[78-L] World's First Rock & Roll Song Identified

[Dan Van Landingham]

Frankie Laine once made the statement that Edgar Hayes' early '30s recording of 
"Star Dust" was
"rock and roll" but then I can say the same of one other performance:an 
August,1940 performan-
ce by Coleman Hawkins doing "I Can't Believe That You're In Love With Me".I have 
that perfor-
mance on both CD and cassette.I can hear the pianist(Gene Rodgers)playing 
triplets behind Haw-
kins.What was needed was to have Fats Heard,the drummer,play a heavy back beat 
behind Ha-
wkins and Rodgers.I thought it was a great performance:the problem was was that 
whomever re-
corded it cut it off after 3 plus minutes.Hawkins' performance reminded me of a 
comment Don
Byas made regarding his tenor sax style;the liner notes on the album quote Byas 
as saying "I don't
play the saxophone,I play the sexophone".Sophomoric humour aside,I'd say he 
wasn't kidding.I
refer back to his 1941 appearance at Minton's and his rather long solo on "Star 
Dust".I don't thi-
nk he was kidding.I'm referring back to that album I had on Springboard 
International where I 

learned Jerry Newman WASN'T the man who privately recorded it.I was dismayed to 
see that
the one CD that is out there has Byas' solo split into two separate tracks.




________________________________
From: Kristjan Saag <saag at telia.com>
To: 78-L Mail List <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
Sent: Tue, November 23, 2010 3:27:57 PM
Subject: Re: [78-L] World's First Rock & Roll Song Identified

Wait a minute.
According to the article Burns also lists six forms of music, that rock 
draws from - three dominant and three sub-dominants:

"He lists the dominant forms of music as blues for the basic chord 
progressions, country for stringed instruments becoming dominant and 
major melody lines and what was then termed "white pop" and "tin pan 
alley" style music for the concept of dance and hit song writing. The 
sub-dominant forms of music, Burns said, are jazz for a boogie-woogie 
beat, gospel for the vocal influence and folk for the influence of 
social concern."
--
I'm sure we could all add a few more forms, if we like, but the above 
isn't bad at all. It's one of the better summaries I've seen.
Kristjan



Cary Ginell wrote:
>
> This guy Burns (who has the misfortune of sharing a surname with another 
>musical revisionist) has got the gall to say he has "identified" the first rock 
>'n' roll record as if it were an archeological dig that everyone else missed. 
>Although it's plausible to rate Crudup's "That's All Right (Mama)" as a 
>progenitor of rock 'n' roll, he lost me when he said that one of the criteria 
>was that the song has "the first ever guitar solo break." Without even breathing 
>hard, I'm sure most of us could identify dozens, if not hundreds of guitar 
>breaks that preceded Crudup's (and he basically only had one at that, which he 
>repeated on all of his records). That statement shows Burns' ignorance and 
>points out that he's merely out to grab a headline rather than treat musical 
>history with any kind of seriousness.
>
> When are these pseudo historians going to realize that there is no such thing 
>as THE first rock 'n' roll record? There doesn't have to be one at all. Rock 'n' 
>roll, like most other musical genres, was the result of a process that took time 
>to develop and change. You can't say that the music wasn't rock 'n' roll one day 
>and it was the next.
>
> The article also spells Sister Rosetta Tharpe's name wrong and says Alan 
>Freed's nickname was "the Moondoogie." That should say enough about this quack's 
>credibility.
>
> Cary Ginell
>
>> From: saxmania at ripco.com
>> Date: Tue, 23 Nov 2010 16:02:52 -0600
>> To: 78-l at klickitat.78online.com
>> Subject: [78-L] World's First Rock&  Roll Song Identified
>>
>>
>> interesting article
>>
>> 
>http://news.discovery.com/human/worlds-first-rock-and-roll-song-identified.html
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