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Roots of John Fogerty

November 23rd, 2010 |

In a way, Creedence Clearwater Revival was lucky. Based in the terminally unhip East Bay suburb of El Cerrito, looking to classic rock & roll and the Beatles for inspiration in their early incarnation as the Golliwogs instead of the folk-rock which powered the San Francisco scene’s big-name bands, they were shunned by the psychedelic ballrooms and had lots of time to refine a sound that was completely their own. The result was a run of nine Top Ten singles (and one, “Suzie Q,” which peaked at number 11) of a directness and simplicity that the other bands missed. For this, they were derided by the hipoisie, who seem to have forgotten that popular music was supposed to be, um, popular.

Certainly their songwriting powerhouse, John Fogerty, didn’t mind at all. He was too busy crafting powerful songs that the country reacted to immediately, honing songwriting, singing, and guitar skills that turned Creedence into one of America’s top bands. After they broke up, Fogerty continued to pursue his vision, adding a dash of country music which only broadened his appeal, although legal issues and changing tastes meant that his sales might not have reflected his mastery as they once might have.

Creedence’s songs played on a mythology which had already been set in place by the performers whose music they covered and whose legacy they extended. Proud Mary steamed up the Mississippi River, Fogerty sang about being born on the bayou (which he clearly wasn’t), and characterized the band as Willie and the Poor Boys, just pickin’ and grinnin’ for spare change. This made the band something of a pop Rorschach test, in which listeners saw an image far more democratic and working-class than the band actually was. The deceptive simplicity of Creedence’s music, too, was in stark contrast to the increasingly virtuosic-for-its-own-sake music coming from across San Francisco Bay, and the flannel-shirted, jeans-wearing image the band projected in photos and on stage was the opposite of the rock star poses adopted by so many of their contemporaries.

This democratic impulse has made Creedence’s and Fogerty’s work survive without seeming dated. Deeply informed by what came before, imbued with the values of directness and simplicity, it has served to influence countless similarly-minded performers who came afterwards. In short — and without having anything to do with the marketing term — it’s classic rock.

Rock Classics Volume I

Artist: Various Artists
Release Date: 2007

Creedence blasted onto the scene with a lengthy meditation on Dale Hawkins’s biggest hit, “Suzie Q,” which had featured a guitar part by James Burton, one of the great unsung string-benders of his era. Hawkins had an eye for great guitarists — later, he often used Roy Buchanan — but he never had a hit as big as this one. He moved to Dallas and got into production work, with credits including Bruce Channel’s “Hey, Baby,” whose harmonica part, by Delbert McClinton, inspired the Beatles to use one on “Love Me Do.” He produced the Top Ten hit “Western Union” by local band the Five Americans, and in 1970, became a consultant for Houston-based International Artists, dealing with the 13th Floor Elevators. The persistence of Creedence’s “Suzie Q” as an FM radio staple revived his performing career, and he continues to perform occasionally to delighted audiences.

Spellbound

Artist: Screamin’ Jay Hawkins
Release Date: 2006

If blues singer Jay Hawkins hadn’t gotten incredibly drunk while trying to record a song he didn’t particularly like, would he have become the icon he became? Hawkins always maintained that he didn’t even remember the take that resulted in his notorious 1956 underground hit “I Put a Spell on You,” which, although it never made the charts, was one of those records teenagers passed around, marvelling at his grunts, snorts, bellows, wails and shrieks, as he stumbled his way through a song that was pretty inherently spooky to begin with. Creedence re-introduced it into the rock repertoire as the opening track on their debut album, and it’s stayed there ever since. As for Screamin’ Jay, he embraced the record, making it the centerpiece of a live act that saw him carried onstage in a coffin, brandishing a flaming skull, and wearing outrageous clothing while he sang such memorable numbers as “Constipation Blues,” which became a major hit in Japan.

The Essential Collection

Artist: Tommy McLain
Release Date: 1997

Nobody in Creedence was, in fact, born on the bayou, not even one of the bayous on the Sacramento River, but there was a rich body of rock music that was. Louisiana and east Texas was the touring ground of swamp pop show bands like the Boogie Kings and Randy and the Rockets. Covering soul and country hits of the moment, driven by crackerjack horn sections, and fronted by versatile vocalists, most of these bands were doomed to local obscurity until various British fans rediscovered them in the 1980s. Among the vocalists were such greats as Rod Bernard and Johnnie Allen, but possibly the greatest was pint-sized Tommy McLain, whose version of Don Gibson’s “Sweet Dreams” cracked the national charts in 1969, and whose impossibly pure high voice was — and is — an incredible expressive instrument, and his backup recording bands had some of the best veterans of the swamp pop circuit. Listen to him and you’ll hear a possible source for John Fogerty’s singing style.

