Fifties Rock N Rollers POLL

For just one, I'll vote for Chuck. I wouldn't have included Orbison either. He had some good songs in the '50s, but the work he's famous for comes later. I would have included Johnny Cash, though I realize the lines between rock & roll/country and rock & roll/R&B (you could say Clyde McPhatter was as important as almost anyone on that list) are blurry.

Woo! Thanks, crüt!

saw both Chuck and Carl live in the '80s, goin w/ Chuck. Would loved to have seen Richard and JLL in their prime.

Ah, now that I watch that clip, I was thinking of the unedited interview which runs about 15 minutes or so. It's apparently only on the 4-DVD set (which is out of print).

I don't know, I thought about Cash but it seems like Johnny was pretty identifiably country (and self-identified as such) pretty early on - there's something really different rhythm and guitar-wise between most of his stuff and even someone as similar as Carl Perkins, seems to me anyway.

then again...
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yBLgtKVwptA

love most of these guys (i've barely heard any gene vincent, need to rectify that), but it's gotta be little richard. even if his 'great' period only lasted a couple years, he made probably the most joyous, life-affirming music i've ever heard. every time one of his songs comes up on my ipod i inevitably end up having to listen to 5 or 6 more.

This documentary about Gene Vincent's 1969 British tour is heartbreaking and brilliant.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eSDSand-6IY
(Though some of my love for it is as artefact of weird old shabby England)

Bill Haley!

Twenty years ago, I was listening to all these guys non-stop, and would have had a hard time choosing. But now Bo is clearly the visionary- I play his records and watch his clips the most. Just the totality of his sound, the way it blurs lyrics and chords and amplification and beats into a single rhythmic thing.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bwBcuU7ii64

Bill Haley's later years area really depressing story

bo does seem to have the most avant garde approach to sonics, and he's the easiest to hear in stuff like vu and stooges

Holly for his songwriting vs. Diddley for his inventiveness vs. Vincent for his demeanour vs. Berry for his guitar (and again, songwriting). But the others are all great in their way too. Tough to pick only one.

Yeah, I was thinking Bill Haley should be here too. So much more to him than just "Rock Around the Clock" and "Shake, Rattle, and Roll"

Sitting in a restaurant humming Rock Around the Track hoping someone will recognize him. Sad stuff. Actually a great performer and musician gets overlooked by rock n' rollers because he still has a little bit of the big band era vibe about him. That and he wasn't the best looking of rockers.

Clock*

seriously? other than 13 Women he seems super corny. maybe i haven't heard the right stuff.

bo does seem to have the most avant garde approach to sonics

Definitely--I think all drone traces back to him.

xpost sorry - that sounded harsh re haley - I honestly haven't heard anything except two or three songs, i'll check him out

Buddy Holly.

I have more of an appreciation for sound than songs/singing, plus I do like a bit of novelty/weirdness, and Bo scratches those itches more than the others. What brio said, basically.

Don't think Elvis would've gotten more than a vote or two. He was the first one I was exposed to, naturally, and would've gotten my vote when I was 6-10 years old.

bendy where is that "Guitar Rebop" track from

It's Henry Flynt

http://www.discogs.com/Henry-Flynt-New-American-Ethnic-Music-Volume-3-Hillbilly-Tape-Music/release/1047232

bo does seem to have the most avant garde approach to sonics, and he's the easiest to hear in stuff like vu and stooges

― brio, Wednesday, April 30, 2014 12:50 PM (28 minutes ago) Bookmark

otm

Elvis was great in the '50s. Just in a different place and context, not largely of his doing.

He was great in the 50s, tremendous in the 70s. His voice had grown immeasurably in range and depth of feeling, and the TBC Band could not be fucked with. I love the Sun records, but much of his 70s work (particularly the live stuff) is among his (anyone's) best.

Elvis is kind of the least interesting formally to me, like he just seems like a conventional old-mold "crooner" type who managed to get grafted onto and ride the crest of rock n roll. He's still endlessly fascinating ("That's the Way it Was" is one of my all-time favorite musical performance docs) but I've never gotten the sense that he, personally, was musically on the level of any of these other dudes.

he def acknowledged his Dean Martin idolatry, which is OK with me

a long time ago i dated a guy who used to do elvis covers in his cover band (he played guitar) and the first time i saw them play it made me melt, like i just wanted to die when they played because it sounded so good. i had never heard those songs live before. he was an awful boyfriend but i will admit that he really knew how to rip it up 50s style.

he was an awful boyfriend but i will admit that he really knew how to rip it up 50s style.

probably true of all the poll options

Kinda hard not to be "cold" and "unfeeling" when you're dead, though.

