Hank Ballard

Induction Year: 1990

Induction Category: Performer

"Hank Ballard is chiefly remembered for recording a trilogy of risque R&B numbers: “Work With Me, Annie,” “Annie Had a Baby” and “Annie’s Aunt Fannie.” Yet Ballard’s contribution to rock and roll goes much deeper than that. With the grinding guitars, distorted sound and fervid call-and-response of those and many other recordings made for the King and Federal labels, Ballard helped define the sound of rock and roll. He also ushered forth one of its greatest dance crazes, having written and first recorded “The Twist.” By the early 1960s, he’d charted 22 singles on the R&B charts, including “Work With Me, Annie,” which was the biggest R&B hit of 1954. It sold more than a million copies and spawned more than 20 answer records (including Etta James’ “Roll with Me Henry").

The Detroit-born Ballard was working on a Ford Motor Company assembly line when he joined the Royals, a local singing group. In a short time they moved from the smooth delivery of sentimental material to a more lascivious and bluesy approach, as evidenced by their earliest hits, “Get It” and “Work With Me, Annie.” The Royals followed “Annie” with “Sexy Ways,” by which time they’d changed their name to the Midnighters in order to avoid confusion with the “5” Royales. Ballard wrote and recorded “The Twist” with the Midnighters in 1958, but their record label relegated it to a B side, leaving it to Chubby Checker to take “The Twist” to Number One not once but two times, in 1960 and 1962. Hank Ballard and Midnighters continued to record deep blues and infectious, undiluted R&B such as “Finger Poppin’ Time” and “Let’s Go, Let’s Go, Let’s Go” into the early Sixties. Although the Midnighters’ recording career lost steam in the wake of Motown, the British Invasion and other developments on the contemporary front, they subsequently made a decent living playing nightclubs and frat parties, finally disbanding in 1967.”

TIMELINE

November 18, 1936: Hank Ballard was born.

1953: Hank Ballard & the Royals hit #6 on the R&B chart with “Get It”.

1954: Hank Ballard & the Midnighters hits #1 on the R&B chart and #22 on the pop chart with “Work With Me Annie”, #2 on the R&B chart with “Sexy Ways and #1 on the R&B chart and #23 on the pop chart with “Annie Had A Baby”.

April 10, 1954: “Work With Me Annie,” by Hank Ballard and the Midnighters, is released on Syd Nathan’s Federal label. It begins a half-year run on the R&B charts, which it tops for seven weeks. The same year “Sexy Ways” and “Annie Had a Baby” are released.

1959: Hank Ballard & the Midnighters hit #4 on the R&B chart with the King Records single “Teardrops On Your Letter.”

1960: Hank Ballard & the Midnighters hits #2 on the R&B chart and #7 (8/15) on the pop chart with “Finger Poppin’ Time”, #6 on the R&B chart and #28 (9/19) on the pop chart with “The Twist” and #1 on the R&B chart and #6 (11/21) on the pop chart with “Let’s Go, Let’s Go, Let’s Go.” All three singles are released on King Records.

1961: Hank Ballard & the Midnighters hits #3 on the R&B chart and #23 on the pop chart with “Hoochie Coochie Coo” and #3 on the R&B chart and #26 on the pop chart with “The Switch-A-Roo”.

March 2, 2003: Hank Ballard passes away.

Essential Recordings

Work With Me Annie
The Twist
Finger Poppin’ Time
Let’s Go, Let’s Go, Let’s Go
Sexy Ways
Annie Had a Baby
Teardrops on Your Letter
It’s Love Baby (24 Hours a Day)
The Switch-a-Roo
The Hoochi Coochi Coo