The Complete Sun Singles

Artist: Carl Perkins
Release Date: 2000

Carl Perkins influenced Creedence because Carl Perkins was one of any true rocker’s influences. Someone who could write a song about something as silly as blue suede shoes and then play it with such passion that it never occurred to you that his life didn’t depend on them was clearly on the right track. His background, too, was perfect: born to dirt-poor Southerners who worked the fields next to their black neighbors, Carl absorbed the country music and blues around him and forged it into a style that was so tight that there was a week when he had the top record on the pop, country, and rhythm and blues charts — “Blue Suede Shoes,” in fact. Even more germane to the Creedence/Fogerty connection was his guitar style, in which country and blues elements came together in absolute simplicity, but thrilling originality. Although it’s not as simple as it might seem: just ask the Beatles, who really had to work at coming close when they covered his stuff.

Arthur

Artist: Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup
Release Date: 1994

Once again, anyone who plays rock & roll owes something to this Mississippian who began playing the blues when he landed in Chicago in the late 1930s. Elvis Presley’s total reworking of his “It’s All Right, Mama” was the start of the King’s career (and caused a grateful Elvis to pay for an RCA Records session for Crudup after he became a star), but several other of Crudup’s songs also found their way into the rock repertoire, including “My Baby Left Me,” which showed up on Creedence’s album Cosmo’s Factory. Crudup, in common with many artists on RCA’s “race” subsidiary Bluebird, overrecorded like crazy in the 1930s, but he was a popular performer in Chicago clubs, playing to transplanted Southerners like himself, and as blues styles in the Windy City changed, he moved back home, where he was a successful bootlegger by the time Elvis brought his name back into public recognition. He died in 1974, having seen his career revived by a younger generation.

Absolutely The Best

Artist: Lead Belly
Release Date: 2000

Huddie “Lead Belly” Ledbetter was also a powerful influence on rock & roll, but he entered through a different door from most blues singers, having been part of the first American folk revival of the late 1940s, and contributed the first big urban folk hit, “Good Night, Irene,” to the Weavers. The story of his discovery by folklorist Alan Lomax, his subsequent release from prison, and his adoption by the folkies around the left-wing scene which also included Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie is well-known, and this led to his making dozens of records of his music, most of which, it must be said, isn’t really classic blues. Creedence included two of his best-known songs, “Midnight Special” and “Cotton Fields,” on their Willie and the Poor Boys album, and made them their own, which is unsurprising because Creedence, although they recorded the occasional blues song, were more interested in the song part of that term than the blues part.

The Best Of Booker T. And The M.G.’s

Artist: Booker T. And The M.G.’s
Release Date: 1994

John Fogerty was once asked, who was the best rock & roll band in the world? “Booker T and the MGs,” he replied, without hesitation. Superficially, you won’t hear much of the Memphis quartet’s music in Creedence or Fogerty’s later solo work; their contribution is subtle. What you hear when you listen to one of their little masterpieces, tossed-off jams on the surface but with surprising depth, is a four-piece machine in perfect working order. It’s almost the platonic ideal of how to take four great players and make a single sound, something that Creedence did, at least in the beginning. Sure, there are solos — Steve Cropper’s guitar in particular — and sure, Booker T’s organ leads the way with the melody, but it’s obvious they’re listening to each other all the time and the exuberance and joy of it all comes shining through.

Burnin’

Artist: John Lee Hooker
Release Date: 1962

Mr. Hooker proposes “boogie.” Messrs. Fogerty and company propose “chooglin’.” Is there a difference, class? Discuss, and show your work. There’s no doubt that the rhythmic, but harmonically static, work of John Lee Hooker played a major role in shaping the jam culture that 1960s rock music gave to the world. Starting with “Boogie, Chillen” in 1949, Hooker’s deceptively primitive-sounding blues, mostly just his voice and his guitar, was popular with a significant sector of the blues audience, as if it was a stern warning against getting too fancy. In the late 1960s, when American guitar bands rediscovered the blues, Hooker’s blueprint was one of the main ones they used for their extended workouts, and Creedence was no exception, since they served up several Hooker covers on their early albums. As always, they weren’t straight copies of the original, and the Stu Cook-Doug Clifford rhythm section came up with the rhythm they called “chooglin’,” which became one of their trademarks.

The Essential Little Richard

Artist: Little Richard
Release Date: 1958

As with Carl Perkins, any rocker who doesn’t claim Richard Penniman as an ancestor is lying. He pioneered things that people today take for granted: wild onstage behavior, ambiguous sexuality, a driving beat, insane shrieking vocal tics, goofy lyrics. On his records, Earl Palmer took just enough swing out of standard blues beats to invent rock & roll drumming. The Beatles covered his stuff, and, of course, so did Creedence, recording “Good Golly, Miss Molly” on Bayou Country. Hard as it may be to believe now, by 1969, when that album came out, Richard had slipped into the shadows (although some knew Jimi Hendrix had toured as his guitarist), but this was as much due to his having spent time in the ministry and renouncing rock & roll — if only for a short while — as anything. His obscurity didn’t last long, and as of 2007, he was still going strong, showing up in films, on television, and occasional live shows, reminding the youngsters how it’s done.

