RealAudio origins of rock

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RealAudio origins of rock (to 1964)

"The Twist was a form of therapy for a convalescing nation," Eldridge Cleaver declared in Soul on Ice, explaining how white folk were struggling to reclaim "their Bodies again after generations of alienated and disembodied existence... They were swinging and gyrating and shaking their dead little asses like petrified zombies trying to regain the warmth of life..."

This page is mostly based on James Miller's "Flowers in the Dustbin: the rise of rock and roll 1947-1977" and attempts to add an interactive soundtrack to that book (along with a summary of the main points). But instead of hosting the music clips locally, we can just piggyback off Amazon's huge library of RealAudio samples. (So as not to piss off Amazon, I link their clips via the album pages rather than directly. Using multiwindow surfing makes this less annoying.)

Reviews of Miller's book: a rave, and a pan that suggests some omissions. Amazon page

The central question is:

How did the rock genre crystallise out of its forerunners?

My own earliest pop-radio memories are early 60s tunes like "Swing on a Star", "Can't Get Used to Losing You", and "Why Do the Birds Go on Singing?" so this is for me a disentangling of many threads that I first encountered in no chronological order at all.

I think the things to listen for in these mostly-30-second clips are 1) the rhythm, and 2) the attitude towards life that rhythm expresses. Are the musicians content with their lot? Do they expect to be able to change it? If a white performer could have duplicated the black sound at the time, how would white society have reacted?

Ragtime to stride [MIDI illustrations]

The evolution of boogie woogie from Jelly Roll Morton's 1923 New Orleans Joys to Meade Lux Lewis's 1927 Honky Tonk Train Blues to Clarence "Pine Top" Smith's 1929 Pine Top's Boogie Woogie. (samples)

1930s: Wynonie Harris hears Joe Turner's "riffing style of swing" at the Sunset Club in Kansas City. If you only listen to one clip on this page, make it Turner's 1936 Roll 'Em Pete, which is fully 20 years ahead of its time (by the white calendar). [Turner bio]

Dec 1938 John Hammond's 'Spirituals to Swing' concert in NYC features Big Joe Turner

The words 'rock' and 'roll' had been in common use from Trixie Smith's 1922 blues My Man Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll) to the Andrews-Sisters-like Boswell Sisters' 1934 Rock and Roll to Erskine Hawkins' 1938 swing jazz Rockin' Rollers' Jubilee.

1928 Cannon's Jug Stompers "Viola Lee Blues"

One source of innovation was continual experimentation with mixing and matching different existing genres. For example, Jimmie Rodgers' 1928 hit Brakeman's Blues was a big hit by combining folk with blues. [bio]

swing -> 'jump'
Count Basie's One O'Clock Jump

electric guitar "fluid and hornlike solos" or "percussive and riffing"
Les Paul's Everybody Knew But Me [profile]
T-Bone Walker (sample)
Oscar Moore/King Cole Trio
Merle Travis

1938: Saxophonist Louis Jordan leaves Chick Webb's sax section to form his Tympany Five. This might well mark the beginnings of what we know as Rock and Roll. ('before' samples) Bounce The Ball (Do Da Ditle Um Day)

1940: Glenn Miller's "Blueberry Hill" Kay Kyser version, Jimmy Dorsey version

WW2 shellac shortage causes majors to trim marginal genres from their catalogs; postwar shift from radio to TV causes majors to ignore regional programming; blacks earning more, buying radios and phonographs

1943: Syd Nathan founds King Records in Cincinnati (hillbilly)
Al Dexter's folk smash Pistol Packing Mama
1944: Louis Jordan's race smash "GI Jive" ghetto imagery Saturday Night Fish Fry

Wynonie Harris's "Bloodshot Eyes"

1945: Wynonie Harris's Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well?
melodramatic delivery of inane off-color novelties

1946: King Records adds 'race music' Bull Moose Jackson's I Want a Bowlegged Woman
"Work With Me Annie" "Annie Had a Baby"

1947: Turner & Harris duet Battle of the Blues (lame clip)
Dusty Fletcher's Open the Door, Richard
Frankie Laine's That's My Desire white sounding black
Ahmet Ertegun founds Atlantic Records in Washington DC

1948; Billboard adds charts for 'folk' and 'race'

1948: Wynonie Harris's Good Rockin' Tonight
Joe Lutcher's Rockin' Boogie
Wild Bill Moore's "We're Gonna Rock, We're Gonna Roll"; "Rock and Roll"
Roy Brown's Rockin' at Midnight
Jimmy Preston's Rock the Joint
[etc]

1948: Fender solid-body electric guitar
John Lee Hooker's Boogie Chillen
Arthur Smith's "Guitar Boogie"
Les Paul's "Hip-Billy Boogie" w/tape overdub

1948: Pee Wee King's folk hit "Tennessee Waltz"

1949: Dewey Phillips (white) deejays race music show 'Red Hot and Blue' in Memphis (Delta blues, Chicago blues, boogie) (unseating urbane jazz?) Elvis is listening
Muddy Waters' "She Moves Me" [others]
Elmore James's Dust My Broom

Billboards folk -> c&w; race -> r&b

Atlantic's blues novelty Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee also "Teardrops From My Eyes" (1950)

