I was born in Sherman, Texas, on January 3, 1941. My family moved to Canyon, Texas (17 miles south of Amarillo), about 1944. My dad was a traveling salesman and my mother was a homemaker during the time I was growing up. My sister was three years older and completed the family.


When I was about five, my mother started my sister and me with piano lessons. I seemed to have a natural talent for music from the start. My sister soon lost interest in it, but I continued on playing because I liked the praise and I apparently was pretty good at it. When I was about eleven or so I started playing the ukulele and singing popular songs of the times. One, I remember, was "Half As Much". I recall performing at West Texas College during a music camp. The people really had a fit over me and I was really proud of myself. Later I performed at my school's assembly but the reaction wasn't as good.


Playing the ukulele with my best friend, Dee Zane Pond.


In junior high I started playing the coronet in the band and I really liked it. I did advance to first chair. About the time of the eight grade, I quit playing the piano. I just grew tired of the recitals and practicing all the time. While a freshman at Canyon High, I switched from coronet to baritone horn.


About this time (1955) some of the guys in the school band decided to form a dance band. They needed a drummer and I volunteered. I had no drums but used the schools. We rehearsed and played a dance in Umbarger (a small town west of Canyon). Rock and Roll music was really getting popular at this time and there was a dance called "the Dirty Bop". I played drums by ear and started beating out a solo after one of our songs. There was this one girl who had a not so good reputation that could really dance provocative. The crowd circled around her and clapped and my drum playing really got her motor running.


Shortly after this I was contacted by a guy from West Texas State named Buddy Knox. Buddy wanted me to accompany him and his band, The Rhythm Orchids (with Don Lanier and Jimmy Bowen), for an audition for the head of a record label of Roy Orbison. I believe it was called Jewel label. We played in a band room at West Texas State College and I don't recall how it turned out. Not long after that my family moved to Amarillo. I went from a high school of 250 students to a high school of over 3000. Buddy Knox and The Rhythm Orchids became very famous and appeared on the Ed Sullivan Show, Steve Allen Show and American Bandstand. I tried to tell my friends at school that I had played behind them but I don't think anyone believed me.


 

Amarillo High School band was quite larger and more talented than Canyon High but I did manage to move up to second chair in the considerably larger baritone horn section. My drum playing continued on my own with a record player. I started working with different musicians and singers. Larry Trider was one of the first. Eugene Brown, Jon Sisco and I formed the Electras using different bass men. We had a battle of the bands with Joe Bob Barnhill, Earl Whitt, Steve Dodge, and Gary Lee Swafford. We were blown away by sheer volume. Gary Swafford also was a drum soloist and I was not that good at solos. We learned a lot from that experience, however.




"The Electra's", left to right: Hubert Heatherly, myself, Eugene Brown and Jon Sisco.



The next band I was in was called "The Chips" with Eugene Brown, Tommy Euton, Don Carpenter and I. Don later quit and was replaced by Chet Calcote on bass. Gary Harwood, who played alto-sax, was added later on. About 1960 Don Lanier returned and several musicians, including me, started recording at a local studio with Tom Thacker, a local disc-jockey, doing the engineering. We started traveling to Norman Petty Studios in Clovis, N.M., to record quality masters. I personally backed Don Lanier, Red Stegal and the Jon Sisco Quartet on drums in this venture.


"The Chips", 1960.

 



Later on I met a Buddy Holly look-alike named Ray Ruffin. This was in 1961. He was a big fan of Buddy's and he tried to mimic his voice with little success. Ray was a great promoter and I went on the road with him in April of 1961. We formed a band called "The Checkmates" with Chuck Tharpe, Charlie McClure, Tom Beck and myself. Ray changed his last name to Ruff and we traveled all through the mid-west and up into Canada. We also did quite a bit of recording in Clovis at Norman Petty's and in St. Louis, Mo. No big sellers, but we did get some air time at the locations on tour. It was a "chicken or feathers" tour but I got to see a lot of the country and meet some rock n roll stars, like Bobby Vee and Gene Pitney. It was great being treated like a star and signing autographs, but I got tired of the road and returned home to go back to college.


Returning to college, I played with a number of different bands and singers. I played drums on "The Marty Robbins Show" and later "The Jim Reeves Show". I met both and found Marty Robbins to be very friendly and open.


 


"The Checkmates", left to right: Eugene Brown, Chuck
Tharpe, Tom Beck and I on drums on the Marty Robins Show. Notice "The Stringalongs" drums in background.



