Last updated: 13 hours ago
One of the first white rock & rollers to record for a major label (<a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Columbia%22">Columbia</a>), Sid King (born Sid Erwin) was also one of the first young Southern musicians to go from Western swing to rockabilly in the mid-'50s. <a href="spotify:artist:0noTJ7limm2Sx8U7MAEDg8">Erwin</a> grew up in the Dallas-Fort Worth area. He sang and played guitar at school, and while still in his mid-teens he began appearing on local radio with a friend, Melvin Robinson. The duo eventually took over the program, and <a href="spotify:artist:0noTJ7limm2Sx8U7MAEDg8">Erwin</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:2XsjR9uloOSRIXigqqfDea">Robinson</a> (who also played steel guitar and sax) formed a band, bringing in <a href="spotify:artist:0noTJ7limm2Sx8U7MAEDg8">Erwin</a>'s brother Billy Joe on lead guitar, Ken Massey on bass, and <a href="spotify:artist:4sQ7XS59ZQebv14J404ZSn">David White</a> on drums.
The group, by then known as the Western Melody Makers, stuck to playing country & western swing at their gigs and in radio appearances, but they were listening to lots of albums by Black artists. They were signed to <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Starday+Records%22">Starday Records</a> in 1954 and recorded a handful of songs, but these yielded no hits. They subsequently got a contract with <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Columbia%22">Columbia</a> and rechristened themselves <a href="spotify:artist:30iave5q5TpH869k7ySE3e">the Five Strings</a>. <a href="spotify:artist:0noTJ7limm2Sx8U7MAEDg8">Erwin</a>, in turn, changed his name to Sid King, all for the sake of a rhyming moniker, <a href="spotify:artist:30iave5q5TpH869k7ySE3e">Sid King & the Five Strings</a>.
The <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Columbia%22">Columbia</a> sessions show just how far afield from country the group's sound had gotten. Their harmonies, the high-compression beat of their playing, and their choice of songs, coupled with Jim Beck's hard, up-front mixing of the rhythm section, made them, for a time, one of the hotter rockabilly acts outside of Memphis. They weren't as wild as <a href="spotify:artist:1s9EnROzVioAhwnL9syuBg">the Sparkletones</a>, but within <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Columbia%22">Columbia</a>' stable of artists, their music (along with that of <a href="spotify:artist:70OOVjoX5a8tiVKwUYgqQ0">the Collins Kids</a>) constituted a tiny corner of rockabilly validity. Hearing their stuff today, they could have been fair rivals to Bill Haley & His Comets or <a href="spotify:artist:4JqLFGc03cH6pbz4tkXROF">Carl Perkins</a>, with a sound midway between the two.
<a href="spotify:artist:30iave5q5TpH869k7ySE3e">Sid King & the Five Strings</a> were featured on the Louisiana Hayride alongside <a href="spotify:artist:43ZHCT0cAZBISjO8DG9PnE">Elvis Presley</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:1bBZcz4jP7CoPlqpCFh4gz">Johnny Horton</a>, and inherited "Ooby Dooby" from <a href="spotify:artist:0JDkhL4rjiPNEp92jAgJnS">Roy Orbison</a> (competing head to head with the latter's <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Sun%22">Sun</a> version), but they never had the success of those whose paths they crossed. Their popularity was still confined to Texas, and by 1957 their <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Columbia%22">Columbia</a> contract had ended. The group's sound had also softened by that time, and their music no longer had the same edge; by 1958 the band had called it quits.
King saw recording activity on his own in the early '60s on the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Dot%22">Dot</a> label through his acquaintance with <a href="spotify:artist:7fmKtIgmxqNEKjATioVNsu">Pat Boone</a>, a fellow native of Denton whom he'd met years earlier, but by 1965 he was out of the music business. He resumed performing part-time in the 1980s, drawn back to the stage by a new generation of Europeans eager to hear authentic American rockabilly.
He never quite jumped into rock head over heels, nor did he ever break through to a national audience. Some vintage King is available on CD; it's an interesting, but not wholly representative, set of radio broadcasts from the mid-'50s that's closer to hillbilly than rockabilly. His <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Columbia%22">Columbia</a> recordings have been reissued in Germany on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Bear+Family%22">Bear Family</a>'s Gonna Shake This Shack Tonight. ~ Richie Unterberger & Bruce Eder, Rovi
The group, by then known as the Western Melody Makers, stuck to playing country & western swing at their gigs and in radio appearances, but they were listening to lots of albums by Black artists. They were signed to <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Starday+Records%22">Starday Records</a> in 1954 and recorded a handful of songs, but these yielded no hits. They subsequently got a contract with <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Columbia%22">Columbia</a> and rechristened themselves <a href="spotify:artist:30iave5q5TpH869k7ySE3e">the Five Strings</a>. <a href="spotify:artist:0noTJ7limm2Sx8U7MAEDg8">Erwin</a>, in turn, changed his name to Sid King, all for the sake of a rhyming moniker, <a href="spotify:artist:30iave5q5TpH869k7ySE3e">Sid King & the Five Strings</a>.
The <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Columbia%22">Columbia</a> sessions show just how far afield from country the group's sound had gotten. Their harmonies, the high-compression beat of their playing, and their choice of songs, coupled with Jim Beck's hard, up-front mixing of the rhythm section, made them, for a time, one of the hotter rockabilly acts outside of Memphis. They weren't as wild as <a href="spotify:artist:1s9EnROzVioAhwnL9syuBg">the Sparkletones</a>, but within <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Columbia%22">Columbia</a>' stable of artists, their music (along with that of <a href="spotify:artist:70OOVjoX5a8tiVKwUYgqQ0">the Collins Kids</a>) constituted a tiny corner of rockabilly validity. Hearing their stuff today, they could have been fair rivals to Bill Haley & His Comets or <a href="spotify:artist:4JqLFGc03cH6pbz4tkXROF">Carl Perkins</a>, with a sound midway between the two.
<a href="spotify:artist:30iave5q5TpH869k7ySE3e">Sid King & the Five Strings</a> were featured on the Louisiana Hayride alongside <a href="spotify:artist:43ZHCT0cAZBISjO8DG9PnE">Elvis Presley</a> and <a href="spotify:artist:1bBZcz4jP7CoPlqpCFh4gz">Johnny Horton</a>, and inherited "Ooby Dooby" from <a href="spotify:artist:0JDkhL4rjiPNEp92jAgJnS">Roy Orbison</a> (competing head to head with the latter's <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Sun%22">Sun</a> version), but they never had the success of those whose paths they crossed. Their popularity was still confined to Texas, and by 1957 their <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Columbia%22">Columbia</a> contract had ended. The group's sound had also softened by that time, and their music no longer had the same edge; by 1958 the band had called it quits.
King saw recording activity on his own in the early '60s on the <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Dot%22">Dot</a> label through his acquaintance with <a href="spotify:artist:7fmKtIgmxqNEKjATioVNsu">Pat Boone</a>, a fellow native of Denton whom he'd met years earlier, but by 1965 he was out of the music business. He resumed performing part-time in the 1980s, drawn back to the stage by a new generation of Europeans eager to hear authentic American rockabilly.
He never quite jumped into rock head over heels, nor did he ever break through to a national audience. Some vintage King is available on CD; it's an interesting, but not wholly representative, set of radio broadcasts from the mid-'50s that's closer to hillbilly than rockabilly. His <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Columbia%22">Columbia</a> recordings have been reissued in Germany on <a href="spotify:search:label%3A%22Bear+Family%22">Bear Family</a>'s Gonna Shake This Shack Tonight. ~ Richie Unterberger & Bruce Eder, Rovi
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