?: Ink Spots' "My Happiness" "That's When Your Heartaches Begin" [others]

1950: Erskine Hawkins' "Tennessee Waltz" jazz-dirge version of folk hit
Patti Page's Tennessee Waltz w/overdubbed harmonies
Les Paul and Mary Ford's Tennessee Waltz

The Weavers' "Goodnight Irene"

Teardrops From My Eyes Ertegun asks Ruth Brown (black) to sing less like Doris Day, more like a "real Negro" -> "urbanized, watered-down versions of real blues" (Ertegun quote)

1951:Todd Storz invents Top 40 format of constant repetition in Omaha Nebraska, seeing how people play jukebox (radio veterans appalled)
Johnnie Ray's "Cry" white sounding black
Charles Brown's "Hard Times" (Leiber & Stoller) [other]
Alan Freed reluctantly deejays r&b show 'Moondog House' in Cleveland "a rock and roll session with blues and rhythm records" 1955 NYC Freed soundcheck

Joe McCarthy names the Weavers

Dominoes "Sixty Minute Man"

1952: Bill Haley's Crazy Man Crazy

1953: Willie Mae 'Big Mama' Thornton's Hound Dog (Leiber & Stoller)
Elvis records demo acetates of two Ink Spots tunes at Sam Phillips studio ($3 each)
Elvis's sources
Sam wants to make a billion with someone white who sounds black
Little Junior Parker's Feeling Good Sun's first hit, boogie parody

Jackie Wilson "Rags to Riches"

r&b -> 'cat'

1954: doo-wop
Crows' Gee ditto
Chords' Sh-Boom (black)
Crew-cuts' Sh-Boom ditto (white)
Penguins' Earth Angel

soul "Without You"
Elvis's That's All Right (goofing around blues) "Blue Moon of Kentucky", "Good Rockin' Tonight"

Elvis opens for Slim Whitman (of Indian Love Call fame) nervously jiggling leg, imitating Hollywood's Tony Curtis, James Dean -> Hillbilly Cat

Alan Freed moves to NYC, loses 'Moondog' name, picks 'rock and roll' (unseating laid-back black deejays)
Ray Charles's I Got A Woman (jump blues)

Louisiana Hayride host: "I'd like to know how you came up with that rhythm and blues style (because that's all it is)."
Elvis: "Well, sir, to be honest, we just stumbled upon it."
Host: "You're mighty lucky, you know. They've been looking for something new in the folk music field for a long time now. I think you've got it."

1955: Alan Freed's Rock 'n' Roll Ball" draws huge, half-white audience

'Blackboard Jungle' launches Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" "the loudest music most people had ever heard" riots in theaters, seen by John Lennon

Fats Domino's "Ain't It a Shame" piano triplets
Gale Storm's "I Hear You Knockin'" r&b for Dot Records (Nashville area)
Pat Boone's "Ain't That a Shame"
Chuck Berry's Maybellene
Little Richard's Tutti Frutti
Frankie Lyman's "Why Do Fools Fall In Love?"

Big Joe Turner's Shake, Rattle, and Roll

'Rebel Without a Cause'

1956: Carl Perkins's "Blue Suede Shoes" Elvis's Heartbreak Hotel "I Want You, I Need You" (protean vocal styles)
Fats Domino's Blueberry Hill

Dominoes "St Therese of the Roses"
Platters' "The Great Pretender", "My Prayer"

Lonnie Donegan's skiffle version of "Rock Island Line"

Elvis sings "Hound Dog" on Milton Berle Show with bump and grind, then to a dog on Steve Allen Show

1957: Mailer's white Negro theory

Ricky Nelson's "I'm Walking"

Dick Clark takes over American Bandstand

Pat Boone's "Love Letters in the Sand"

McCartney teaches Lennon "Be-Bop-a-Lula" and "Twenty Flight Rock"

Sam Cooke "You Send Me"
Johnny Mathis "Chances Are"

Elvis "Jailhouse Rock"

1958: Elvis drafted

Little Richard switches to gospel
Chuck Berry jailed

Kingston Trio's "Tom Dooley"

1959

Howlin' Wolf "Good Morning Little School Girl"

Joe Williams w/Count Basie Well All Right, Okay, You Win

Fifteen-minute soundcheck of 1959's Top 40 countdown

Anthology CDs: Rockabilly Fever

charts, vets' picks

1960

Elvis "It's Now or Never"

1961 Robert Johnson's 1936 blues recordings rediscovered some, more, more, more, more

10 Nov Beatles breakthru concert

1962 Isley Brothers "Twist and Shout"

Rolling Stones discover Robert Johnson

1963

Beatles "Please Please Me"

Kingsmen's Louie, Louie [brouhaha]

Rolling Stones first single Chuck Berry's "Come On" and Muddy Waters' "I Want to be Loved"

Dylan's 2nd album

Peter, Paul and Mary's "Blowin in the Wind"

10 Nov 1963 Beatles perform for royal family

1964 Martha and the Vandellas "Dancing in the Street"

9 Feb 1964 Beatles on Ed Sullivan

Stones "Mona" tops Bo Diddley

Spring: Dylan mobbed at Royal Festival Hall

"Hard Day's Night" movie

28 Aug 1964 Dylan gets he Beatles high

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