Hank Ballard & The Midnighters

Born John Henry Kendricks in Detroit, Michigan, Ballard grew up in Bessemer, Alabama where he began singing in church and later aspired on a career in music. In 1951, Ballard moved back to Detroit and formed a doo-wop group. He soon joined a group called The Royals along with Henry Booth, Charles Sutton, Sonny Woods and Alonzo Tucker. The Royals had already signed to Federal Records, a subsidiary of Syd Nathan's Cincinnati-based King label, when Ballard joined, and the group soon released "Get It" (1953), an R&B hit. The group then changed its name to The Midnighters to avoid confusion with The "5" Royales. Sutton was replaced by Lawson Smith, while Thrasher was replaced by Sonny Woods. Tucker was replaced first by Arthur Porter and then by Cal Green. The Midnighters' first major hit was "Work With Me, Annie", a R&B hit that also sold well in mainstream markets, along with the answer song "Annie Had a Baby." Their third major hit was "Sexy Ways," a song that cemented the band as one of the most risqué groups of the time. They are an illustration of why white radio stations tended to avoid playing songs by black R&B performers. For example, in the song "Open Up the Back Door", he sings a line "I want to make a little cream." They had four more R&B chart hits in 1954-55. In 1958, Ballard left Federal for VeeJay Records and there he recorded a song he had written, called "The Twist." VeeJay decided not to release it, but King Records re-signed the group away from that VeeJay and had them rerecord "The Twist." It was on that record that the group was first billed as "Hank Ballard and The Midnighters." King released it as the B-side of a ballad called "Teardrops On Your Letter". While "Teardrops" rose to number four on the R&B chart with minimal pop response, the flip also generated some action, peaking at number 16 R&B during its initial round on the charts. "American Bandstand" host Dick Clark was so enamored of "The Twist" that he had Ernest Evans re-recorded it. Dubbed "Chubby Checker" by Clark's wife, the Philadelphia singer took "The Twist" to the top of the pop chart twice, in 1960 and again two years later. Checker's version was so close to the original that Ballard, upon first hearing it on the radio, thought it was his own. Rather than being set back by the cover, Ballard and the Midnighters benefited. By the middle of 1960, they had three simultaneous hits in the pop top 40: "Finger Poppin' Time", "Let's Go, Let's Go, Let's Go", and their original version of "The Twist." And Ballard came up with other dance-oriented hits for the group, including "The Hoochie Coochie Coo", "The Continental Walk", "The Float", and "The Switch-A-Roo", but chart action dried up after 1961 and group members began to defect. By the late '60's, Ballard was working as a single, often with James Brown's revue, and he had two minor Brown-produced R&B hits: 1968's "How You Gonna Get Respect (If You Haven't Cut Your Process Yet?)" and 1972's "From the Love Side." After a long hiatus from performing, the singer returned in the mid-80's with a new set of Midnighters, first female, then male. In 1990 Ballard was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. On March 2, 2003 he died of throat cancer in his Los Angeles home, aged 75.