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Started By
Message
60 Years Ago Tonight (July 5th) Rock Was Born In Memphis.
Posted on 7/5/14 at 6:40 am
Posted on 7/5/14 at 6:40 am
quote:
Sam Phillips, meanwhile, was always on the lookout for someone who could bring to a broader audience the sound of the black musicians on whom Sun focused. As Phillips' secretary Marion Keisker reported, "Over and over I remember Sam saying, 'If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars.'" In June, he acquired a demo recording of a ballad, "Without You", that he thought might suit the teenage singer. Presley came by the studio, but was unable to do it justice.
Despite this, Phillips asked Presley to sing as many numbers as he knew. He was sufficiently affected by what he heard to invite two local musicians, guitarist Winfield "Scotty" Moore and upright bass player Bill Black, to work something up with Presley for a recording session.
The session, held the evening of July 5, 1954, proved entirely unfruitful until late in the night. As they were about to give up and go home, Presley took his guitar and launched into a 1946 blues number, Arthur Crudup's "That's All Right". Moore recalled, "All of a sudden, Elvis just started singing this song, jumping around and acting the fool, and then Bill picked up his bass, and he started acting the fool, too, and I started playing with them. Sam, I think, had the door to the control booth open ... he stuck his head out and said, 'What are you doing?' And we said, 'We don't know.' 'Well, back up,' he said, 'try to find a place to start, and do it again.'" Phillips quickly began taping; this was the sound he had been looking for.
Three days later, popular Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips played "That's All Right" on his Red, Hot, and Blue show. Listeners began phoning in, eager to find out who the singer was. The interest was such that Phillips played the record repeatedly during the last two hours of his show. Interviewing Presley on-air, Phillips asked him what high school he attended in order to clarify his color for the many callers who had assumed he was black. During the next few days, the trio recorded a bluegrass number, Bill Monroe's "Blue Moon of Kentucky", again in a distinctive style and employing a jury-rigged echo effect that Sam Phillips dubbed "slapback". A single was pressed with "That's All Right" on the A side and "Blue Moon of Kentucky" on the reverse.
LINK
Yes, others did forms of it earlier. Some may have even done it better. But Elvis was the embodiment, the confluence through which all earlier musical forms were fused - R&B / Gospel, country and popular. Previous musical rivers flowed to and through 1954-56 Elvis and then started diverging again starting July 5th, 1954.
And culturally Elvis was the rock god template, the original gangsta. Rags to riches, flashy clothes, flashy cars, flashy crib, lots of women, and the first to have a posse.
Posted on 7/5/14 at 9:33 am to Mizz-SEC
Elvis is to rock and roll as justin bieber is to and b. He didnt create anything he just made it comfortable for white people to listen to "race" music.
Posted on 7/5/14 at 9:42 am to Mizz-SEC
First rock and roll song considered to be "rock and roll"
quote:
"..Anyway, we recorded "Rocket 88" and you know that's why they say "Rocket 88" was the first rock'n'roll song (well, they use the language "It's been said about 'Rocket 88'"), but the truth of the matter is, I don't think that "Rocket 88" is rock'n'roll. I think that "Rocket 88" is R&B, but I think "Rocket 88" is the cause of rock and roll existing... Sam Phillips got Dewey Phillips to play "Rocket 88" on his program – and this is like the first black record to be played on a white radio station – and, man, all the white kids broke out to the record shops to buy it. So that's when Sam Phillips got the idea, "Well, man, if I get me a white boy to sound like a black boy, then I got me a gold mine", which is the truth. So, that's when he got Elvis and he got Jerry Lee Lewis and a bunch of other guys and so they named it rock and roll rather than R&B and so this is the reason I think rock and roll exists – not that "Rocket 88" was the first one, but that was what caused the first one."?
This post was edited on 7/5/14 at 9:45 am
Posted on 7/5/14 at 10:41 am to BIGDAB
quote:
He didnt create anything he just made it comfortable for white people to listen to "race" music.
How is that not an impressive feat in itself?
Posted on 7/5/14 at 10:55 am to HeadyBrosevelt
yeah, it's not elvis' fault that white people liked r&b/rock and roll music...
Posted on 7/5/14 at 11:00 am to BIGDAB
lulz. Beiber. Y'all must have comprehension problems.
I didn't say Elvis "created" rock or put out the first rock record. He was, however, the first mass purveyor to a wider audience - white and black, as witnessed by his charting across Pop, R&B and Country charts simultaneously for the first few years. How you choose to interpret his career and influence is on you.
The truth be told the first real rocker was Louis Jordan. He was doing songs with rock themes and a rock feel 10 years before anyone else, as has been acknowledged by the likes of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, James Brown, BB King and others - and they all borrowed heavily from him. Guess they're Beibers, too. The lightweights.
Louis Jordan, January 1946... LINK
I didn't say Elvis "created" rock or put out the first rock record. He was, however, the first mass purveyor to a wider audience - white and black, as witnessed by his charting across Pop, R&B and Country charts simultaneously for the first few years. How you choose to interpret his career and influence is on you.
The truth be told the first real rocker was Louis Jordan. He was doing songs with rock themes and a rock feel 10 years before anyone else, as has been acknowledged by the likes of Chuck Berry, Little Richard, James Brown, BB King and others - and they all borrowed heavily from him. Guess they're Beibers, too. The lightweights.
Louis Jordan, January 1946... LINK
quote:
"A lot of people have accused Elvis of stealing the black man's music, when in fact, almost every black solo entertainer copied his stage mannerisms from Elvis" - Jackie Wilson
This post was edited on 7/6/14 at 3:28 pm
Posted on 7/5/14 at 11:09 am to Mizz-SEC
I'm at Sun having a root beer float right now.
Posted on 7/5/14 at 11:16 am to Godfather1
quote:
I'm at Sun having a root beer float right now.
Good lord, work in a stop at Tom's BBQ over in the area of Graceland for the rip tips. THE best BBQ I've ever had.
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