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Post by Allen Wiener on May 25, 2010 20:22:40 GMT -5
Check out this book: "What Was the First Rock & Roll Record"; it lends real perspective to this question and nominates 50 songs that could qualify for the honor. I don't think this question has an answer. I tried researching this one time and got back to something called barrel house piano, boogie woogie, and a few other things. I think Chuck Berry's "Maybelline" was in Billboard's top 20 before Elvis was ever heard of, and "Rock Around the Clock" sure "clocked" in well before "Heartbreak Hotel." I even remember Fats Domino's "Ain't That a Shame" very early on and even Pat Boone's awful cover version, which was the only version on my local juke boxes.
"Rocket 88" by Ike Turner is another candidate, which Sam Phillips recorded long before Elvis. Even earlier, there were Louis Jordan's "Jump Blues" and "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie "
Allen
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Post by Chuck T on Aug 15, 2010 10:39:51 GMT -5
Allen: I read this thread rather late in the game, having only just discovered it this morning.
Frankly I am surprised that this being a Texas oriented forum that Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys did not get a mention. Wills created a form of music that even at this date does not seem old or uninspired.
My vote along with "The Fat Man" for the first Rock and Roll song would be Billy Ward and the Dominoes recording of "Sixty Minute Man" one of my personal favorites. Being from DC and the fact that they are a DC group, I have always enjoyed the Clovers. They would often play at the Howard Theater in DC, right around the corner from where Ellington grew up.
What I find interesting is a piece of music trivia that I once heard, although never verified. "Rock around the Clock" was the first Rock and Roll song to make number one on the pop top ten. It replaced "Cherry Pink and Apple Blosson White" and no one ever looked back.
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Post by TRK on Aug 15, 2010 11:04:36 GMT -5
Chuck, you sound like a man after my own heart, with a razor I was intensively into Bob Wills by the early 1970s. I go in cycles where I'll pull out the old vinyl or the newer cds and put them into rotation. Each of the Playboys' many lineups had its own character; I especially like the early Columbia recordings and their MGM output. Some of their sides from the late 1940s and early '50s sound like proto-Rock & Roll. Look at some of the Playboys who were stars in their own right and hugely influential in their own fields: Eldon Shamblin, Leon McAuliffe, Tommy Duncan, Johnny Gimble, Tiny Moore, etc. etc.
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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 15, 2010 11:10:51 GMT -5
Chuck, you sound like a man after my own heart, with a razor I was intensively into Bob Wills by the early 1970s. I go in cycles where I'll pull out the old vinyl or the newer cds and put them into rotation. Each of the Playboys' many lineups had its own character; I especially like the early Columbia recordings and their MGM output. Some of their sides from the late 1940s and early '50s sound like proto-Rock & Roll. Look at some of the Playboys who were stars in their own right and hugely influential in their own fields: Eldon Shamblin, Leon McAuliffe, Tommy Duncan, Johnny Gimble, Tiny Moore, etc. etc. I'm a big Wills fan as well. Bought the entire Tiffany transcription series back in the 90's. Ahh Haaa!
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Post by Chuck T on Aug 15, 2010 11:16:15 GMT -5
Tom: I still keep my hand into Wills with a setup on Pandora - Bob Wills radio. They will play a lot of Wills along with other music of that generation and the more modern stuff in the same type such as Asleep At The Wheel and others. The music written by Cindy Walker are also among my personal favorites. The Pandora site also introduced me to Tish Hinojosa. I like her stuff a lot. Billy Walker, Ernest Tubb, and the country artists of the fifties are also favorites.
I set up about ten different stations on Pandora with things ranging from The Clancy Brothers to The Country Gentlemen along with Billy Walker, Patsy Cline, Frankie Laine, Glenn Miller, The Clovers as well as the aforementioned Wills and AATW.
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Post by Chuck T on Aug 15, 2010 11:20:52 GMT -5
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Post by Jim Boylston on Aug 15, 2010 11:34:44 GMT -5
Big Cindy Walker fan too. "You Don't Know Me" is one of my top 10 favorite songs of all time.
