Music Project 1955-1962

First a disclaimer.  I'm not an expert and some of the stuff I say will be wrong and much of it is pilfered from the internet...which has also been known to be wrong. Occasionally.

Second, I'm skipping a lot of good stuff.  It's very difficult to wade through all the great music and just pick out a few tracks from each year.  Having to choose between my favorites and others that might be more "important" or more obscure is not easy.  I've tried to strike a balance between them all, keeping in mind that the big goal is to give Shea and Will some perspective on who and how music has evolved over the last 60 years.  I was hoping to get some historical context inserted, but it's a bit overwhelming.  We might try to work in some documentaries as we go along to help fill that void.  It will be especially important for the next few weeks (1963-1970) as the happenings around the world politically, culturally, sociologically, demographically and chemically (heh) will be reflected in the music.  Hopefully we can touch on that.  It's difficult to appreciate some of the music without knowing why it was so important or revolutionary.

For now though we are in the innocence of the late 50's and early 60's.  Innocent except for the racism....no way around that.  And music was at the forefront of the racial tension. Rock and Roll, at it's beginning, was, at it's core, an evolution of race music.

The plan is for everyone to read through the post each week (or so), watch the videos and then listen to the songs in order on the playlist (location to be determined later).  Please try to really listen to the songs. Don't surf or play games while your listening.  Every song that I choose was either a hit, or was influential or important in the evolution of music (or I just think it's really cool).  See if you can hear why that is.  Then post a comment on the blog talking about what what you just read, watched, and listened to.  We're not looking for anything in particular, just impression you had.

Let's get started.  I'm including some videos that should help to put the songs into some sort of context.  It's going to be important to keep certain things in mind as we move through time. The world was changing rapidly from the late 50's through today.  What might seem normal or boring today may have been groundbreaking and scary at the time.....which brings us to Little Richard, who must have been terrifying to middle-america, white parents...

1) "Tutti Frutti" - Little Richard ; 1955

No one person invented Rock & Roll.  But one person that has to be on the short-list of prominent early contributors would be Little Richard.

In the first of many stories of studio serendipity, the recording of "Tutti Frutti" was a bit of a fluke.  According to History.com

"Tutti frutti, good booty..." was the way the version went that Little Richard was accustomed to performing in his club act, and from there it got into lyrical territory that would demand censorship even by today's standards. It was during a lunch break from his first-ever recording session that Little Richard went to the piano and banged that filthy tune out for producer Bumps Blackwell, who was extremely unhappy with the results of the session so far. As Blackwell would later tell it, "He hits that piano, dididididididididi...and starts to sing, 'Awop-bop-a-Loo-Mop a-good Goddam...' and I said 'Wow! That's what I want from you Richard. That's a hit!'" But first, the song's racy lyrics had to be reworked for there to be any chance of the song being deemed acceptable by the conservative American audience of the 1950s.

 An aspiring local songwriter by the name of Dorothy La Bostrie was quickly summoned to the Dew Drop Inn to come up with new lyrics for the un-recordable original, and by the time they all returned from lunch, the "Tutti frutti, all rooty" with which we are now familiar was written down alongside lyrics about two gals named Sue and Daisy. In the last 15 minutes of that historic recording session on September 14, 1955, "Tutti Frutti" was recorded, and Little Richard's claim to have been present at the birth of rock and roll was secured.

It's difficult to watch the video without noticing the racial makeup of the "performers" vs the audience.  It is impossible to discuss the evolution of rock music without discussing race and this will be the first glimpse into that story.

 



2) "Heartbreak Hotel" - Elvis Presley : 1956

The King.  Elvis was made for the new Rock & Roll, and was especially made for this new thing called Television.  It was a perfect storm.

"Heartbreak Hotel" was a departure for Elvis; it didn't sound like his previous records. Sam Phillips, his producer at Sun Records, famously called it a "morbid mess."  Elvis, however, was convinced it would be a hit.  Released in January 1956, the song coincided with Elvis' first appearances on network television.  In April he performed the song on the Milton Berle Show.  Two weeks later it was Elvis' fist number 1 hit.

3)  "Rumble" - Link Wray : 1958

Music is played by instruments.  Yep, that's a big "duh", but as we move through time, we're going to find that the sounds of the instruments are going to have a big effect on the direction the music takes.  This brings us to Link Wray's "Rumble."

