Fifties Rock N Rollers POLL

Automatic thread bump. This poll's results are now in.

Should have voted for Eddie instead of Carl.

One of the earlier guys to do multitracking, always nice to the session men, at least according to Earl Palmer, wrote and performed some great, clever tunes, novelty or otherwise, mainly in that comedic 50s put-upon teenager vein.

I'm quite comfortable with my winning vote. Really, ladies bathroom cameras be damned, he's truly the end-all-be-all of ROCK AND ROLL. I just changed from Celtic Frost 'To Mega Therion' to Great 28 with nary a blink. I've got a few buds that went through that whole 80s State Fair Circuit-Know-The-Hits-Watch-Chuck-Get-His-Wad-of-Cash-And-Goddamnit-Watch-Him-On-The-Changes-On-'My-Ding-A-Ling'-bullshit, dammit if those weren't great ROCK AND ROLL shows. Shit, every major label at the time screwed him, and yet he is paragon of USA ROCK. I had the most surreal day in St. Louis once when I caught a late night Tivoli showing of David Lynch's 'Lost Highway,' and then walked to his club to see him perform & chat & get an autograph, and then take a train to an unrequited love in a downtown hotel. Those memories of seeing him give smoking performances still certainly balance out the recent New Years show in Chicago where I'm pretty sure he had a minor stroke on stage. (Yes I know he hasn't been too hot live for many years, but let a rockist have his fun).

No qualms with the win, place and show, just a wee bit disappointed about the shutout. Maybe it's because his name was misspelled? Anyway, time for a new screenname.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lyU5bsfRdpE

Surprised JLL is so low, and maybe that Gene Vincent is that high, otherwise everything more or less what I expected. Lot of votes, heartening--I've been saying for the past couple of years that '50s rock and roll is slowly vanishing from (excuse me here) the discourse, and that I'm guilty myself.

Come to my house Clemenza, where it pretty much IS the discourse. Even tonight, when I'm listening to The Blasters and Ten Years After. They both owe a ton to all these dudes. We all do.

i'm not sure the blasters owe a ton to '50s rock and rollers so much as they *are* '50s rock and rollers for all intents and purposes.

and of course friend-of-the-blasters billy zoom played for a short time with our #5 vote-getter, gene vincent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mgQg4ze1_KU

The intro to this is sick. Noise/Punk/Krautrock

I forgot to vote in this. May have gone with Bo, as out of all these guys he's the one I listen to most now. But I was mentally preparing a passionate defense of Fats Domino back when debate was raging. I would have touched on the length of his heyday; the virtual hit assembly line he had going with Dave Bartholomew; his great bands; and how strongly the rhythms of his later Imperial stuff forecast ska and rocksteady.

That most recent Beatles book, about their early history, has a couple of great epiphanies, the first where all the guys hear, separately, Elvis, and go bonkers for him, the second where Paul next hears Little Richard and then totally loses his shit, especially when he realizes he can shriek like that, too.

Best boxed set over?

http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/51G8BeKemGL._SY300_.jpg

I can also listen to the entire Golden Age of Rock and Roll series all day.

Wow, surprised Jerry Lee took such a beating.

The "Hail Hail" clip above is revealing also in showing how easy it used to be to go though airport security.

I can get behind those results, but Eddie Cochran deserves at least one vote. "20 Flight Rock" man!

Great results, hard to argue with for the most part. Jerry Lee remains the all-time rock n roll underdog, I guess. Also a little surprised Bo didn't do better given all the praise in this thread - but Chuck definitely deserves the crown.

Of course, Jerry Lee is the guy who recorded both "Born To Lose" and "Born To Be A Loser" so results fit with his own mythology.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b9-eEqACkh4

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=S4ynVJPu_dI

and "You Win Again"
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l6JPzGIVB7M

I feel like Cochran getting shut out is mostly due to the demographics of poll voters - he was big shit in England but nobody at home gave a fuck about him, was always my impression.

And yeah, that Loud, Fast & Out of Control box is great. So is the sequel, Rockin' Bones.

JLL definitely underrepresented in these poll results -- Gene Vincent ain't that hot, y'all.

i voted for chuck berry but i feel bad for jerry lee now

I think it's actually kind of great. Jerry Lee's whole schtick is about sneering contempt at the world for not recognizing him as the one true king. Nice to see it justified.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6BUHsHRRYk

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F6BUHsHRRYk

Great thread, which I wish I'd seen sooner. Lots of great one-shots on various Sun collections; check Ike Turner in the 50s (incl. on Sun); ditto Cash, with all his Sun tracks released as a series of albums a few years back (on his MySpace and maybe Spotify too, come to think of it): he's already assimilating rock & roll into his own thang, as is Charlie Rich. Link Wray, on the other hand, is rock & roll.

xpost Rockin Bones not really a sequel, just focuses on mostly obscure rockabilly cuts. Still great, though!

Wanda Jackson's Complete Capitol Singles has all the lemon-squeezers and weepers too (the latter label-mandated, albeit insincere-sounding apologies for the former, Ah suspect).

the xpost Everys were and are p crucial. The harmonies linking great country brother tradition/innovation to Beatles, Byrds, etc., and also, their singles producer Chet Atkins bragged about slipping Diddlyesque guitar(in)to the Pat Boone fans, with who knows whut-all results.

I wish C Grisso wouldve posted about Fats. I feel bad for how I kinda mounted a throwaway defense. Feels like without Fats and Lloyd Price, there's no Little Richard...

Correction: the xpost Wanda Jackson collection I was thinking of is actually The Best of The Capitol Classic Singles, on Omnivore/Universal, 2013. The ballads make it uneven, but they get better, and the rockabilly tracks are even more startling by contrast.

Holy smokes, how have I never heard Jimmy Wages until today? This is amazing:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GGcs8Q_AOA4

woah - first time hearing this for me too, thanks!

He got talked up a bit and this song was posted in a different 1950s thread, but I hadn't seen it. I listened to this three times in a row today, along with everything else I could find by him. There isn't much, the few songs he recorded for Sun were never released.

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.