[78-L] Rock & Roll rising

[eugene hayhoe]

Joe - Don't forget that Hamp & Wynonie worked & recorded together.


Muddy's early Aristocrat duos with Big Crawford were the Crawford recordings I was referring to.  
As for Knowling, he was not only on Crudup's best known sides, he was also on others by the likes of John Lee Williamson and Big Joe Williams.

Further, it is clear to me that 'a lick vocabulary' was being built up by Christian, T-Bone, and many other late '40s electric guitarists that rolled on to include 'the Chuck Berry licks' when Chuck came around.  And what is ''Rudy's Rock'' other than rehashed Jacquet, Willis Jackson, Big Jay? 

Willis Jackson with the Cootie Williams Orchestra

Gator Tail part 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g_qVyMMRtAk

Gator Tail part 2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gmfpLDfEICs

Milt Gabler was quite open about modeling the Haley records he was associated with after those of Jordan, whom he had also produced on prior occasions.






--------------------------------------------
On Mon, 3/17/14, Joe Scott <joenscott at mail.com> wrote:

 Subject: Re: [78-L] Rock & Roll rising
 To: "78-L Mail List" <78-l at klickitat.78online.com>
 Date: Monday, March 17, 2014, 12:36 PM
 
 "There have been zillions of
 discussions on the distinction between
 Rhythm & Blues and Rock 'n Roll; or the lack of that; on
 what should
 be considered the first rock 'n roll record; and more.
 
 There is no doubt anywhere that rock 'n roll developed from
 rhythm &
 blues - even those who claim that the country & western
 influences
 are essential still recognize the rhythm & blues as the
 originating
 style."
 
 If C&W influence were "essential" to rock and roll then
 Little Richard's "Long Tall Sally" would not be rock and
 roll, and if C&W influence were essential to rock and
 roll then rhythm and blues and C&W would both be "the"
 originating styles. But it's rockabilly that must have both
 of those ingredients, not rock and roll."Country music, or
 by then 'hillbilly' has its roots in the blues too."Among
 many other things. The "hillbilly boogie" sound of the late
 '40s and early '50s was, once "hillbilly" musicians became
 aware of the "Rock The Joint" sound too, one of the
 influences on '50s rockabilly. "Most discussions are about
 where in the development of the style, it should be labeled
 rock 'n roll. I think there are two developments that made
 rock 'n roll: - stylistic: the emerge of the back beat, the
 'rock and roll fad' in Rhythm & Blues from the late
 forties, gospelish delivery getting in fashion, the growing
 emphasis on the guitar over the horns"I don't think emphasis
 on guitar
   has anything to do with what was perceived as rock
 and roll in the '50s (or is perceived as rock and roll by
 me). Suppose during the last half-century you're turning
 around the channels on the TV and you come across Fats
 Domino or Jerry Lee Lewis playing fast over a snare on 2 and
 4. Do you check whether there's a guitarist present before
 you perceive it as rock and roll?"- cultural: segregation,
 crossover, 'teenagification' and commercialization. From a
 predominant black style played by and aimed at mature
 African-Americans"It was aimed mostly at young
 African-Americans."to music played by young white artists"
 If Kay Starr records "Oh Babe" in 1950 I listen to how it
 sounds to evaluate whether it's rock and roll in style. If
 her friend Dinah Washington had made the same recording, it
 would be rock and roll in style. If either of them had been
 as old as Big Joe Turner, it would be rock and roll in
 style. The biographical info on the performer isn't what
 makes the recording 
  sound the way it sounds."aimed at the white teenage
 audience mass marketed with greater budget by the greater
 record labels (together with the indies)."The covers of rock
 and roll by major labels began in 1949 -- black artists
 covering other black artists -- with recordings like "Rock
 The Joint" by Chris Powell on Columbia. Some rock and roll
 non-covers were also made by major labels in 1949, such as
 "Hole In The Wall" by Albennie Jones with Sam Price And His
 Rockin' Rhythm on Decca. Milt Gabler cowrote that song,
 which is the earliest significant participation of a white
 person in the rock and roll style that I know
 of."Stylistically, rock 'n roll-like elements are to be
 found in Rhythm & Blues since the thirties, e.g. Roll
 'em Pete by Pete Johnson and Joe Turner."Blues with backbeat
 represented a tiny proportion of all blues going way back,
 e.g. IIRC the first recording Sid Catlett ever played on, he
 used a backbeat through most of it, but if we listen to
 enough recordings
   from about 1940-1944 we can't claim that there's
 recorded evidence of a _continuous_ tradition going on
 before 1946 or 1947."There are also examples of gospel/blues
 crossover and gospelish delivery of blues to be found at
 least from the thirties."Crossover between gospel and blues
 is a larger topic than rock-and-roll-like music because e.g.
 "Denomination Blues" by Washington Phillips is such a
 crossover but has nothing directly to do with rock and
 roll."They became mainstream in R&B from the late
 forties. From this viewpoint, Rock 'n Roll started somewhere
 around 1948. (Note that 1948 was the recording ban of the
 AFM. Much material released in '48 was recorded in one
 month, December 1947. I wonder how much this has contributed
 to the fad). The generation gap and the crossover aspect are
 cultural aspects that say less of the music itself. They
 both happened in the mid-fifties."Well, the photos of white
 girls crying at the sight of Jay McNeely in Los Angeles as
 if he were Fra
  nk Sinatra (except Frank was 12 years older than Jay, but
 you know what I mean) were taken in 1951."Personally I tend
 to favour the racial/generation approach over the
 stylistical, that's much harder to pinpoint."Prefer it as
 accomplishing what?"Or as I said in one of my radio shows:
 Rock 'n Roll swept the nation when the white kids"When did
 zydeco sweep the nation? (Never.) What does that have to do
 with understanding zydeco?"started playing their version of
 the Rhythm & Blues and the record labels saw the big
 money in it. The raunchy subjects of the blues were changed
 into naive love songs"To some extent, e.g. Chuck Berry
 consciously emphasized songs about school and such, but
 there were plenty of raunchy lyrics in the mid- and late
 '50s and plenty of less raunchy lyrics back around
 1949-1951. ", the sax was thrown in the junkyard"Sax was
 still popular in the late '50s."and teenagers bought the
 records."And did in 1949, most of them black teenagers.
 [...]All significant de
  velopments in popular music since the start of the 20th
 century, have been started in African-American culture and
 crossed over to the white audience after they'd become hot
 and mainstream in 'race music' - whether it were early jazz
 styles, swing or rock 'n roll."Which substyles of American
 popular music are "significant" is a matter of personal
 taste, but show tunes, for instance, are important to me
 (and were important to e.g. Billie Holiday, who I think we
 could say crossed numbers associated with Fred Astaire over
 to the black audience after they'd become hot). The roots of
 swing partly have to do with a lot of white musicians
 dropping brass bass and banjo around the late '20s, which
 relates to the fact that e.g. Eddie Lang's "Freeze An'
 Melt," recorded in May '29, sounds as much like later Chick
 Webb as it does.Joseph Scott
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