Bill Haley and His Comets, Rock Around The Clock - A Classical Musician’s First Listen And Reaction
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- เผยแพร่เมื่อ 27 ส.ค. 2024
- First listen for the ‘50s! What a catchy, danceable little song! It really makes a person want to move, and even includes “Rock” in the title! This is the decade in which we begin to see Rock music develop in earnest, and this song demonstrates how much it is about dance, the drums, and feeling the beat.
Here’s the link to the original song by Bill Haley and His Comets:
• Bill Haley & His Comet...
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Amy Shafer, LRSM, FRSM, RYC, is a classical harpist, pianist, and music teacher, Director of Piano Studies and Assistant Director of Harp Studies for The Harp School, Inc., holds multiple degrees in harp and piano performance and teaching, and is active as a solo and collaborative performer. With nearly two decades of teaching experience, she teaches privately, presents masterclasses and coaching sessions, and has performed and taught in Europe and USA.
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Credits: Music written and performed by Bill Haley and His Comets
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As usual, please write here your questions only.
My question: what do you have against comments?
How about Chuck Berry - Johnny B Goode 1958 next. Made famous again by Marty McFly in the 1985 time travel film, Back to The Future. When he performed it on stage to an audience that were not quite ready for what he did with it.
Great channel as always, I would be interested if you listened to one of the coolest car songs Highway star by Deep purple, or one of the best war protest songs in War pigs by Black sabbath. But no matter what song you choose to do its always very educational, feels like I am in class!
Now that you've heard that, go back and listen to Hank William's "Move It Over" from six or seven years earlier. Hear any similarities?
The fact the the song has "Rock" in the title, implies that the audience would have been familiar with the term. Can you find out if the word "rock" was used in the context of a musical style or dancing before this song was released? Otherwise it could be a self-referential song, like "The Hustle," which was both the name of a 70s disco song and the dance. Or the Hokey Pokey.
Bill Haley gave kids a music that spoke their language. I love it very much.
Very satisfying choice. Rock around the Clock is a song that I would classify under the category "MUST LISTEN" if you deal with the history of rock. Good job!!
I was a pre-teen when this came out. I can remember being with some other young folks standing around a jukebox playing it again and again - as long as our dimes held out! Couldn't get enough of it. It was so different from what we had been used to hearing. Thanks for this series - allows me to live those days over again now that I'm approaching 80.
The one thing that is overlooked with this song is the bass playing by Marshall Lytle. The walking bass is the driving force throughout the song and is more of the percussion than the drums are. His slap on the stand-up bass is like a metronome for the whole song. If you listen to a live performance, the dynamic of the song totally changes when you can't hear the bass.
Can't argue with that, good point.
This is a very important, historic song in America and to the history of Rock n Roll. It came out in 1954 but wasn’t an instant hit. It wasn’t until it was used for the opening credits of the 1955 movie Blackboard Jungle that it became a mega hit and turned Bill Haley and the Comets into rock stars. The movie was one of the first to deal with the issues of gangs and race divisions in inner-city high schools here in America, at a time long before it was even talked about. It stars Genn Ford and Sidney Portier. Kids went crazy and danced in the aisles when the song came on. Beatles drummer Ringo Starr credits his aunt taking him to see the movie when he was a kid and the theater they were in in Liverpool getting torn to shreds by the kids as his main influence and exciting him to want to play rock n roll.
I believe that it has been said that modern, popular music changes drastically every 20 years beginning in 1955. It starts simply with early 12 bar rock & roll on Telecasters. By 1975 synthesized, multitrack Prog rock reached its height of popularity. Then, primal 4/4 punk and simple disco became popular. From then until around 1992 the recording studio surpassed electric guitars and synthesizers to be the key instrument in the recording process. Of course, grunge and hip hop in the mid-90’s dialed back the complexity of music making again. For the next 20 years, the grunge guys cranked up the guitar and vocal energy while the hip hop guys sought out unique samples of earlier music that new vocals could be draped over. I guess that auto-tune and quantization with orchestral backing was as complex as music could get during the 20 years leading up to 2015. When popular music becomes too complicated for teens to recreate in their bedroom, it reverts back to a simpler style. I haven’t seen that in this generation, though.