The Best Of Hank Williams

Artist: Hank Williams
Release Date: 2002

After Creedence broke up, John Fogerty turned up the “country” knob, first with his one-man bluegrass band, the Blue Ridge Rangers, and later in his solo albums. (It had always been there, but the band wasn’t the best place for it.) And if you’re going to be country, your work will bear echoes of this inventor of modern country music. Williams was the first to add a personal touch to his lyrics, a result of hearing a lot of blues in his youth; this innovation propelled him to the stardom which would long outlast his death at age 29. He also wrote compelling melodies to fit those lyrics, which saw his songs covered by pop artists and even rockers like Fats Domino, whose version of “Jambalaya” was the first many people heard. His small body of work is a cornerstone of American popular music, and alt-country types are still finding out how difficult such simplicity can be.

Classic Sides

Artist: Jimmie Rodgers
Release Date: 2002

Before Hank Williams, there was Jimmie Rodgers, a Mississippian who’d been schooled in the blues and then gone on to hone a repertoire which deftly mixed them with a broad streak of sentimentality. Country’s first superstar, his “blue yodel” and use of the Hawaiian steel guitar in his recordings would form a template for country that lasted until Hank Williams’ innovations expanded the genre’s vocabulary. Nor was it only country musicians who were influenced: Howlin’ Wolf famously said that his trademark “Ah-ooo” was his failed attempt to imitate Rodgers’ yodel. Rodgers’ debt to black music was not only in the “floating verses” from traditional blues he used in some of his songs, but also in his famous recording session with Louis Armstrong, not to mention his friendship with the Carter Family, who were discovered at the same RCA Records audition as he was, and who also partook of black instrumental and lyrical influences.

Sun Recordings

Artist: Roy Orbison

Roy Orbison was all about The Voice. Although his best-known songs, hits like “Running Scared” and “Crying,” can be almost operatic in their tension between backing orchestra and vocal, Orbison started as something of a rockabilly, which is why these lesser-known Sun tracks make sense when we’re talking about John Fogerty. It was clear that Orbison’s band, the Teen Kings, weren’t capable of going all the way with him, but the mixture of their enthusiastic rocking and Roy’s singular voice is a model from which Fogerty could have extrapolated both Creedence and his later solo career. At a point where instrumental expertise seemed to be more highly valued than vocal prowess, Fogerty’s singing could grab you by the ears and make you re-evaluate that. Like Orbison, the idea of a hook was never far from his mind, although his songwriting chops were a bit more sophisticated than “Ooby dooby, ooby dooby, doo-wah, doo-wah, doo-wah.” Not that there’s anything wrong with that!

Originally published here.

Ed Ward

Posted in DUI Attorney Mississippi Articles |

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First Rock And Roll Record

November 15th, 2010 |

Author: DUI Attorney Mississippi

First Rock And Roll Record

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First Rock And Roll Record

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First Rock And Roll Record

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Origins of Rock and Roll

Main article: Origins of rock and roll

More precisely, in musical and social terms, rock and roll was born in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. During that time, processes of active cross-fertilisation took place between country and western music (predominantly played and heard by white people), western swing, and rhythm and blues (R&B), which itself comprised a variety of genres (including, for example, jump blues, Chicago blues, and doo-wop) and was predominantly played and heard by black people. These processes of exchange and mixing were fuelled by shared experiences in the Second World War, and by the spread of radio and records. Several records of this period have been most frequently cited by various authorities as “the first rockoll record.” These include:

Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s Strange Things Happening Everyday (1944)

“Good Rockin’ Tonight” by Roy Brown (1947), later covered by Wynonie Harris

“Rock the Joint” either the original 1949 version by Jimmy Preston or the 1952 version by Bill Haley

“The Fat Man” by Fats Domino, recorded in December, 1949

“Rocket 88″ either Jackie Brenston’s original, recorded on March 5, 1951 with Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm, or Bill Haley’s cover, later in 1951

Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” (recorded on April 12, 1954) a cover of Sonny Dae and His Knights 1953 song

Elvis Presley’s “That’s All Right (Mama)” (recorded in July 1954), a cover of Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s 1946 song.