From Rolling Stone:

When Link Wray released the thrilling, ominous "Rumble" in 1958, it became one of the only instrumentals ever to be banned from radio play – for fear that it might incite gang violence. By stabbing his amplifier's speaker cone with a pencil, Wray created the distorted, overdriven sound that would reverberate through metal, punk and grunge. Wray, who proudly claimed Shawnee Indian ancestry and lost a lung to tuberculosis, was the archetypal leather-clad badass, and his song titles alone – "Slinky," "The Black Widow" – convey the force and menace of his playing. "He was fucking insane," said the Black Keys' Dan Auerbach. "I would listen to 'Some Kinda Nut,' over and over. It sounded like he was strangling the guitar – like it was screaming for help." When Wray died in 2005, Bob Dylan and Bruce Springsteen both performed "Rumble" onstage in tribute. "If it hadn't been for Link Wray and 'Rumble,'" said Pete Townshend, "I would have never picked up a guitar."



4) "Johnny B. Goode" - Chuck Berry : 1958

According to some smart dude:

The 1950s economic boom increased both buying power and leisure time, and, for the first time in American culture, the identification of young people as a unique group with unique tastes and interests. It is a measure of Chuck Berry’s genius that, as an African-American, he was able to write songs and craft a stage presence that could cross ethnic and experiential boundaries and achieve massive popularity with white “teenagers”.

The song Johnny B. Goode is a classic example of the 12-bar blues harmonic form, and uses that chord progression throughout. However, Berry experiments with the lyrics, avoiding the blues AAB poetic structure, in favor of a “through-composed” text for each verse in his narrative. Note the way that all the parts (the guitar solo, Berry’s vocal, the piano accompaniment, as well as the 2/4 bass part and drumming) play a percussive role—in this piece, everyone is thinking “rhythm.”

Though the breadth of Chuck Berry's contribution to the nascent style of rock 'n' roll is very great (guitar as focal instrument, singer writing his own songs, the general "teenage"-oriented topics of the songs and their remarkable "hooks"), for our purposes his manipulation of melodic/rhythmic interaction in his vocal and guitar parts are particularly interesting. Beginning with his (overdubbed) rhythm and lead guitars, the first sound heard on the track, the driving 8th notes of both the guitar solo (possibly the most famous guitar solo in rock's first decade) and his opening verse transform the melody into another powerful layer of rhythm. Moreover, the contrast between the steady, pounding 8th notes of the guitar solo and of the opening vocal phrase ("Deep down in Louisiana...") in the verse, and the stop-and-start call-and-response between voice and guitar in the chorus, serve to focus the listener's attention on the text, and most particularly on the shout-along/sing-along chorus: "Go, go Johnny go!". Berry built upon blues and gospel vocalists' attention to the rhythmic power and attention created by the singing voice, and made his choppy 8th-note guitar an equal contributor in the new rhythmic fields of rock 'n' roll.

Make sure you watch the vid up through the guitar solo.

5)  "What'd I Say" - Ray Charles : 1959

Everybody knows I'm in a Soul music phase at the moment.  There is no bigger figure in early soul music than the Genius, Ray Charles (apologies to Sam Cooke). Listed number 10 on Rolling Stones 500 greatest songs of all-time, "What'd I Say" is vintage Charles.  Taking his gospel music and adding secular lyrics, the track became Charles' first top 10 single and convinced the record producers that there was money to be made.

Borrowing from the Rolling Stone write-up:

he man they called "The Genius" literally wrote "What'd I Say" in front of an audience, in late 1958 or early '59. He and his crack R&B orchestra, newly supplemented by a female vocal group, the Raelettes, were playing a marathon dance show in a small town near Pittsburgh. When Charles ran out of repertoire late in the second set, he kicked into an uphill bass-note arpeggio on the piano, told the band to follow along and instructed the Raelettes, "Whatever I say, just repeat after me." Afterward, Charles said, dancers rushed up to him and asked, "Where can I buy that record?"

"What'd I Say" may not have been much of a song — a handful of short, unconnected verses, the chorus and that bridge — when Charles cut it on February 18th, 1959, at Atlantic's New York studio. (The six-and-a-half-minute rave-up was masterfully edited and re-sequenced by the label's visionary engineer, Tom Dowd, from an even longer studio performance.) But out of necessity, that night on the bandstand Charles had turned to the black gospel experience he knew so well, the shared, mounting ecstasy of call-and-response. "Church was simple," he said in his autobiography Brother Ray. "Preacher sang or recited, and the congregation sang right back at him."

That is exactly how Charles recorded "What'd I Say," with a torrid secular spin heightened by the metallic attack of his Wurlitzer electric piano. Charles' grunt-'n'-groan exchanges with the Raelettes were the closest you could get to the sound of orgasm on Top 40 radio during the Eisenhower era. Forty-five years later, they still give sweet release.

