going back in time,” Thompson told the Tribune in 1994, referring to the screaming crowds at his concerts in Europe.

By 2005, Thompson had quit his job as a limousine driver and was focusing on recording. He released a self-titled solo LP in 2007 and two more albums in the 2010s.

In total, Thompson claimed to have traveled to Europe 55 times to perform since 1985, sometimes sharing the bill with other rockabilly figures like Riley and Sonny Burgess.

“I’ve wanted to make a living from music and become a star since I was 15,” Thompson told the Tribune in 1990. “I thought it was all over, and now I have another chance.”

Until age 70, Thompson continued to play concerts. In retirement, he loved to travel, his wife said.

More than a decade ago, Thompson was inducted into the Rockabilly Hall of Fame.

Besides his wife, Thompson is survived by a son, Keith; and two granddaughters.

There was no service.

Bob Goldsborough is an independent journalist.