Ronnie Self (rockabilly singer and songwriter)

Ronnie Self (July 5, 1938 – August 28, 1981) was an American singer-songwriter known for the rockabilly song "Bop-A-Lena" and his energetic live performances and aggressive vocals, which earned him the nickname Mr. Frantic. Released as a single on Columbia Records in January 1958, it appeared on Billboard charts in the United States and Australia. Limited in commercial success as a performer, Self had significant success as a songwriter across multiple genres in the 1960s and 1970s. Multiple musicologists have retrospectively cited him as an influence on garage rock and proto-punk, and historian Colin Escott described "Bop-A-Lena" as "the first punk record." Ronald Kieth Self was born on July 5, 1938 in Tin Town, Missouri. The firstborn and eldest of five children born to Raymond and Hazel Sprague Self, farmers and sharecroppers who sold their farm and relocated the family to nearby Springfield, Missouri in thr 1940s. He displayed emotional instability and rebellious inclinations from a young age; Colin Escott noted that Self cut down a tree to obstruct his school bus's arrival, assaulting a teacher with a baseball bat, and more broadly, instances of vandalism and fighting. He was raised in Springfield, Missouri, which was then the production base of Red Foley's country music show, Ozark Jubilee, televised nationally on ABC. Self began writing lyrics and composing original music around 1953-1954, and regularly visited radio station KWTO (AM) to submit demo tapes. Foley's tour manager, Dub Albritten, was sufficiently impressed to arrange a recording session at ABC-Paramount Records on April 24,1956. This session yielded "Pretty Bad Blues" and "Three Hearts Later," which were A-side and B-side of Self's debut single in June 1956, which Self promoted via an appearance on Ozark Jubilee and tour stops through Chicago. Escott notes that a subsequent single composed of "Sweet Love" b/w "Alone" is catalogued as ABC 9768, though no master recording or copy has been located. Albritten secured Self a slot in the Philip Morris Country Music Show, a touring package whose cast included Carl Smith, Red Sovine, Goldie Hill, Gordon Terry, and Mimi Roman. Self was the sole rockabilly artist on a predominantly country bill, and his physically volatile stage performances quickly attracted attention. His performances earned him the nickname "Mr. Frantic," a moniker promoted by Albritten. In February 1957, Albritten secured Self a record contract with Columbia Records. Recording at Bradley's Barn in Nashville, Tennessee, with the Nashville A-Team, consisting of session musicians Grady Martin and Hank Garland on guitars, Floyd Chance on bass, Buddy Harman on drums, and Floyd Cramer on piano, produced by Don Law. The first session produced "Big Fool" b/w "Flame of Love." A subsequent single, "Ain't I'm a Dog," written by Troy Martin and Wayne Walker, and achieved limited success in the southern United States as well as in Vancouver, Canada. It was identified by Self's sister Dorothy as his best-selling record. Critic Bruce Eder described its delivery as carrying "a proto-punk snarl," with its central lyric — "Forget about the danger and think of the fun" — anticipating the posture of garage rock by nearly a decade. Bob Dylan later featured the recording on the "Dogs" episode of his XM Satellite Radio program Theme Time Radio Hour (Season 1, Episode 16, 2006), remarking: "It's a shame he didn't have more success as a singer, because the few records that he did make rocked like nobody's business." On December 16, 1957, Self recorded two tracks with drummer Buddy Harman and a new lineup of session musicians including guitarists John T. Hill and Ray Edenton, bassist Roy Huskey Jr., and pianist Marvin Hughes. This session produced "Bop-A-Lena," written by Webb Pierce and Mel Tillis, and "You're So Right for Me." "Bop-A-Lena" became Self's only nationally charted recording, peaking at No. 63 on the Billboard Hot 100 in March 1958 and reaching No. 25 in Australia. Billboard noted in its April 14, 1958 issue that the single appeared at No. 86 among the Top 100 Sides for the week ending April 5, ahead of Elvis Presley's "I Beg of You." "Big Blon' Baby," from this period, was subsequently covered by Jerry Lee Lewis in November 1958. Columbia issued "Date Bait" b/w "Big Blon' Baby" as Self's third single, and while "You're So Right for Me" b/w "Petrified" was released in September 1958, after which his contract was not renewed. A survey of readers published in The Cash Box in 1958 placed Ronnie Self as one of the "Most Promising New Country Male Vocalist of 1958" alongside Wayne Walker, Conway Twitty, In 1956, he was featured on Ozark Jubilee and later billed alongside Nat King Cole, Eddie Fontaine, and Bobby Darin at the Chicago gala operated by the Music Operators of America. From 1959 to 1962, Self was contracted to Decca Records, where he recorded under producer Owen Bradley. None of his singles achieved significant chart success, though "So High" received positive reviews in Cash Box His greatest commercial successes during this period came as a songwriter. Brenda Lee, who shared Albritten as a manager, recorded several of Self's compositions with major results: "Sweet Nothin's" reached No. 4 on the Billboard Hot 100 in early 1960; "I'm Sorry," considered repetitive by Bradley and initially released as the B-side to "That's All You Gotta Do," overtook its A-side and reached No. 1 in mid-1960, with the writer's credit shared between Self and Albritten; "Anybody But Me" reached No. 31 in 1961; and "Everybody Loves Me But You" reached No. 6 in 1962. The co-writing arrangement between Self and Albritten is explained in Lee's autobiography: Ronnie was burning bridges left and right. But Dub kept loaning him money and arranging for song-publishing deals and recording sessions, eventually including some with Owen Bradley at Decca. Dub wasn't a songwriter, but his name is listed as the cowriter on a lot of Ronnie's songs. I don't think he was trying to be dishonest. That was the only way Dub could hope to recoup all the money he'd invested in that crazy guy. Among other artists who recorded Self's compositions during this period were Carl Perkins ("Mama of My Song") and Jerry Lee Lewis ("Love on Broadway," recorded at Lewis's final Sun Records session but unreleased until 1971). Following the conclusion of his Decca contract, Self recorded isolated singles for Kapp Records (1963), Scratch Records (1967), and Amy Records (1968). Self issued no full-length album in his lifetime. In the 1960s, he began using amphetamines, smoking cannabis in addition to alcohol dependency. Following the death of Dub Albritten in 1971, his behavior became increasingly erratic. He and Wayne Carson burned his songwriter awards on Music Row one night because Ronnie was displeased hearing a John Philip Sousa Despite his deteriorating condition, Self retained a following in Europe, where he was regarded as a significant figure in rockabilly history. He suffered from cirrhosis in later years, was living in an extended-stay motel in Springfield, Missouri, when he combined ethanol and pills and had a fatal heart attack on August 28, 1981, at the age of 43. His sister, Vicky, and son, Roman Self (born 1963), are solo musicians in their own right. Roman, who lived with his father in Nashville following his parent's divorce in 1978 played local honky-tonk shows who recorded a tribute album entitled A Tribute to Ronnie Self in 2005. Self's recorded output as a performer spans four labels across twelve years and was never collected in a full-length album during his lifetime. At Columbia, the body of work he produced retrospectively occupies an unusual position at the intersection of rockabilly, garage rock, and what would later be identified as proto-punk. The Decca recordings from 1959 to 1962 were all produced by Owen Bradley, and include several sides that remained unissued until the 1990 Bear Family retrospective