However, there are many other candidates, and many of the threads which together made up rock and roll music can be traced back to much earlier precursor records. The book What Was the First Rock’n'Roll Record by Jim Dawson and Steve Propes discusses 50 contenders, from Illinois Jacquet’s “Blues, Part 2″ (1944) to Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” (1956), without reaching a definitive conclusion. In their introduction, the authors claim that since the modern definition of rock ‘n’ roll was set by disc jockey Alan Freed’s use of the term in his groundbreaking The Rock and Roll Show on New York’s WINS in late 1954, as well as at his Rock and Roll Jubilee Balls at St. Nicholas Arena in January 1955, they chose to judge their candidates according to the music Freed spotlighted: R&B combos, black vocal groups, honking saxophonists, blues belters, and several white artists playing in the authentic R&B style (Bill Haley, Elvis Presley). The artists who appeared at Freed’s earliest shows included orchestra leader Buddy Johnson, the Clovers, Fats Domino, Big Joe Turner, the Moonglows, Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters, and the Harptones. That, say Dawson and Propes, was the first music being called rock ‘n’ roll during that short time when the term caught on all over America. Because the honking tenor saxophone was the driving force at those shows and on many of the records Freed was playing, the authors began their list with a 1944 squealing and squawking live performance by Illinois Jacquet with Jazz at the Philharmonic in Los Angeles in mid-1944.

Rolling Stone’s Decree versus The King

In 2004, debate was sparked between fans of Elvis Presley as well as many in the music business who claimed “That’s All Right Mama” was the first rock and roll song, and those who feel the proper claimant should be Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock” both songs celebrating their 50th anniversaries in that year. Rolling Stone Magazine took the controversial step of unilaterally declaring Presley’s song the first rock and roll recording.

Presley himself would not have agreed with either view. In his book Race, Rock and Elvis, Michael T. Bertrand quotes him on the subject:

A lot of people seem to think I started this business, but rock ‘n’ roll was here a long time before I came along. Nobody can sing that kind of music like colored people. Let’s face it: I can’t sing like Fats Domino can. I know that.(p. 199)

Timeline of contenders as “The First Rock and Roll Record”

The timeline below sets out some records relevant to a discussion of the “first rockoll record.” Some songs are cited as having important lyrical content, while others are seen as offering important melodic, harmonic or rhythmic influence. These songs include not only hits from the early 1950s when the music emerged on the national and international scene, but also various other precursors to what would become known as rock and roll.

1910s

1916

The first use of the phrase “rocking and rolling” on record seems to have come on Little Wonder # 339, “The Camp Meeting Jubilee” by an unnamed male vocal quartet. This includes the lyrics “We’ve been rockin’ an’ rolling in your arms / Rockin’ and rolling in your arms / In the arms of Moses.” Here the meaning is clearly religious rather than secular.

1920s

1922

“My Man Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll)” by Trixie Smith. Although it was played with a backbeat and was one of the first “around the clock” lyrics, this slow minor-key blues was by no means rock and roll. However, the title and lyrics make this the first recording offering the secular sexual meaning attached to the words rock and roll.

1927

“Kansas City Blues” by Jim Jackson (recorded on October 10, 1927). This was a best selling blues, suggested as one of the first million-seller records. Its melody line was re-used and developed by Charlie Patton (“Going To Move To Alabama”) and Hank Williams (“Move It On Over”) before emerging in “Rock Around The Clock”, and its lyrical content presaged Leiber and Stoller’s “Kansas City”. It contains the line “It takes a rocking chair to rock, a rubber ball to roll,” which Bill Haley would later incorporate into his 1952 recording, “Sundown Boogie.”

1928

“It’s Tight Like That” by Tampa Red with pianist Georgia Tom (Thomas A. Dorsey) (recorded on October 24, 1928) was a highly successful early hokum record, which combined bawdy rural humour with sophisticated musical technique. With his Chicago Five, Tampa Red later went on to pioneer the Chicago small group “Bluebird” sound, while Dorsey became “the father of gospel music”.

“Pine Top’s Boogie Woogie” by Clarence “Pinetop” Smith (recorded on December 29, 1928) was one of the first hit “boogie woogie” recordings, and the first to include classic rock and roll references to “the girl with the red dress on” being told to “not move a peg” until she could “shake that thing” and “mess around”. Smith’s tune itself derives from Jimmy Blythe’s 1925 recording, “Jimmy’s Blues”.

1929

“Crazy About My Baby” by Blind Roosevelt Graves and brother Uaroy, a rhythmic country blues with small group accompaniment. Researcher Gayle Dean Wardlow has stated that this “could be considered the first rock ‘n’ roll recording”. See also the Mississippi Jook Band, 1936.

1930s

1932

“Tiger Rag” by The Washboard Rhythm Kings (later known as the Georgia Washboard Stompers) was a virtually out of control performance, with a rocking washboard and unusually high energy for the early Great Depression. . It opens with a repeated one-note guitar lick that would transform into a chord in the hands of Robert Johnson, T-Bone Walker and others. This is just one of many recordings by spasm bands, jug bands, and skiffle groups that have the same wild, informal feel that early rock and roll had. After the original recording by the Original Dixieland Jass Band in 1917, “Tiger Rag” became not only a jazz standard, but was also widely covered in dance band and march orchestrations.

1934

The Boswell Sisters recorded their song “Rock and Roll”, which refers to “the rolling rocking rhythm of the sea”.

