Replies

I'll voice in on some of these choices (from your link). For starters we can ELIMINATE everything from 1954 on. Rock and roll already existed by then (we can dispute what song is more rocking than another but it definitely existed by then). Elvis did not "create" rock and roll (although it could be said that Sam Phillips did have a hand in creating the "sound" (his first Sun hit was a rip off of Leiber and Stoller's "Hound Dog" called "Bear Cat" recorded by Rufus Thomas).

What Elvis did do was put a face/persona to a sound that broke it wide. The Beatles and Nirvana also did this (even though they didn't invent their sounds either).

8 Wynonie Harris: Good Rockin' Tonight (1948)

Actually I think Roy Brown's version from 1948 is more rocking (and his "Butcher Pete" even more so).

24 Jackie Brenston with His Delta Cats: Rocket 88 (1951)

Roadhouse music and an early hit from Ike Turner. The band could play for 8 hours non-stop (different band members would take or leave the stage as needed). Ike learned to play guitar and piano both while sitting at a piano.

25 Dominoes: Sixty Minute Man (1951)

Yeah, this certainly has many of the elements (although the tempo is still just a touch slow). The risque nature of the song adds to it's nomination I'm sure.

Part of my criteria for the "first" rock and roll record is that over the top wild recording. Both swing and jump blues had songs that were really amped up with energy but something just didn't quick click (too polite in some way).

Some of the nominations on that list and many more that are missing are the addition of recording techniques and distortion. Rather than try to say they "aren't" significant, I would rather note those songs separately than trying to make the case they they are/aren't the "first" rock and roll song.

I don't like modern historians' sense of "all or nothing" hyperbole. It's why I do not watch supposedly educational programs on cable (when I am at a friend's or hotel that has cable). Every one I've seen tries to make the case "If it wasn't for (say, Thomas Edison) we'd all still be (...in the dark)." Almost always they ignore the works others build off of or contemporary competitors.

I saw a bit that told us time and time again (with recreated historical footage) how Galileo discovered that the Earth revolved around the Sun and how he really stuck it to the Church/the Man. No mention was made that Galileo read the text of his predecessor, Copernicus. Copernicus was dead before Galileo was born. To over dramatize the contributions of one and totally ignore the work of another puts the whole lesson into question.

I recommend the book from where the list originates. Now, arguing that Rocket88 was the first R'n'R record, is to repeat conventional wisdom, uninteresting. More intriguing (if nothing else) was Selvin's assertion that Haley's version of the tune should be considered as first. I don't think I've heard it.

And Selvin's comment RE: Rip It Up by Haley? I've heard it, I know, but don't recall it. Sure, Presley's version too is "better" than Little Richard's, but the same can be said of Presley's cover of the Drifters Money Honey! Except that the originals of both songs swing like crazy, and with much softer sound - quite magically so, I say, while Elvis pretty much vulgarized both.

I agree with your rant, by the way. The way I hear it, rock'n'roll was inevitable in the early 50s and would have happened if there had been only Luis Jordan, Howlin Wolf and Leiber/Stoller!