WORDS BY JACK WATKINS
Contemporary rockabilly hero Darrel Higham began his rock’n’roll career in the late 1980s
Bill Haley’s been airbrushed out of the history of rock’n’roll and I don’t quite understand why,” Darrel Higham says emphatically. “It’s a travesty because his influence was, and is, profound. There’s nothing wrong with rock’n’roll just being happy music, but people today seem to think there has to be some hidden meaning in lyrics for songs to be taken seriously. Throughout his life, Haley thought that rock’n’roll was a very positive source for youngsters, never saw the harm in it and defended it until the day he died. And the musicianship on those recordings he made at the Pythian Temple in New York was outstanding. Very few bands, even with all the technology available today, get close to replicating that sound, even if the likes of The Stargazers, The Jive Romeros and Phil Haley And The Comments do a great job.”