The simple answer? There was no “first”.
Musical styles have always been an evolution, a progression. The various styles and genres have always been layers built on previous expressions and added to, subtracted from, and slightly modified from other’s visions. There have been noticeable instances that ushered in a new, more distinct direction. Some of that evolution could be: “Blues” for raw emotion and the dominant guitar, “Gospel for uplift and abandon, and “Jump/Swing” for rhythm and rebellion.
Let’s start with the term “Rock and Roll” and then look at some contenders for the title of First Rock and Roll Record:
As for the origins of the term “rock ‘n’ roll”: according to the State of Ohio, which erected a plaque in commemoration, it was popularized by the DJ Alan Freed, who, from 1951, played the music on his “Moondog House Rock ‘n’ Roll Party” radio show. But the term has history going back long before Freed’s days. In 1933 the Boswell Sisters performed, on film, a song called “Rock and Roll”; in a stylized maritime setting, the three singers sit aboard a mocked-up boat that is rocking and rolling — though this is just one big visual euphemism: the term’s origins are sexual.
In 1922, for instance, blues singer Trixie Smith sang, simmeringly, “My Man Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll)”.
But “rock ‘n’ roll” had connotations that were sacred, too. In a 1910 recording, the black vocal harmony group the Male Quartette sing about “rocking and rolling/in the arms of Moses”.
The 1951 hit Rocket 88 from Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats is considered by many to be the first rock ’n’ roll record. Brenston was a saxophonist, the Delta Cats a R&B band led by Ike Turner; together they created an explosive song that is considered by many historians of popular music to be the first rock ‘n’ roll record. Among the factors that have led to the singling out of “Rocket 88” is the fuzzy guitar sound, achieved thanks to a damaged loudspeaker (pop history is littered with damaged speakers: see The Kinks’ “You Really Got Me”).
But was “Rocket 88” actually the first rock ‘n’ roll record? It’s tempting to reduce musical history to a series of key “moments” but in truth it is a process, and “Rocket 88” was only the latest in a series of recordings that took the structure of the 12-bar blues and, both figuratively and literally, electrified it.
Even if “Rocket 88” wasn’t the first rock ‘n’ roll record, it marks a turning point: it’s about a car, the coveted Oldsmobile Rocket 88. Boogie-woogie is the sound of a train running along the tracks, a connection made explicit in Louis Jordan’s 1946 hit “Choo Choo Ch’Boogie”
(“Take me right back to the track, Jack”) but, by the 1950s, black Americans were moving north, earning better money and buying cars. “Rocket 88” is a song about mobility, with the car also serving as a metaphor for sexual prowess.
That song’s immediate antecedents were the “jump blues” or “jump‘n’jive” songs of players such as Chris Powell and Louis Jordan.
Check out Jordan’s “Caldonia”:
from 1945 (and don’t get distracted by the subplot involving Jordan being attacked by his wife with a knife). The roots of rock ‘n’ roll are clearly audible: the bassline, the beat, the energy. The bassline in all these songs, played on an upright bass, is a direct descendant of the left-hand in boogie-woogie piano, the blues-based form that became a craze in the 1930s and 1940s, popularised by players such as Albert Ammons, Pete Johnson and Meade Lux Lewis. This music emerged from the logging camps of Texas and Louisiana and has been dated back as far as the 1870s; these camps would have had a shed, a supply of drink and a piano. There were even pianos aboard the trains carrying workers from one camp to the next.
“That’s All Right, Mama” – Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup (1946)
In 1940, Arthur Crudup was reportedly living in a packing crate near an L train station in Chicago, playing songs on the street for tips. Things got better for him as the decade went on, and he landed a recording contract that led to a career as a well-known blues singer and songwriter. In 1946, Crudup recorded his song “That’s All Right, Mama.”
Though it wasn’t a hit at the time, it stands as a convincing front-runner for rock ‘n’ roll’s ground zero. With a tight combo of guitar, upright bass and drums bashing out accompaniment behind Crudup’s raw, powerful voice, it sounds a decade ahead of its time. There’s even a wild guitar solo, prefaced by Crudup shouting, “Yeah, man.” Very rock ‘n’ roll. And the last thirty seconds of the record pick up steam with the kind of unhinged energy that would become an essential element of all great rock records. Soon, Crudup was being called “the Father of Rock ‘n’ Roll.” As shown in the video, Elvis Presley played rhythm guitar on this and eight years later Elvis Presley did a cover record of it for his first single.
“Rock the Joint” – Jimmy Preston & His Prestonians
“Rock the Joint”, also known as “We’re Gonna Rock This Joint Tonight”, was recorded by various proto-rock and roll singers, notably Jimmy Preston and Bill Haley. Preston’s version has been cited as a contender for being “the first rock and roll record”, and Haley’s is widely considered the first rockabilly record. The song’s authorship is credited to Harry Crafton, Wendell “Don” Keane, and Harry “Doc” Bagby.
This song was recorded in 1947 by R & B artist Roy Brown titled “Good Rocking Tonight”.
Brown had originally offered the tune to raspy-voiced singer Wynonie “Mr. Blues” Harris, but Harris turned it down. After Brown had a hit with it, Harris reconsidered, cutting a version that upped the ante. Bouncing boogie woogie piano, honking tenor sax, drums and handclaps accenting the backbeat, and Harris shouting “Hoy, hoy, hoy!” – it all adds up to a raucous glimpse into the future. Again, a young Elvis Presley was listening. In 1954, Elvis released his version of the song. He was also watching Harris’s stage moves included pelvic jabs, lip curl and evangelical wavings of his arms and hands. All would become part of Elvis’s stage persona.
Louis Jordan – Saturday Night Fish Fry (1949)
This huge hit from 1949 (it was one of the first “race” records to cross over to the national charts, although the very popular Jordan had already had earlier crossover hits) combined a lively jump rhythm, call-and response chorus and double-string electric guitar riffs that
Chuck Berry would later admit “To my recollection, Louis Jordan was the first one that I hear play rock and roll.” “Saturday Night Fish Fry” was first recorded by Eddie Williams and His Brown Buddies, which featured the talk-singing vocals of the tune’s composer, New Orleans born Ellis Walsh. The act had recently had a number 2 R&B hit with the song “Broken Hearted”, and “Saturday Night Fish Fry” was intended to be the band’s followup.
However, the acetate for the Williams band version found its way to Louis Jordan’s agent and as Williams later recalled, “They got theirs out there first.” However, Jordan also reconfigured the song, taking a refrain that had been intermittent in Wiliam’s version—”And it was rockin’, it was rocking, you never seen such scuffling and shuffling ’til the break of dawn”—and refocusing it as the recording’s hook, singing it twice after every other verse. The Jordan band also dropped the shuffling rhythm of the Eddie Williams original, accelerating the pace into a raucous, rowdy jump boogie-woogie arrangement.
As I said there is no “first” Rock and Roll record, but these are certainly worth noting as participants in what was to become labeled as such. This subject has and is to be discussed for quite a while and the best that can be done is to look at history and enjoy the recordings and artists that ushered in a significant era of expression in music. I invite and look forward to everyone to add to the discussion.
Aside from it’s birth, now that is undoubtedly here I think Neil Young put it well – “Rock and Roll will never die”. And that is a prime reason for this site.
Thanks to knkx.org, Mentalfloss.com, and others for their contributions.
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