1935

Benny Goodman and his orchestra, with vocalist Helen Ward, recorded the swing tune “Get Rhythm in Your Feet and Music in Your Soul” in July 1935, with the line “… commence to rock and roll, get rhythm in your feet and music in your soul ….”

1936

“Oh! Red” by The Harlem Hamfats (recorded on April 18, 1936) was a hit record made by a small group of jazz and blues musicians assembled by J. Mayo Williams for the specific purpose of making commercially successful dance records. Viewed at the time (and subsequently by jazz fans) as a novelty group, the format became very influential, and the group’s recordings included many with sex and drugs references.

“Skippy Whippy” and “Hittin’ The Bottle Stomp” by The Mississippi Jook Band (recorded in July 1936), featuring Blind Roosevelt Graves (see 1929), were highly rhythmic instrumental recordings by a guitar-piano-tambourine trio, which had they been recorded two decades later with full amplification would have unquestionably been seen as rock and roll.

“I Believe I’ll Dust My Broom” (recorded on November 23, 1936), “Crossroad Blues” (recorded on November 27, 1936), and other recordings by Robert Johnson, while not particularly successful at the time, directly influenced the development of Chicago blues and, when reissued in the 1960s, also strongly influenced later rock musicians.

1937

“Sing, Sing, Sing” by Benny Goodman (written by Louis Prima) featured repeated drum breaks by Gene Krupa, whose musical nature and high showmanship presaged rock and roll drumming.

“Rock It For Me” by Ella Fitzgerald, with Chick Webb and his Orchestra, was a swing number featuring the lyrics “…Won’t you satisfy my soul, With the rock and roll?”

1938

“Rock Me” by Sister Rosetta Tharpe (recorded on October 31, 1938), a gospel song written by Thomas Dorsey as “Hide Me In Thy Bosom” which Tharpe performed in the style of a city blues, with ecstatic vocals and electric guitar. She changed Dorsey’s “singing” to “swinging,” and the way she rolled the “R” in “rock me” led to the phrase being taken as a double entendre, interpretable as religious or sexual. Many rock and roll stars, including Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Little Richard, have cited her music and energetic performance style as an influence.

“Ida Red” by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys, a Western swing band, featuring electric guitar by Eldon Shamblin. The tune was recycled again some years later by Chuck Berry in “Maybellene”.

“Roll ‘Em Pete” by Pete Johnson and Joe Turner (recorded on December 30, 1938), an up-tempo boogie woogie with a hand-clapping back beat and a masterful collation of blues verses

1939

“Rockin’ Rollin’ Mama” by Buddy Jones, a 12-bar blues played in Western swing style by a white country singer and his band, including Moon Mullican on piano, featuring the following lines:

Waves on the ocean, waves in the sea,

But that gal of mine rolls just right for me

Rockin’ rollin’ mama, I love the way you rock and roll

You ease my troubled mind and pacify my weary soul”.

1940s

1940

“New Early In The Morning” and “Jivin’ The Blues” (both recorded on May 17, 1940) by John Lee “Sonny Boy” Williamson, both examples of the very influential and popular rhythmic small group Chicago blues recordings on Lester Melrose’s Bluebird label, and among the first on which drums (by Fred Williams) were prominently recorded.

“Down the Road a Piece” by the Will Bradley Orchestra, a smooth rocking boogie number, was recorded in August of this year with drummer “Eight Beat Mack” Ray McKinley sharing the vocals with the song’s writer, Don Raye. The song would go on to become a rock and roll standard, recorded by hundreds of rock artists, among them being Amos Milburn, Chuck Berry, The Rolling Stones, Jerry Lee Lewis, Foghat, and Bruce Springsteen. But the 1940 original by Will Bradley holds up as the first truly rocking version of the song.

The “eight beats” in McKinley’s nickname and the popular phrase “eight to the bar” in many songs indicate the newness of the shift from the four beats per bar of jazz to boogie woogie’s eight beats per bar that is characteristic of rock and roll to this day.

“Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy” by The Andrews Sisters contains numerous proto-rock and roll elements. This is the group’s best-known example, though they also recorded other proto-rock recordings such as “Beat Me Daddy Eight to the Bar.”It is notable is that both of these songs were written by the same man, namely, Don Raye.

1942

“Flying Home” by Lionel Hampton and his Orchestra, tenor sax solo by Illinois Jacquet, recreated and refined live by Arnett Cobb, a model for rock and roll solos ever since: emotional, honking, long, not just an instrumental break but the keystone of the song. The Benny Goodman Sextet had a popular hit in 1939 with a subdued “jazz chamber music” version of the same song featuring guitarist Charlie Christian. In 1944, Jacquet recorded an even more “honking” solo on “Blues, Part 2″, billed as by “Jazz at the Philharmonic”.