Make sure you watch the vid all the way to where the Raelettes come out....you'll understand that last paragraph a little better.

6) "So What" - Miles Davis  :  1959

What we call "Rock Music" is really a melting pot of all sorts of music.  Blues, Soul, R&B, Gospel, Country & Western...the list is virtually endless.  Jazz is unquestionably an important part of the mix.  Miles Davis' Kind of Blue along with John Coltrane's Love Supreme are the two jazz albums every rock fan should listen to.

According to npr:

The best-selling jazz record of all time is a universally acknowledged masterpiece, revered as much by rock and classical music fans as by jazz lovers. The album is Miles Davis' Kind of Blue.

Kind of Blue brought together seven now-legendary musicians in the prime of their careers: tenor saxophonist John Coltrane, alto saxophonist Julian "Cannonball" Adderley, pianists Bill Evans and Wynton Kelly, bassist Paul Chambers, drummer Jimmy Cobb and, of course, trumpeter Miles Davis.

Davis and his cool, measured trumpet style had been attracting attention in the jazz world since the mid-1940s. By 1958, at age 32, Davis was an international jazz star whose playing set the standard for jazz musicians of the day.

And just as younger artists looked to Davis for guidance and inspiration, he looked to them for raw, new talent and innovative musical ideas. In the mid-1950s, Davis discovered gold in the subtle sounds of 25-year-old pianist Bill Evans, whom he recruited into his late-1950s sextet. Evans would prove an essential contributor to the Kind of Blue sessions.

Even before Kind of Blue, Davis was experimenting with "modal" jazz, keeping the background of a tune simple while soloists played a melody over one or two "modes," or scales, instead of busy chord progressions — the usual harmonic foundation of jazz.

In addition, Evans introduced Davis to classical composers, such as Béla Bartók and Maurice Ravel, who used modalities in their compositions. Davis also drew on his knowledge of the modal qualities in the blues.

With Evans, Davis worked up a few basic compositional sketches, and when the musicians arrived at the studio on March 2, 1959, they were given the outlines. Davis wanted to capture the musicians' spontaneity — and he wanted to capture it on the first take.

Ashley Kahn, author of Kind of Blue: The Making of the Miles Davis Masterpiece, says that the resulting recording possesses an almost spiritual quality as the musicians — particularly Coltrane — seemed to take a reverent approach to the composition.

To the musicians who recorded it, Kind of Blue was just another session when it was released in August 1959. But the disc was quickly recognized by the jazz community as a classic. Jazz musicians were startled by the truly different sound on an album that laid out a clear roadmap for further modal explorations.

"So What" became the tune, the one that every musician — not just the practitioners of jazz — simply had to know. The other tracks also quickly became standards, and the individual solos throughout the record continue to inspire musicians to this day.

Musicians from all genres perform, record and study the album's songs, and the influence of the songs on culture beyond music continues to grow. Drummer Cobb says it all comes down to simplicity — the reason Kind of Blue has remained so successful for so long. And because of its inherent balance, historian Dan Morgenstern adds, the album never wears out its welcome.

Watch the vid long enough just to recognize that Miles may have been the coolest dude ever.

7) "Shakin all Over" - Johnny Kidd & the Pirates  : 1960

Borrowing straight from a great list on rateyourmusic:

The most groundbreaking rock 'n' roll single from England to predate the British Invasion, Shakin' All Over by Johnny Kidd & the Pirates has lustful lyrics and suggestive guitar riffing still influential enough today that I'm certain Jack White must have ripped it off for "I'm Shakin'" from his latest album.  Better yet, the Pirates are exceedingly influential on the later development of American and British rock, because the Pirates minus Kidd are technically the first "power trio," a format that many assume didn't arrive until Cream and the Jimi Hendrix Experience.   During the 1950s and the pre-Beatles era, the dominant rock 'n' roll band format focused more on keyboards and saxophone, with guitar playing a secondary role.  Buddy Holly & the Crickets pioneered the band format of lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, and drums, but that format didn't get fully institutionalized until the Beatles came along.  The Pirates, by contrast, took the two guitars-bass-drums format and got rid of the rhythm guitar as so much fluff.  That's why Johnny Kidd and the Pirates proved to be very influential with later generations of British rockers, including the Who (who covered "Shakin' All Over" on their Live at Leeds LP) and Led Zeppelin (who played "Shakin' All Over" in rehearsals), who both structured themselves according to the dynamic frontman + power trio format that Kidd originated.
Aside from Adam Ant, Johnny Kidd also anticipated pirate chic earlier than anybody else by about four decades.  So the next time you celebrate Talk Like a Pirate Day, hoist a bottle of rum for the late, lamented Johnny Kidd.  It's the least ye could do, ye scurvy dogs.

