Fifties Rock N Rollers POLL

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

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

^ & the high-pitched audience screams in old rock and roll videos are fucking unreal

this statement about elvis is immeasurably wrong.

I'm loathe to make this whole poll about Elvis but... he just seems to have done a different thing and played a different role than these other dudes. He's not much of a guitar player. He's not a songwriter. He doesn't have a SOUND the way some of these guys (esp Bo and Chuck) do. He had a phenomenally expressive voice (which is why I called him out as more in the mold of a traditional crooner), altho I agree with Tarfumes that he applied it with more facility in the 70s.

but as a live performer, especially in the 50's, he kind of blew them all away

also not sure about the "he doesn't have a SOUND" thing - Sun sessions Elvis most definitely has a sound, as does later Scotty oore + Jordanaires stuff

oh I dunno about that re: live performance

I guess how I think of it is some of these other guys (Bo, Chuck, JLL, Little Richard) seem like forces of nature, they sprang forth fully formed, so to speak. whereas when I listen to Elvis' 50s stuff, I hear the synthesis, I can see the seams in the stitching. It's still great, but in a different way.

xp

yeah I see the point you're making there about how visible the country/r&b/pop synthesis thing is in the early stuff - but I guess it's kind of subjective then because I totally hear a force of nature thing happening there at the same time

and as far as who was the best performer, I know competition is fierce here but
http://www.missumgs.dk/SirCliffShadows/ElvisPresley/ElvisPresley/ElvisLive54.jpg

to me, the suggestion that elvis isn't on the musical level as the others gets into a wider argument -- which probably doesn't need to be had on this thread -- about whether a pure vocalist is a musician or not. to me, the answer is a slam-dunk yes, but opinions vary on that, obviously. but elvis in any case had some guitar facility and some piano facility -- though he was certainly not a chuck berry on the former or a jerry lee on the latter -- and his vocal chops were as good as any in popular music in the past 60 years. and, more important to this particular argument, he had absolute command of his best records in the same way that, for example, pure vocalist michael jackson had absolute command of his.

as for the seams in his stitching, yeah, his blues and pop and country and crooner roots were all obvious, but i'm not sure they were any more obvious than, say, bo diddley's blues and latin roots or buddy holly's country and rockabilly roots.

Not only that, but he was kind of a de facto producer on some of his biggest records.

he had absolute command of his best records in the same way that, for example, pure vocalist michael jackson had absolute command of his

vocalists are absolutely musicians but lol yeah you ain't gonna get very far with me with MJ comparisons, who I consider vastly overrated

What was the title of this thread again?

imo elvis in the sun era is every bit as interesting and idiosyncratic and original musically as any of these guys, tho it's maybe got as much to do with scotty moore, sam phillips et al as with elvis. even his approach to ballads ('blue moon' especially) was very different then, nothing like the more straightforward crooner-y approach he took later on.

What was the title of this thread again?

Bo Diddley is Jesus

The people who are making this about Elvis are the haters, not the fans, and they should be making arguments in favor of their favorites I sets is essentially derailing.

This is my favorite '50s rock and roll song not by someone listed above (including, maybe, Elvis...would have to think about that):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CDyeePUXN18&feature=kp

Between "La Do Dada" and "Susie Q," I'd probably take Hawkins over Eddie Cochran.I

bo diddley is jesus

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BxXQYtBa65Y

Almost voted for Berry, but then I watched a couple of those Bo youtubes and now I'm not sure.

i don't think it's weird to spend a little time on elvis in a thread about '50s rockers! plus, it's a convenient way to avoid making the impossible choice that the thread presents.

Considering voting for pretty much every artist here except the first and the last. For me Jerry Lee's wildman antics often overshadow the records. As far as Fats, feel like the New Orleans thing was done better by Little Richard and all the artists that didn't have so many hits- Benny Spellman, Ernie K-Doe, Chris Kenner, The Showmen, to name a few, plus Richie Cunningham ruined "Blueberry Hill" for me for life.

So much ruining with all these guys

Ha, exactly. One reason I'm thinking of voting for Carl Perkins.

crüt otm with that video. Was just recommending that movie and trying to describe that very scene.

James Redd, I don't know what to say. You've probably heard those artists more than me. I know "Mother-in-Law" and "Lipstick Traces" and "It Will Stand" and "I Like It Like That." I don't perceive a world where Fats Domino is not top drawer.

(Not to say those other records are not also top drawer, naturally.)

Bria's Elvis photo says it all, but I'm sure there are Berry and Little Richard fans who think they were more important to Rock's birth than Elvis. But I would have voted Elvis every time.

bo diddley just barely over chuck berry and fats domino. woulda voted elvis pretty easily.

http://www.geni.com/blog/wp-content/uploads/2014/01/birthcertificate_original-600x489.jpg