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Post by Chuck T on Aug 15, 2010 11:43:32 GMT -5
Willie Nelson has an album by that name subtitled "The Songs of Cindy Walker". His rendition of "Don't Be Ashamed Of Your Age" particularly the line about the grey in your hair and how much fun you had putting it there becomes more popular with me on each passing day.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Aug 15, 2010 14:13:10 GMT -5
Bob Wills stuff is definitely on my list of "rock & roll roots music." In fact, it's hard to keep a lot of stuff off that list because I find it hard to form a really clear definition of "rock & roll"; it takes in a lot of forms and has been pretty open-ended. I started a project like this years ago and finally gave it up, concluding that it was impossible to define rock and roll but, like the judge in the famous porn case, I know it when I see it. I probably have babbled this story several times already, but the one time I got to interview Ringo Starr, I asked who his earliest influences were and he listed names like Gene Autry, Hank Williams, Frankie Laine, Johnnie Ray, but then said that it was Elvis who totally turned his head around. And Elvis clearly grew up on this music, along with gospel and blues, each genre funneling into the stuff he churned out. That's why I generally agree that his near-spontaneous recording of "That's All Right (Mama)" is such a seminal moment in rock and roll; it's like most or all of those sounds suddenly emerged in a new form with that recording. Of course, my first recollection of the birth of rock and roll and what was my own "first rock & roll record" was Haley's "Rock Around the Clock." I can still remember quite clearly the first time I heard it on a juke box (over and over and over again!). As I recall, that record had actually been released about a years earlier and was not a big hit, but after it was used during the opening of "Blackboard Jungle" it shot to the top and that was that. Nothing was ever the same again, as someone once said.
Allen
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Post by TRK on Aug 15, 2010 16:48:55 GMT -5
...I got to interview Ringo Starr, I asked who his earliest influences were and he listed names like Gene Autry, Hank Williams, Frankie Laine, Johnnie Ray I wonder if he was channeling Johnnie Ray when he sang "Good Night" on the "White Album" ;D On another tack, I wouldn't leave Louis Jordan off any lists of influential artists. He devised a unique variety of swing/jump blues that featured highly developed story songs, usually with a humorous twist. Like the late '40s/early '50s work of Bob Wills, Jordan's music often has a feel like it's a roadmap to Rock & Roll. Chuck Berry was clearly influenced by him, and we know how influential Chuck was. BB King has singled out Jordan as a huge influence on his work and about ten years ago recorded a tribute album that's one of his best works, "Let the Good Times Roll."
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Post by Chuck T on Aug 15, 2010 17:27:03 GMT -5
Just about anyone of a certain generation will agree that "Heartbreak Hotel" and "Rock Around The Clock" were turning points. My question is does anyone remember the B side of these cuts, hardly mentioned anymore, which had they been the A side would probably have been quite influencial themselves?
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Post by TRK on Aug 16, 2010 16:07:09 GMT -5
I can't speak for the flip side of "Rock Around the Clock," but the flipside of "Heartbreak Hotel" was "I Was the One," a rather downbeat doo-wop song. Whoever put Heartbreak Hotel on the A side was on the right side of history ;D
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Post by Chuck T on Aug 16, 2010 17:36:48 GMT -5
Tom: I take it you are not into down beat doo-wop. "Thirteen Women and Only One Man In Town". Good beat. Lovely thought.
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Post by Allen Wiener on Aug 16, 2010 17:37:51 GMT -5
I'm guessing -- was the B-side "Shake, Rattle & Roll" or "See You Later, Alligator," or none of the above???
Oh, and you're right -- should have thought of Louis Jordan and especially "Choo-Choo-Cha-Boogie."
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Post by Chuck T on Aug 16, 2010 18:50:23 GMT -5
Allen: The B side was "Thirteen Women and Only One Man in Town"
Here's one you should know right off the top of your head. What was the B side to Miller's "Moonlight Serenade?
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