Celebrate this Halloween with a ride in our wayback machine to 1957 to explore the out-of-this-world history of Billy Lee Riley’s “Flying Saucers Rock and Roll.” This classic track sits at the fascinating crossroads of Cold War sci-fi paranoia and the rebellious rise of 1950s rockabilly culture. We dive into Riley’s journey from a rural Arkansas upbringing to his pivotal recordings at Sun Records. Along the way, we break down the unforgettable performances by the legendary Sun house band, including guitarist Roland Janes’ masterful licks, Jerry Lee Lewis’ driving piano, and explore the quintessential analog “slapback” echo that defined the era. Whether you’re a die-hard rock and roll fan or just love a good UFO story, this episode is an extraterrestrial blast from the past.
“Flying Saucers Rock & Roll” by Ray Scott, copyright 1957 Knox Music BMI
TRANSCRIPT:
Ooh, look, there’s the generic scary music. That must mean it’s time for our annual Halloween spooktacular episode. This time it’s not really all that creepy, it’s more like weird and kinda goofy, which is just as good. I’m your host, Brad Page, and this episode, we’re jumping in our wayback machine and setting the dials for 1957. A really magical year in the history of rock, and we’ll be taking a look at an oddity from that wild world of rockabilly. A time when Sun Records was inventing what we call rock and roll. A song born of the intersection of Cold War science fiction paranoia and the rise of rebellious 1950s youth culture. It’s a song by Billy Lee Riley and his Little Green Men. It’s called “Flying Saucers Rock and Roll”.
Billy Lee Riley was born on October 5th, 1933, in Pocahontas, Arkansas, one of seven children. He grew up on radio broadcasts of country and hillbilly music, as well as the sound of Delta blues from the farm laborers that he shared the fields with. He learned to play harmonica at age 6, and by the time he was a teenager, he was a pretty decent guitar player. When he was 15, he falsified his age to enlist in the army. It’s one of the few ways to escape the rural poverty of the South. He served for four years, and once he was out, he headed towards Memphis, Tennessee, a hotbed of musical cross-pollination. He joined a band that included Slim Wallace and Jack Clement, who at the time were putting together Fernwood Studios. Riley cut his first tracks at Fernwood.
Riley’s next break came when Jack Clement brought those tracks to Memphis Recording Service, home to Sun Records and the legendary Sam Phillips. When Phillips heard the tapes, he knew there was something there and he did two things: he bought the rights to the recordings and he offered Jack Clement a job as a producer and engineer. Sun would release Riley’s first single, a song called “Rock With Me Baby”.
“Rock With Me Baby”, backed with “Trouble Bound”, was released on Sun Records on September 1st, 1956. Didn’t exactly set the world on fire, but it established one of the crack Sun house bands, a group of session musicians who would define the sound of Sun Records. Roland Janes on lead guitar, Marvin Pepper on upright bass, J.M. Van Eaton on drums, and a heretofore little-known piano player named Jerry Lee Lewis.
Billy Lee Riley’s next step was to record “Flying Saucers Rock and Roll”. The song was written by Ray Scott. Songs about aliens and UFOs were quite the craze in the 1950s. In the shadow of the Cold War, popular culture was saturated with science fiction B-movies, pulp magazines, and the attendant reports of UFO sightings. It only made sense for popular music to join in, too. The most commercially successful of these UFO-themed recordings was a novelty record by Buchanan and Goodman called “The Flying Saucer Parts 1 and 2”, released in 1956. This was part of a trend where snippets of popular songs would be interspersed with dialogue to create some kind of narrative. Not particularly funny, at least I don’t think so, but I guess you had to be there.
Anyway, Ray Scott thought he could cash in on this sci-fi trend, and so Sam Phillips and Billy Lee Riley jumped on board too with their “Flying Saucers Rock and Roll”. Now this song works because it takes the sci-fi theme and transforms it into a revved-up anthem for this new youth culture.
The song kicks off with a great guitar lick by Roland Janes, making good use of the vibrato arm, the whammy bar on his guitar.
Now let’s go back and just listen to that vocal track because everything about it is quintessential Sun Records rockabilly. The slapback echo on his voice, the gritty texture of his vocal, almost spoken in some parts and on the verge of being unhinged in other places, and dig that crazy scream at the end.
Of course, today we can create that slapback echo sound easily using digital plug-ins. In fact, I can do it right now with just a couple of mouse clicks. But back in the day, this had to be done manually using two tape decks. They used two Ampex 350 tape machines running quarter-inch tape at 15 inches per second. Here’s how it works: The signal from the mixing console was sent to the first machine which records the dry, unprocessed signal. At the same time, the signal was sent to the second machine with the playback head located a fraction of an inch past the record head, and this creates a slight delay between 100 to 130 milliseconds. And this signal is then routed back to the mixing console and blended with the dry vocal and guitar tracks to create that slapback sound. One of the defining sounds of Sun Records.