“Mean Old World” by T-Bone Walker is an early classic by this hugely influential guitarist, often cited as the first song in which he fully found his sound. B. B. King credits Walker as inspiring him to take up the electric guitar, but his influence extends far beyond the blues to jazz and of course rock and roll. “Mean Old World” has a one-chord guitar lick in it which would be further developed by fellow Texas bluesman Goree Carter, Elmore James and most famously, Chuck Berry. Walker’s 1947 “T-Bone Jumps Again” and “T-Bone Shuffle” also show off his picking prowess.

1943

“The Joint is Really Jumpin’ at Carnegie Hall” performed by Judy Garland and Jose Iturbi in the film Thousands Cheer is notable not only for its boogie-woogie arrangement but for the lyric “when they start to rock” which uses the word “rock” in a purely musical sense (as opposed to its more common use at this time as a double entendre for sex). But Garland was far from being the first to use the term “rocking” in a musical sense in a movie. She was beaten to it by 5 years, because in 1938, Gertrude Niesen sang the song “Rockin’ The Town” in the movie, Start Cheering, and The Boswell Sisters five years before in Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round with “Rock and Roll” (although it should be noted the Boswell song is strictly about the rocking and rolling of ocean waves and has no musical or sexual reference).

1944

“Straighten Up and Fly Right” by the Nat King Cole Trio, very light on the rocking, but a popular hit with lyrics from an African American folk tale, sounding similar to Bo Diddley but without the big beat.

“I Wonder” and “Cecil’s Boogie” by Cecil Gant, early black ballad performances that became widely popular, the first of the black tenors. Cecil’s Boogie had many rock n roll undertones.

1945

“The Honeydripper” by Joe Liggins (recorded on April 20, 1945), synthesized boogie-woogie piano, jazz, and even the riff from the folk chestnut “Shortnin’ Bread” into an exciting dance performance that topped the R&B “race” charts for 18 weeks.

“Guitar Boogie” by Arthur “Guitar Boogie” Smith, the first boogie woogie played on the electric guitar, and much imitated by later country boogie guitarists.

1946

Louis Jordan’s “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie” (recorded in January 1946) and “Let the Good Times Roll” (as well as 1945’s “Caldonia”) were hugely influential in style and content, and popular across both black and white audiences. Their producer Milt Gabler went on to produce Bill Haley’s hits, and Jordan’s guitarist Carl Hogan, on such songs as “Ain’t That Just Like A Woman” (also 1946), was a direct influence on Chuck Berry’s guitar style.

“House of Blue Lights” by Freddie Slack and Ella Mae Morse (recorded on February 12, 1946), the first white artists to perform what is now seen as R&B.

“Boogie Woogie Baby,” “Freight Train Boogie” and “Hillbilly Boogie” by The Delmore Brothers, featuring harmonica player Wayne Raney, were typical up-tempo recordings, heavily influenced by the blues, by this highly influential country music duo, who had first recorded in 1931. One of their most influential records, “Blues Stay Away From Me”, was recorded in 1949.

1947

“Move It On Over” by Hank Williams, which used a similar melody to Jim Jackson’s 1927 “Kansas City Blues” and which was itself used in “Rock Around The Clock”.

“Ten Gallon Boogie” and other tracks by Pee Wee King and his Golden West Cowboys presage “Rock Around the Clock.” Their vocals were standard pop/western, but their arrangements and melodies, opening with aggressive accordion chords linked it to Bill Haley and the Comets’ Johnny Grande who played that instrument in the Comets’ early work as a Western Swing band and later playing rock on some films and touring.

“Oakie Boogie” by Jack Guthrie, a Western swing country boogie.

“Good Rocking Tonight”, in separate versions by Roy Brown and Wynonie Harris (recorded on December 28, 1947), both black artists. Brown’s original version is a jump blues that parodies gospel music, and for the first time fuses the spiritual sense of “rocking” with the secular meanings of dancing and sex. Harris’ version is much more up-beat and rhythmic, closer to rock and roll, and led to a craze for blues with “rocking” in the title. Later spiritedly covered by Elvis Presley and less spiritedly by Pat Boone.

“We’re Gonna Rock, We’re Gonna Roll” by Wild Bill Moore (recorded on December 18, 1947), the first commercially successful “honking” sax record, with the title as a background chant.

“I Can’t Be Satisfied” by Muddy Waters, recorded in 1947 and first released in 1948, which contains all the elements of what would soon become rock n’ roll: a bass/snare/electric guitar combo playing blues with a heavy backbeat. The single was a big hit in the Chicago area. Recorded by local record company Aristocrat, it was one of the last singles on the label before it changed its name to Chess Records, which became one of the most important players in the early development of rock n’ roll and electric blues music.

1948

“Chicken Shack Boogie” by Amos Milburn, a piano-led boogie with references to out-of-hours drinking and cavorting, which became a huge hit.

