[78-L] Rock & Roll rising (was: Escott, was Arnold Covey)

[eugene hayhoe]

"Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well, that's what I'd like to know?!''




--------------------------------------------
On Fri, 3/7/14, Joe Scott <joenscott at mail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [78-L] Rock & Roll rising (was: Escott, was Arnold Covey)
 To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
 Date: Friday, March 7, 2014, 1:13 PM
 
 Jordan said in a '70s interview that
 Decca asked him to make rock and roll for them and he
 refused because he didn't like it. (After Decca dropped him
 he did end up recording very good rock and roll.)
 As of 1949 there was a fad in secular music for singing
 about rocking over a backbeat ("Rock That Boogie" by Jimmy
 Smith, "Boogie At Midnight" by Roy Brown, "Hole In The Wall"
 by Albennie Jones, "Rockin' All Day" by Jimmy McCracklin,
 etc.). The fad was influenced by the fact that Wynonie
 Harris's "Good Rockin' Tonight" and Bill Moore's "We're
 Gonna Rock" had both been top 3 on the black charts in 1948.
 There was no such fad as of 1946 or any time earlier. There
 was still that fad in 1956. Nothing Little Richard did in
 the late '50s hadn't been done before Sun Records existed
 (check out "Rock H-Bomb Rock" by H-Bomb Ferguson, for
 instance).
 Other than the combination of lyrics about rocking with
 backbeat through most of a tune, there was nothing in
 1949-1950 rock and roll that hadn't been around somewere in
 black music since about 1943, and rock and roll, a new kind
 of jump blues, often sounded largely like Louis Jordan in
 most respects because he was by far the most successful and
 imitated jump blues artist in general. (I agree with
 Malcolm's point that overall there was a lot more to Louis
 Jordan than jump _blues_, but he was so massively popular
 that he was the most popular jump blues artist.)
 The people who made the earliest rock and roll recordings
 tended to be working within the urban black entertainment
 business: at the time they were drawing on the likes of Roy
 Milton far more than the likes of Arthur Crudup.
 Bill Haley became interested in the rock and roll sound in
 1950 and he got the great idea to combine it with
 "hillbilly" music to make rockabilly. Little Richard wasn't
 rockabilly but was rock and roll. Similarly, none of the
 earliest known rock and roll was rockabilly.
 Regarding whether the shaping was purposeful, I'd say it
 was: artists such as Wynonie Harris knew that black people
 mostly associated backbeat with religious music, associated
 the verb "rock" with both religious music ("rock my soul"
 etc.) and with partying, and they created a new secular
 genre based on being playfully sacriligious in a way their
 listeners could understand while they were partying.
 Joseph Scott
 ----- Original Message -----
 From: Malcolm Rockwell
 Sent: 03/07/14 10:12 AM
 To: 78-L Mail List
 Subject: [78-L] Rock & Roll rising (was: Escott, was
 Arnold Covey)
 
 I've always found Louis Jordan interesting. I consider him
 more a crossover novelty act, judging by his choice and
 execution of material, than the more specific R&B, bop,
 big band, combo, etc. descriptions. But it's true that
 R&R drew from all those influences and more while being
 shaped. However I do not think that shaping was purposeful,
 more accidental and/or evolutionary. Could it be possible
 that the dynamism between city and country, black and white,
 standard and non-standard, etc., musical forms is why Rock
 & Roll developed? That's far more likely, in my
 estimation. Malcolm ******* On 3/7/2014 2:30 AM, Mark
 Bardenwerper wrote: > On 3/7/2014 5:08 AM, eugene hayhoe
 wrote: >> Electric guitarist Jimmy Lewis has something
 to say on the topic: >> >> >> http://www.freshsoundrecords.com/the_complete_recordings_1947-1955-cd-2063.html
 >> >> >> I've always found the 'it can't
 be rock and roll yet if they're not white' 'argument'
 bleakly amusing. As Johnny Otis said 'can't they gi
  ve black people credit for anything?' >> >>
 > Point well taken. High on my list would be Louis
 Jordan. > _______________________________________________
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