This was in the fall of 1961 and I recall these names during that period: "The Cinders" with Charlie Bates, Steve Dodge, Charlie Phillips, and "The Sugartimers", Kenneth Trent and his band. Also I worked with Don Caldwell who played a great saxophone. In May of 1962 Steve Mathews and I traveled to Dallas to play in a band there. We stayed that summer and returned in the fall to return to WTSU. I also played in the band with Jerry Sparks, Jay Turnbull, and Dave McDonald. Jimmy George was starting to develop into a pretty good singer and I worked with him on occasion. In February 1963 I returned to Dallas to play with the same band I had before. I also did some recording at that time in Dallas. When I returned to Amarillo after a couple of months, I traveled to Colorado Springs, Co., to play behind a country singer named Tony Douglas. On returning from there, I continued to play with different bands and returned to WTSU in the fall of 1963. In 1964 Bill Mays formed a road band for Booker T. and the M.G.'s. We traveled throughout Texas and New Mexico. The musicians were Bill "Smitty" Smith, Jay Turnbull, Dave Campbell and me.


We had a wicked version of "Green Onions".


In May 1964 I went into active Army training for six months for the National Guard. After release from active Army I started playing with a band with Gary Ruitz, Nelson Wirtman, and Ted Barnhill. Going into 1965 I started playing with another band which included Mike Ballew, Steve Mathews and me. We later cut a couple of masters at Norman Petty Studios but didn't get them released on a label. Later on in 1966 I started playing with "The Smitty Trio" which included Bill "Smitty" Smith, Larry Marcum and me.




In 1967 I joined another group with Bob Finnecum fronting the band with singing and dancing. It was a five or six piece band and because Bob Finnecum was a drummer there were some songs that I actually played trombone on. Having played Baritone horn, all I had to do was find the correct positions for the trombone and I could play the notes. I also went into partnership with the band's manager into a private club, the Beachcomber. I took care of the entertainment and Johnny Hargraves took care of the bartenders, bar maids and cook. This lasted about 8 months and I sold my half to a lawyer friend of mine, Robert McClendon.


Some time during this time Ray Ruff booked Freddy "Boom Boom" Cannon to a dance here in Amarillo. I, along with Larry Marcum and some other musicians, backed him. He seemed pleased with our backing and I enjoyed visiting with him. Some of his hits of the time were "Palisades Park", "Tallahassee Lassie" and "Way Down Yonder in New Orleans".


In December of 1967 I broke my wrist at a National Guard meeting. I was in a cast for five and one-half months. The bone I broke was slow to heal. During this time Billy Dee and his band needed a drummer and I would have played with them in Las Vegas had my wrist not been broken. In May 1968 my wrist finally healed but I was hospitalized for alcoholism. After about a month in the hospital I stayed with my parents for another three months until another band from Lubbock asked me to play with them at a night club there in Lubbock. The only name I can remember in the band is Turnbull because the bass man indicated he was Jay Turnbull's brother. This did not work out because I was drinking again and taking a prescribed sedative on top of that. This slowed me down so much that when we took a break I would go out to my car and pass out leaving them without a drummer. I left my set of drums to help offset the motel cost and my liquor bill and returned home to Amarillo.


In the summer of 1969 I started back playing with Jerry Sparks and his band. We played on weekends at a club in Borger, Texas. This lasted about three months and I was back in the hospital with alcohol poisoning for 5 days. I decided at that point that I had better get out of the music business altogether if I were to live. I've had no regrets about that decision as I married a wonderful gal, raised two great kids, and had various jobs that enabled me to make a good living. I worked at Levi Strauss Distribution Center for 14 years, tried sales for a couple of years, then worked for Iowa Beef Processors (now Tyson Fresh Meats) and retired after 18 years in the security department.

Bobby Hacker's Discography:

1. "Love Made A Fool Of You"- Ray Ruff- Clovis- Norman Petty's Studio - Norman Label
2. "My Wish Is You"
3. "Well... All Right"
4. "Angel Blue"
5. "Love"
6. "Lonely Hours"
7. "Gabriel, Blow Your Horn, Part 1 - Gabriel & Checkmates - St. Louis, Mo.-Norman Label"
8. "Gabriel, Blow Your Horn, Part 2"
9. "Conquest" - Jon Sisco Quartet- Clovis-Norman Petty's Studio - Jamie Label
10. "Gangster Of Love"- Don La Near (Lanier)- Clovis - Norman Petty's Studio - Apt Label
11. "I Don't Think You Love Me Anymore" - Don La Near - Clovis - Norman Petty's Studio - Apt Label
12. "Don't Run Me Off" - Michael Ballew - Norman Petty's Studio - Not released-CD
13. "Such A Long Time Ago" - Michael Ballew - Norman Petty's Studio - Not released-CD

* Even though these last two songs were not released, I just had to include them as they should have been placed on a label but Norman Petty didn't promote them at all, at the time. Also, I backed Red Steagal on two songs recorded in Clovis that I am fairly certain were released but don't recall the names. Also I backed Chuck Tharp on two songs that was recorded in St. Louis that I'm not sure if they were released or not.