“Rovin’ Eyes” by Bill Haley and the Four Aces of Western Swing. It is a highly overlooked song that is backed with a standard Western Swing tune called Candy and Women. This song sounds like the later Bill Haley. It has all the elements of 50’s Rock ‘n’ Roll. The song was pretty fast for its time and almost broke the boundaries of Western Swing.

1949

“Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee” by Stick McGhee and his Buddies (recorded on February 14, 1949), an early “party” song later recorded by Jerry Lee Lewis.

“Rock And Roll” by Wild Bill Moore, actually recorded the previous year. A rocking boogie where Moore repeats throughout the song “Were going to rock and roll, we’re going to roll and rock” and ends the song with the line, “Look out mamma going to do the rock and roll.”

Another song was “Rock and Roll Blues” by Erline ‘Rock and Roll’ Harris, a female singer, with the lyrics “I’ll turn out the lights, we’ll rock and roll all night”

“We’re Gonna Rock this Joint Tonight”, also known as “Rock the Joint”, first recorded by Jimmy Preston in May 1949, is often considered a prototype rock and roll song. It was covered in 1951 by Jimmy Cavallo and in 1952 by Bill Haley and the Saddlemen; Marshall Lytle, bass player for the Comets, claims this was one of the songs that inspired Alan Freed to coin the phrase “rock and roll” to refer to the music he played.

“Saturday Night Fish Fry” by Louis Jordan and his Tympany Five (recorded on August 9, 1949) was a large and influential hit. The song tells of a New Orleans fish fry that ends with a police raid and has the repeated refrain “It was rocking”.

“The Fat Man” by Fats Domino (recorded on December 10, 1949), featuring Fats on wah-wah mouth trumpet, the first of his 35 Top 40 hits. The insistent back beat of the rhythm section dominates. The song is based on “Junker’s Blues”, by Willie “Drive’em Down” Hall.

“Rock Awhile” by Goree Carter, recorded on the Freedom label in Houston, Texas. It opens with an insistent version of T-Bone Walker’s one-chord electric guitar lick, which would be made famous later by Chuck Berry on “Maybelline.”

“Rag Mop” by Johnnie Lee Wills and Deacon Anderson is a novelty tune; the lyrics are simply the title spelled out. The song is best known from its 1950 hit recording by the Ames Brothers.

1950s

1950

“Rock Me to Sleep,” written by Benny Carter and Paul Vandervoort II and recorded by Helen Humes backed by the Marshall Royal Orchestra.

“Birmingham Bounce” by Hardrock Gunter, one of the first references to “rockin’” on the dance floor.

“(Gonna Rock and Roll) Gonna Dance All Night” by Hardrock Gunter, released after Birmingham Bounce, the main lyric stating “Gonna Rock and Roll, Gonna Dance All Night” may be the first use of the phrase “Rock and Roll” in a purely musical context.

“Hot Rod Race” performed by Arkie Shibley and His Mountain Dew Boys, highlighting the role of fast cars in teen culture.

“Sixty Minute Man” by the Dominoes (recorded on December 30, 1950). This was the first (and most explicit) big R&B hit to cross over to the pop charts, and the group itself (featuring Clyde McPhatter) appeared at many of Alan Freed’s early shows.

1951

“How High The Moon” by Les Paul and Mary Ford (recorded on January 4, 1951), the first big hit record to use electronic “gimmicks” like overdubbing, and one of the first with an electric guitar solo.

“Rocket 88″ (recorded on March 5, 1951) by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (actually Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm), and covered later in the year by Bill Haley and the Saddlemen. Both versions of this song have been declared the definitive first rock and roll record by differing authorities. Brenston’s was highly influential for its sound and lyrical content, and was a big hit. It reached #1 on the Billboard Rhythm and Blues chart on 9 June 1951 and set Sun Records on the road to success. Haley’s version was one of the first white covers of an R&B hit, and set the course of his future career. Haley ’s version had more drive to it, and the vocals were improved..

“Boogie Woogie Blues”, recorded in New York in mid-May 1951 by Charlie Graci. Later he would add an “e” to his name and, in 1957, his original version of “Butterfly” would sell more than two million copies.

1952

“Hound Dog” by Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton (recorded on August 13, 1952), a raucous R&B song recorded with Johnny Otis’ band (uncredited for contractual reasons), written by white teenagers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller..

“Rockin’ An’ Rollin’”. Recorded by Charlie Gracie in New York in 1952.

1953

“Gee” by The Crows (recorded on February 10, 1953). This was a big hit in 1954, and is credited by rock n roll authority, Jay Warner, as being “the first Rock n Roll hit by a rock and roll group”.

“Crazy Man, Crazy” by Bill Haley and his Comets (recorded in April 1953) was the first of his recordings to make the Billboard pop chart. This was not a cover, but an original composition. Haley said he heard the phrase at high-school dances his band was playing.

“Mess Around” by Ray Charles (recorded in May 1953), one of his first hits. It was written by Ahmet Ertegn, with some lyrics riffing off of the 1929 boogie woogie classic, “Pinetop’s Boogie Woogie”.

