Antique R&B music is so cool!

I'm listening to a double-CD anthology titled, THE HOY-HOY COLLECTION: ROCK BEFORE ELVIS. It comprises 43 foot-stompin' rhythm and blues tunes, all recorded before 1952. Lots of the tracks feature boogie-woogie piano, honking, locomotive-like saxophones, and hedonistic lyrics sung in field hollers and Sunday-morning gospel shouts. Man, what an awesome sound! I haven't tapped my feet this much in ages.

Listening to this music, I'm almost sorry that R&B turned into rock 'n' roll. Goodbye, Alan Freed; hello, Dick Clark. Goodbye, honking saxes; hello, violins. Goodbye, sex-and-drinking lyrics; hello, sock-hop and soda-pop lyrics. Goodbye, tall, hulking black man whose singing could blow the roof off a barn; hello, pimply-faced, pompadoured teen-ager whose singing would make a dog wail in pain.

May I never lose my taste for Wynonie Harris, Big Joe Turner, Scatman Crothers, Rosetta Tharpe, the Jimmy Cavallo Quartet, Private Cecil Gant, Pinetop Smith, Big Jay McNeely, Memphis Minnie, Louis Jordan & His Tympany Five, Memphis Slim, Freddie Mitchell, T-Bone Walker, and the hundreds of other great musical talents who
made pre-rock R&B so special! :headbang:

...the wonderful Frankie Avalon singing "When a Girl changes from Bobby-Sox to Stockings"


LOL....sorry...I cracked even myself up on that one...

:puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke::puke:

Your post got me thinking about Stagger Lee & Dick Fucking Clark and that whole deal. Fuck Dick Clark.

Hey, you might enjoy these:

http://images.amazon.com/images/P/0306807130.01._PIdp-schmooS,TopRight,7,-26_PE32_SCMZZZZZZZ_.jpg
Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock'n'Roll, by Nick Tosches

http://www.amazon.com/exec/obidos/ASIN/0306807130/qid=1101444511/sr=2-3/ref=pd_ka_b_2_3/002-2097643-3728840



From the same guy who wrote Hellfire about Jerry Lee Lewis

Tipping a glass to the great Peppermint Harris and Stick McGhee!

:beer:

There's nobody who can make me feel quite as good as Louis Jordan.

And, yes, it does make Rock'n'Roll seem like a comedown, and early Elvis like the end of something rather than the beginning. There was a magic in the 40's that we later degenerates have forgotten.

..."I much prefer music that appeals to the mind, rather than to the dancing feet."

My immediate reaction was, "Then why the fuck don't you review classical music instead of rock 'n' roll, you goddamned jerk-off?"

And I stand by that contention today.