Happy Birthday Rock’n’Roll

[Bucky Ramone]

It was 50 years ago today…

Quote:

In Memphis, where Elvis Presley lived at Graceland, Sun Studio is sponsoring the 50th Anniversary of Rock N’ Roll Reunion on July 5, marking the half-century since Presley recorded That’s All Right, Mama at the studio.

Although Presley recorded gospel earlier with Sun, That’s All Right was the ‘first real rock `n’ roll song” he did for the studio, according to its president, John Schorr. It wasn’t the first-ever recording in that genre; that honor is disputed. Rocket 88, cut at Sun in 1951 by a band that included Ike Turner and Jackie Brenston, is one candidate.

But in the segregated America of the 1950s, it took a white singer with a sense of salesmanship to market the marriage of blues, country and other styles that was rock ‘n’ roll, Schorr said.

That’s why Presley’s recording is ‘widely regarded as the opening shot of the big bang of rock `n’ roll,” he said.

[SG]

I`d say the first rock n roll record was Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston too but there`s plenty of jazz and blues records(and country too) from the `20s to the `40s that hint at rock n roll.The boogie woogie piano stuff from the late `30s and early `40s was the basis for Fats Domino`s and Jerry Lee Lewis` piano style.

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