1954

“Shake, Rattle and Roll” by Big Joe Turner (recorded on February 15, 1954), covered later by Bill Haley and his Comets. Turner’s version topped the Billboard R&B chart in June 1954. Haley’s version, which was substantially different in lyric and arrangement, actually predating the success of “Rock Around the Clock” by several months though it was recorded later. Elvis Presley’s later 1956 version combined Haley’s arrangement with Turner’s lyrics, but was not a substantial hit..

“Sh-Boom” by the Chords (recorded on March 15, 1954), and The Crew-cuts. In this case, the latter was a pale imitation. The song is considered a pioneer of the doo-wop variant.

“Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and his Comets (recorded on April 12, 1954) was the first number one rock and roll record. This song is often credited with propelling rock into the mainstream, at least the teen mainstream. At first it had lack-luster sales but, following the success of two other Haley recordings, the aforementioned “Shake Rattle and Roll” and “Dim, Dim The Lights”, was later included in the movie Blackboard Jungle about a raucous high-school, which exposed it to a wider audience.. The song had first been recorded in late 1953 by Sonny Dae & His Knights, a novelty group led by Paschal Vennitti, whose recording had become a modest local hit at the time Haley recorded his version.

“That’s All Right (Mama)” by Elvis Presley (recorded in July 1954); this cover of Arthur Crudup’s tune was Elvis’ first single. Its b-side was a rocking version of Bill Monroe’s bluegrass song “Blue Moon Of Kentucky”, itself recognized by various rock singers as an influence on the music..

“I Got a Woman” by Ray Charles (recorded in November 1954); composed with band mate Renald Richard, and first performed while on tour with T-Bone Walker, this was not only Charles’ first really big hit, but is also widely considered to be the first soul song, combining gospel and R&B.

1955

“Bo Diddley” by Bo Diddley (recorded on March 2, 1955)..

“Maybellene” by Chuck Berry (recorded on May 21, 1955)..

“Tutti Frutti” by Little Richard (recorded on September 14, 1955)..

“Blue Suede Shoes” by Carl Perkins (recorded 19 December 1955), including elements of rockabilly and country music. Later made more famous by Elvis Presley, Perkins’ original version was an early rock ‘n’ roll standard..

References

^ G. F. Wald, Shout, Sister, Shout!: The Untold Story of Rock-and-Roll Trailblazer Sister Rosetta Tharpe (Beacon Press, 2008).

^ a b http://www.hoyhoy.com/dawn_of_rock.htm

^ a b c d e f g h i j k l m n o p q r s t u v w x y Jim Dawson and Steve Propes, What Was The First Rock’n'Roll Record, 1992, ISBN 0-571-12939-0

^ Little Wonder Records, Bubble Books, Emerson, Victor, Harper, Columbia, Waterson, Berlin and Snyder

^ Trixie Smith

^ Trail of the Hellhound: Jim Jackson

^ a b c Peter J. Silvester, A Left Hand Like God : a history of boogie-woogie piano (1989), ISBN 0-306-80359-3.

^ Gayle Dean Wardlow, Chasin’ That Devil Music, 1998

^ Press release – Roots of Rock and Roll to be honored with Blues Trail Marker

^ Yanow, Scott, “Washboard Rhythm Kings: Biography”

^ Sleevenotes to CD Let’s Get Drunk And Truck, Fabulous FABCD 253, 2003

^ Blind Roosevelt Graves and Brother

^ “Sister Rosetta” Tharpe (19151973) – Encyclopedia of Arkansas

^ Wald, Gayle, Shout, Sister, Shout!, p. 42

^ Wald, Gayle, Shout, Sister, Shout!, p. ix

^ Bob Wills

^ a b c d e f g h i j k l Nick Tosches, Unsung Heroes Of Rock’n'Roll, 1991, ISBN 0-436-53203-4

^ The Straight Dope: Who invented the term “rock ‘n’ roll”?

^ Biography: John Lee Williamson

^ The Andrews Sisters Bio

^ Helen Oakley Dance and B. B. King, Stormy Monday, p. 164

^ Dahl, Bill, T-Bone Walker: Biography

^ NPR’s Jazz Profiles: Nat “King” Cole

^ Delmore Brothers at Country Musc Hall of Fame

^ Delmore Brothers discography

^ http://www.hoyhoy.com/

^ Erline Harris

^ Goree Carter

^ Warner, Jay, American Singing Groups: A History from 1940s to Today (2006), published by Hal Leonard Corporation, at page 137

^ Lydon, Michael, Ray Charles: Man and Music, p. 95

^ Lydon, Michael, Ray Charles: Man and Music, p. 113

^ Ray Charles (inducted 1986), Rock and Roll Hall of Fame & Museum

First Rock And Roll Record

November 7th, 2010 |

Author: DUI Attorney Mississippi

First Rock And Roll Record

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