The video isn't the original (Obviously), but it shows how some of these songs really do translate.  Poor Wanda Jackson doesn't have the pipes anymore, so just focus on the killer band and Jack White.  Great performance...and if you watch to the end you'll see Dave thinks the same.

8) "Apache" - The Shadows  :  1960

While "Apache" was a hit in the UK (hit #1 on the charts), the song is on the list for what it will mean many years down the road when we talk about the birth of hip hop. But let's hear the original in it's context.  

The Shadows were the backup band to Cliff Richard, the biggest rock star in the UK before the Beatles came along, although the Beatles mainly viewed Richard as a cautionary tale, because his records never found success in America.  In their own right, the Shadows were a strong guitar-driven instrumental combo, who had their first UK #1 hit with Apache.  The Beatles used to play Apache and other Shadows instrumentals during their early Hamburg club dates, a debt they acknowledged in the title of the instrumental "Cry for a Shadow."  If only the Beatles had covered "Apache," the song wouldn't have been that influential, but in 1973, a studio-only group called the Incredible Bongo Band recorded a cover version of Apache that later hip hop DJ's coveted for its drum breaks.  Early rap group, the Sugar Hill Gang, recorded a cover version in 1981 with some vocals, and the song became cemented in hip hop history as a b-boy anthem. 

The video (watch up to about the 5 minute mark, unless you want to watch more).

9) "Got My Mojo Workin'" - Muddy Waters  :  1960

From allmusic:  For many back in the early '60s, this was their first exposure to live recorded blues, and it's still pretty damn impressive some 40-plus years down the line. Muddy, with a band featuring Otis Spann, James Cotton, and guitarist Pat Hare, lays it down tough and cool with a set that literally had 'em dancing in the aisles by the set closer, a rippling version of "Got My Mojo Working," reprised again in a short encore version. A great breakthrough moment in blues history, where the jazz audience opened its ears and embraced Chicago blues. This album was in print almost continuously on vinyl for 20-plus years.

When we start getting into the Rolling Stones and other blues-based bands, you'll hear the influence.  The video is of the same performance.  The band is top notch and Muddy starts to work the crowd toward the end.

 10) "Shop Around" - The Miracles  :  1960

Time for Motown to get some play.  We'll be revisiting Motown again and again.  Berry Gordy and Phil Specter created a studio and sound and process for creating hit music.  You did it their way.  Known eventually for his "Wall of Sound" production techniques, this first really big hit was before that had really materialized.  I tend to think of Motown as Heavily Produced Pop/Soul music.  Ensembles were also the rule.  Lead singer and a backing group from the Miracles to the Supremes to the Jackson 5 (and many others).  The harmonies were part of the sound Spector was shooting for.

Motown had hit singles before Shop Around, most notably Barrett Strong's Money, but this was the record that kicked the Tamla-Motown hit machine into high gear.  Kneejerk R&B purists might insist that original "Detroit version" of Shop Around is superior, but Berry Gordy made a better version of Shop Around for national airplay by making the tempo more upbeat, tightening the harmonies while emphasizing Smokey Robinson's tenor, and smoothing out the juke joint sax solo from the Detroit original.  Gordy used assembly line procedures that mirrored Detroit's auto industry to make R&B more radio-friendly for pop crossover audiences, but the Motown assembly line did not finally achieve its full potential until Smokey Robinson & the Miracles, Shop Around gave Motown its first million seller.  Despite the sweetening that Gordy added to the national version of Shop Around, the lyrical content, which centered on a mother advising her son to sample as much milk as he can before he buys a whole cow, was still quite culturally subversive in 1960, although it did implicitly uphold the sexual double standard.

11) "Green Onions" - Booker T. and the MG's  : 1962

We'll finish off week 1 with what I consider the start of Southern Soul.  Soul music had fairly strong regional sounds. Chicago, Philadephia and eventually Memphis and Muscle Shoals making up the Southern Soul sound.  More raw and groovin' than the north, the rhythm sections of both studios were stars.  Booker T. and the MG's not only defined the sound of Stax records in Memphis, but they epitomized the magic as well.  One of the most racially divided cities in the US at the time, Stax records became a melting pot of music.  At the time, a racially integrated band was pretty unusual, and oh man were these guys tight.  One of the meanest grooves of all time.