Kip Tyler: The rockabilly bongo player who inspired horror rock
Shock has always been one of the greatest weapons in a performer’s arsenal, and that was never more true than during the first age of rock ‘n’ roll. The emergence of such a rebellious, liberating style of music took the United States by storm back in the 1950s, beloved by teenagers and feared by parents, teachers, and virtually every authority figure you can think of. But if Elvis Presley gyrating his hips was the worst thing that American society could imagine during that time, then it’s probably a good job that mainstream audiences never discovered the shock-rock sounds of Kip Tyler.
Born in the culturally rich landscape of late 1920s Chicago, Tyler – born with the much less catchy name Elwood Westerton Smith – began his musical journey during the early 1950s, as the frontman for various high school blues and early rockabilly outfits. By the mid-point of the decade, Kip Tyler and his band, The Flips, had become a cult local outfit, regularly selling out shows at the legendary El Monte Legion Stadium in Illinois. It seemed as though the vocalist was destined for rock and roll greatness.
Tyler got his shot at fame early on, when a film producer named Joseph Gershenson approached him to work on a sequel to the rock and roll flick Rock, Pretty Baby, which had come out the previous year, in 1956. In support of this idea, Tyler adopted the pseudonym Jimmy Daley and recorded a handful of singles for Decca Records – none of which achieved much in the way of mainstream success, in keeping with the flop that the film turned out to be.
Thankfully, Tyler dropped the Jimmy Daley moniker pretty quickly, returning to the familiar oddity of Kip Tyler and the Flips. In many ways, Kip Tyler was the archetypal rock star of that era; he encapsulated everything about the rock and roll revolution, which excited the youth and petrified their parents. Often emerging onto the stage bedecked in leather and with an infallible attitude that exuded a sense of rebellion. In many other ways, though, the vocalist was a complete outlier.
Sure, Tyler was playing a style of music derived from old-school blues, but his work often featured overarching influences of horror movies and a sense of underground seediness which was never going to wash with mainstream audiences. Aside from anything else, he was a bongo player. Not a guitarist like every other rock star, not even a pianist…a bongoist.
Between 1957 and 1964, Tyler released seven singles, all on obscure and independent record labels like Ebb, Challenge, and Gyro Disc. It is no surprise that none of these tracks were afforded much in the way of mainstream attention or commercial success, because Tyler was operating years ahead of his time. Tracks like ‘She’s My Witch’, ‘Eternity’, and ‘Jungle Hop’ completely broke the mould of rockabilly records at that time, imbuing the abrasive sound with dark elements of horror and shock rock which predicted the later rise of punk and hard rock.
Reflecting Tyler’s unjust lack of appreciation during his heyday, many of those recordings ended up becoming cult favourites in rockabilly circles. In fact, ‘Jungle Hop’ found some success decades later, in 1981, when it was given a psychobilly makeover by punk heroes The Cramps for their record Psychedelic Jungle. By that time, however, Kip Tyler had long since abandoned the music industry.
Tyler had become wholly disillusioned with rock and roll by the time the mid-1960s rolled around, having achieved little to no mainstream attention and, to make matters worse, having witnessed many of his former band members go on to bigger and better things. He remained an elusive, obscure figure for many years before passing away in 1996 in Los Angeles. Still, the horror-rock pioneer remains a beloved cult figure for those of us who prefer the slightly stranger side of the rockabilly spectrum.
