Al Rex
Al Rex ( * ca 1920s when Albert Piccarelli ) is an American country, rockabilly and rock and roll musician. Rex was a member of Bill Haley's Saddlemen, and from 1955 at Haley's Comets, but also had a solo career.
Life
An exact date of birth of Al Rex is not known. About his bourgeois surname, there are different concepts - during specified by many sources " Piccarelli " call Bill Turner and Alex Frazier Harrison " Picirilli " than his real name. Rex also had a brother, Joe, who played in 1949 and 1950 with the Saddlemen and was also present at a session.
Early career in Philadelphia
Al Rex was active throughout his career primarily as a musician around Philadelphia. Since the late 1940s, he and Bill Haley "old friends " were, they knew each other from various performances in and around Philadelphia. He was there when Bill Haley, Johnny Grande and Billy Williamson in December 1949 in " Luke's Musical Bar " in Chester founded the Saddlemen and already a year later Rex rose also active - he released "Big" Al Thompson as a bassist from, of this part on the stage could not fill to the satisfaction of Haley and the other band members because of its enormous corpulence.
Al Rex was one of the first bass player who used the slap technique in Country Music, Rockabilly and later also in the rock and roll style as a regular means. In May 1951 edited a cover version of a black R & B artist Haley and the Saddlemen one of the first white musician - heard they gave Jackie Brenstons Hit Rocket 88 more drive and a stronger rhythm and for the first time is significantly Rex ' slap technique on bass on vinyl. Thus, Al Rex are known as a pioneer of this technology within the "white music scene " without further ado. In African-American bands slap technique was present since the end of the 1920s, country artists used but rarely this percussive style means. As can be heard as a singer on the records only Haley, sometimes took on stage performances also Rex on vocals or acted as a comedian.
A few months after the recording of Rocket 88 Rex left the group to form their own band and continues to act as a vocal soloist. He took over at the same time Bill Haley's radio show on WPWA in Chester. A year later, he took a record for Arcade Records, the label in the region to.
With the Comets
In September 1955, the Comets Marshall Lytle Joey Ambrose and Dick Richards Bill Haley turned their backs, Al Rex was the first to be approached by Bill Haley and replaced as bassist Marshall Lytle. Bill Haley was at this time, after its success of the song Rock Around the Clock of the most successful musicians in the States. Rex had written in the meantime, in addition to his engagements with his band and as a solo artist and music. Along with Haley Rex entered the Columbia movies Rock Around The Clock on ( Over the top ) and Do not Knock The Rock ( Over the top II) and was from early 1956 until the summer of 1958 on all tours of the ensemble here. His recording career with Bill Haley & His Comets began on 22 September 1955 at the Pythian Temple, New York, with the successful DECCA ROCK Hits and Rock-A- Beatin 'Boogie, she ended up at the same place on 18 June 1958 of the tracks Sweet Sue, Just You and Charmaine.
1957 Rex wrote for the singer and former member Saddlemen Lou Graham the song Wee Willie Brown, who was taken by Graham Bill Haley Label Clymax Records. Rex played bass in this session as well as at Better Believe It the Kingsmen.
Later career
In the summer of 1958, Al Rex, Bill Haley & His Comets left angry and frustrated. The golden age in the States for the Haley band were already over and the Haley - management was more often the musicians waiting for their fees. Moreover, there was Rex's wife that he finally home took up a regular job after the many tours. So he was no longer there when in the fall of 1958 Bill Haley embarked on a European tour as the first rock and roll star, in which it, inter alia, at the concerts serious riots, in Berlin and Hamburg, arrived. His successor in the band was Rudy Pompillis cousin Al Pompilli.
Al Rex took on in the wake of Arcade Hydrogen Bomb and I gotta go, but this title disappeared on the shelves Arcades and saw only in 1978 for the first and so far only time in the light of the world, as it on the Roller Coaster LPs Rockaphilly! and The Return of Rockaphilly were published. Rex even stepped on and it spent the 1960s primarily as a studio musician for Arcade. In the late 1970s, Rex led a band called Al Rex and the Sound of Haley's Comets. Later, in the early 1990s, Rex worked with at the Haley biography Sound and Glory.
Al Rex now lives in around Philadelphia / Chester.