Little Richard by about a million

Johnny Burnette is my favorite missing from this list. I've got the excellent Bear Family "Rocks" compilation for each but Bo (they haven't done one yet) and I'm going with Little Richard, whose 50s work is just so singular and far out that he must've scared every white bigot in the country.

motorik:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6jmNe77vces

yeah I feel a bit like songwriting and sonics are being privileged a bit over the sheer presence and wildness of Little Richard and Jerry Lee. They kind of embody rock n roll in a way the others don't to me. Just the sense of abandon, showmanship, and freakiness in those two dudes has to count for something. I voted Bo , but now in terms of just pure rock n roll power I'm not sure if he ever deliver anything as explosive as Tutti Frutti or Breathless.

I really wrestled with my vote; went with Bo, but for the life of me I can't possibly imagine what it must have been like hearing Little Richard for the first time in 1955.

I have to pick up Shag on Down By the Union Hall. I hear that's one of Little Richard's best.

I've never gotten the sense that he, personally, was musically on the level of any of these other dudes.

this statement about elvis is immeasurably wrong.

on the Little Richard tip - he did some pretty amazing stuff in the 60's too - soul ballads like "I Don't Know What You Got" and stompers like "Baby Don't You Tear My Clothes". Maybe not relevent in terms of this poll but still so good.

Just the sense of abandon, showmanship, and freakiness in those two dudes has to count for something.

totally
also this poll totally put me in a good mood so thanks!

i've never been much into gene vincent tbh -- am i missing anything?

for guitar playing: bo

for songwriting: chuck

for singing: the everlys (though a lot of their greatness, including the sound of their voices, really blossomed in the '60s)

for rock and rollingness: bo or little richard

xpost
Oh yeah! Just get a solid Gene Vincent greatest hits, he's got tons to love you'd otherwise miss. Woman Love and Lotta Love are real dirty, and Bi I Bicky Bi Bo Bo BO! is catchy and nuts. His guitar player Cliff Gallup was on some outer space hillbilly jazz shit too.

Jerry Lee Lewis' beardo phase was hawt

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5RHpX76Ly94

Jerry Lee Lewis was my crush of shame at one point.

His own cousin couldn't resist him. What chance do those outside his family have?

i just went back and looked at the other youtubes itt and everybody's seen this right NO

people say they don't understand what made young girls go completely batshit but it's kind of obvious in that performance

There's a reason The Birthday Party and The Fall have covered Gene Vincent.

No doubt as to who Eric Burdon would choose:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y8t387oPwQI

Yeah, Cat Man was such a perfect song for the Birthday Party to cover - obviously a big influence.
Better hide your sister, man!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HuYWvounKck

gene vincent, but a hard choice

what do you have to do embed youtube vids now?

just remove the s after http

We don't really have a better thread for the ridiculously obscure 50s rock I love, so I'm gonna just post this here. Gotta love both the name Chewing Ray and the title "Little Boogie Ding Dong." (This seems like a rewrite of "Giddy Up A Ding Dong" by someone who's maybe not a native English speaker?) I can't figure out most of the words, or the country of origin (and is that an accordion in the background?), but this just swings like nuts:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Tjb5IUtRekQ

I'm not going to poll this, since it would only get a handful of votes. I'm currently reading Blue Monday: Fats Domino and the Lost Dawn of Rock and Roll and came across this:

In 1958 Alan Freed started his first "Big Beat" Tour headlined by Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Frankie Lymon, but it crashed head-on with Irvin Feld's Biggest Show of Stars for 1958, starring Sam Cooke, The Everly Brothers, Clyde McPhatter and Jackie Wilson... Another tour featuring The Midnighters, the 5 Royales, Bo Diddley, Etta James and Little Willie John, threw in the towel after a week.

Three amazing line-ups; given a time machine, which would you see? (fwiw Domino was tired of eighty day tours by that time and declined the Big Beat tour, although it bears the name of one of his songs.)

ahem

haha so otm.

Yeah, this went over about as well as I thought it would. I was mostly just marvelling at that third bill, which I don't imagine was planned for predominantly white venues, but man... Hank Ballard, prime period Bo and Etta, Lowman Pauling!

Oh, this is easier than you might think it would be. Seeing Sam Cooke sing live would be it for me. What else would be left to do? What could top that?

Yeah, I'd pick the Sam Cooke tour. Not only would Sam be gone in a few years, but also Clyde and Jackie.

Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly and Frankie Lymon

never heard of frankie, but the rest of that line up would easily seal if for me.

of for the chance to see the killer in his prime years ..

Only one of these is a the godfather

Surprised to find that Fats Domino is younger than Chuck Berry, always thought he was much older.