Bruce Channel

Bruce Channel (/ʃəˈnɛl/ shə-NEL; born November 28, 1940) is an American singer-songwriter best known for his 1962 number-one hit record "Hey! Baby".

Channel was born in Jacksonville, Texas. He was born into a musical family who sang, and his father could also play harmonica, and by the time he was five years old could sing and play guitar, having learned from a cousin who lived in the family home. While he was still in high school, his family moved to Dallas, where he played concerts at benefit shows and youth centers. When he was seventeen, he worked at a butane tank company called Texas Tank with his older brother.

Channel performed originally for the radio program Louisiana Hayride and then joined with the harmonica player Delbert McClinton, singing country music. Channel was a regular on the program for six months, and as he remained in Texas, he would have to travel by train there every Saturday morning. He was paid $16.50 a show, but because he then had to pay $11.66 for a train ticket back to Texas, and $1.50 for union dues, Channel would only have less than $4 by the time he got back home.

Channel wrote "Hey! Baby" with Margaret Cobb in 1959 and performed the song for two years before recording it for Fort Worth record producer Bill Smith. It was issued originally on Smith's LeCam label, but as it started to sell well, it was acquired for distribution by Smash Records, a subsidiary of Mercury. The song went to number one in the US in March 1962 and held that position for three weeks. Besides topping the U.S. popular music charts, it also became number two in the United Kingdom. It sold more than one million copies and was awarded a gold disc. Channel had four more singles on the Billboard Hot 100, including "Number One Man" (which peaked at number 52), "Come On Baby" (number 98), "Going Back to Louisiana" (number 89), and "Mr. Bus Driver" (number 90, produced by Dale Hawkins in Memphis and recorded by Terry Manning), but none of them was as successful as "Hey! Baby", and he is considered a one-hit wonder.

Channel toured Europe and was assisted at one gig by the Beatles, who were then little known. John Lennon, who had "Hey! Baby" on his jukebox, was fascinated by McClinton's harmonica. A popular legend is that Lennon was taught to play harmonica by McClinton, but by that time Lennon had already been playing the instrument live for some time. The harmonica segment in "Hey! Baby" inspired Lennon's playing on the Beatles' first single, 1962's "Love Me Do", as well as later Beatles records, and the harmonica break on Frank Ifield's "I Remember You."

Biography summary from English Wikipedia, photograph via Wikimedia Commons.