Bruce Channel

From HitStory, the pop encyclopedia of School of Rock · Artist

Bruce Channel is an American singer and songwriter, born in 1940 in Jacksonville, Texas. He came from a musical family and could sing and play guitar at the age of five. While he was still at school, the family moved to Dallas, where he performed at benefit evenings and in youth centres. He then worked briefly for a company that made butane tanks. Later he sang country music on the radio programme Louisiana Hayride, together with the harmonica player Delbert McClinton. He travelled to the studio by train every Saturday for it and made little from each performance.

Music and breakthrough

In 1959 he wrote Hey! Baby with Margaret Cobb. He played the song live for two years before recording it for the producer Bill Smith of Fort Worth. It was first released on Smith's label LeCam, but when it sold well, Smash Records, a subsidiary of Mercury, took over distribution. In March 1962 it reached number one in the United States, for three weeks, and in the United Kingdom it reached number two. It sold more than a million copies and was awarded a gold disc. His album is also called Hey! Baby.

Influence

Channel fits somewhere between rock 'n' roll, country and early pop. Hey! Baby is an example of how a simple song with one recognisable instrument could become a worldwide hit, and it belongs to the sound of the early 1960s.

Listening

Discography

Studio albums

• 1962Hey! Baby