Let’s back it up a bit and play into the first chorus.
With one verse and a chorus out of the way, they barnstorm right into a guitar solo. This is Roland Janes on lead guitar. Janes played on a ton of Sun sessions from 1956 to 1963. This guitar solo is a textbook example of rockabilly guitar playing.
Here comes the second verse. “Well the little green men they were real hellcats.” Let’s check this out.
One guitar solo is never enough, so Roland Janes is gonna take another turn. But first let’s listen to the drums on this part, because J.M. Van Eaton is laying down a pretty cool beat here.
Alright, let’s hear that guitar solo, and you can hear that the slapback echo is applied to the guitar as well as the lead vocal.
Don’t forget that’s Jerry Lee Lewis pounding away on the piano there. Time for one more verse, let’s bring up the vocals again for this one.
A couple of things right here at the end. Number one, you can hear Roland Janes use the whammy bar on his guitar on that last chord. And J.M. Van Eaton closes things out with a nice snare fill and one final thump of his bass drum.
Now none of this sounds particularly earth-shattering today. In fact, it’s pretty much expected. But back in 1957, all of this was brand new. They hadn’t become clichés yet. This was dramatic, exciting stuff.
“Flying Saucers Rock and Roll” by Billy Lee Riley and his Little Green Men.
The song was released on Sun Records in February 1957. It was a regional hit but didn’t make much of an impact on the Billboard national charts. Billy Lee Riley had one more ace up his sleeve, or so he thought. He recorded a version of “Red Hot” which he believed would be a big hit. “Red Hot” was released by Sun in September 1957, and this track is indeed red hot. It’s a rockabilly classic.
But it didn’t really catch on either. I suppose part of the blame falls on Sam Phillips and Sun. Billy Lee certainly felt so. Jerry Lee Lewis had released “Great Balls of Fire”, one of the most significant songs in rock history, and Sun just didn’t have the resources to promote both. And really, how can you resist “Great Balls of Fire”? So “Red Hot” just kind of stalled on the charts and that was it for Billy Lee Riley’s moment in the sun. But he continued to work in the music business, eventually landing in L.A., and he did session work with the famous Wrecking Crew. By the early 1970s, he had had enough and left the music business. He returned to Arkansas. But when the rockabilly revival came around in the late ’70s with bands like the Stray Cats, Billy Lee Riley finally got his due.
If you’ve been listening to this show for a while, then you’ve probably heard me mention that I live in the state of New Hampshire. New Hampshire was home to Betty and Barney Hill and one of the most famous alien abduction incidents in American history back in 1961. Google Betty & Barney Hill if you’d like to learn more. But their story is part of New Hampshire folklore. In fact, the state put up an official historical marker in Lincoln, New Hampshire, on Route 3 heading north, the site of the abduction.
Not to be outdone, the town of Exeter, New Hampshire, holds a UFO festival every September in remembrance of the day in 1965 when local resident Norman Muscarello reported a UFO sighting. So maybe it’s just in the blood here, but I love me a good sci-fi story. Maybe little green men really did bring rock and roll to earth, but I think the weird and wild history of this music could only have come from humans. The most mystifying species of them all.
Thanks for tuning in to this edition of the I’m In Love With That Song podcast. We will be back in two weeks with another new episode. Until then, if you’d like to listen to any of our previous episodes, including our past Halloween shows, you’ll find all of them on our website, lovethatsongpodcast.com. Share your thoughts on Facebook, just look for the “I’m In Love With That Song podcast” and you’ll find us, or send an email to lovethatsongpodcast@gmail.com.
And do me a favor: tell someone about the show, share it with your friends, with your family, help me grow our audience and keep the music we love alive.
We’re part of the Pantheon Network of podcasts where fans belong. Thanks for being part of this show. I’ll see you next time and have a happy Halloween.
RESOURCES:
Here is a quick reference guide to the artists, producers, bands, and studios mentioned in this episode, complete with links to learn more:
| Name | Category | Reference Link |
| Billy Lee Riley | Artist | Wikipedia |
| Jack Clement | Producer / Engineer | Wikipedia |
| Sam Phillips | Producer / Label Founder | Wikipedia |
| Roland Janes | Musician (Guitar) | Wikipedia |
| Jerry Lee Lewis | Musician (Piano) | Wikipedia |
| The Stray Cats | Band | Wikipedia |
| The Wrecking Crew | Session Musicians | Wikipedia |
| Sun Records | Record Label | Wikipedia |
| Fernwood Studios | Recording Studio | Wikipedia |