@@rtwbikerider You obviously haven’t heard of Greta Van Fleet then. Check them out. They are a group of kids who aren’t even 25 yet, out of Frankenmouth, Michigan. No auto tune. Real Ludwig drums. Real Gibson SG and Marshall and Orange amps. Real Fender Jazz Bass. Real organs…… check out their signature classic that came out in 2018 but fits right in with the best of the ‘70s, Highway Tune.
@@joe6096 I have listened to a few of Greta Van Fleet's singles on the radio and enjoyed them all. They certainly fit my artificial 20-year timeline. I was unfamiliar with their instrumentation and recording techniques. Their real, live playing meets the theory that I mentioned about a shift to the simplification of music every 20-years? Would you say that "teens" today are able to cover their songs? Are there similar young bands of this same generation? Are they leading a wave, or are they outliers for this generation? Maybe it's just too early to define an era until after it's over.
Thanks Joe! I had forgotten about it being in Blackboard Jungle! When I hear this song I always remember the movie, American Graffiti...lol...and I believe it was in the opening as well! Hmmm...
@@alansmith7626 Yep, American Graffiti as well as the first season of Happy Days before they wrote the Happy Days theme song.
One of the greatest guitar leads of all time. I believe Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" and Chuck Berry's "Johnny B Goode" are the 2 songs responsible for inspiring more people to want to learn how to play the guitar than any other songs of that era. The guitar lead for "Rock Around the Clock" was played by Danny Cedrone. He had a wife and 4 daughters, and they lived in south Philadelphia. He would often tell his wife "all I need is that one hit, that one big record and we'll be on our way". If I remember the story correctly, there was no food in the house, so his wife asked him to go to his friends 2nd floor restaurant to pick up sandwiches for the family. Upon exiting the 2nd floor restaurant, he fell down the flight of stairs, dying instantly. Danny passed away 8 months before this song became a worldwide smash hit, and ushered in a new era of music. RIP Danny Cedrone.
This was the moment when a small band produced a big band sound and the jazz influence is undeniable. The thing that tips it into proto-rock is the danceability.
That's an incredible guitar solo for this era.
The guitar solo in this just blows me away. No pedal effects and no mixing board tricks just pure talent. I love it.
Peace
Even if you use distortion with a fuzz or a wahwah you need talent for a good guitar solo. Technology is never a substitute for skill.
AND...he improvised it. He was told to do a solo...so he did. One take. Practising Jazz and Bluegrass will get you there.
that guy has immortality thanks to this guitar solo. Danny Cedrone played the solo, but shortly afterward, he died. On June 17, ten days after this session and three days before his 34th birthday , Cedrone died of a broken neck after falling down a staircase (some sources say he died of a heart attack)
pedals and boards take talent to implement musically as well.
This solo and Hank Garland's one in A Fool Such As I are two of the best things in this era of Rock And Roll. Just ridiculously beautiful.
Being a wee lad in the mid 70s, this will always mean "Happy Days" to me. I did like the later "Happy Days" theme (original for the show) as well.
👍Ayyyyyyyyyyyyy
Kickass!
Not so much a children’s song but you can hear the innocence of the 50s.
Welcome to Canada, we're happy to have you visit and we'd be even happier if you wanted to stay a while!! Enjoy your stay!!
It was not only escape from daily struggle music but it also became the sound of a new generation breaking with old traditions
There's a lot of glue between "Sing Sing Sing" and this, that is often overlooked. A lot of the early rock songs were influenced by Blues, Rockabilly, and probably most importantly, Jump Blues, which is basically Swing scaled down so smaller venues that could not afford a 12 piece band could still fill a dance hall.
Artists like Tiny Bradshaw (Who wrote "Train Kept a Rollin"), Louis Jordan, and Eddie Vinson, fused jump and blues, paving the way for bands like Bill Ward's "Dominoes" (usually tagged as being R&B), with songs like "60 Minute Man". Often, the Jump Blues songs were risque, and didn't get much airplay, but provided fertile fodder for budding musicians.
Enter stage left was Rockabilly with a similar, outlaw, bad-boy vibe. Haley provided a pasteurized version of what was playing in the clubs which pleased the kids and the censors tolerated. You can see the difference between his version of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" and the original by Big Joe Turner.
Haley tried to clean up the lyrics but left in "I'm like a one eyed cat peeping in a seafood store".. He failed. I do like his version as much as Big Joe Turners, though.
Bill Haley and the Comets started as a country band, and this is actually a precursor of rock a billy. This is the grandfather of people loke acts like The Stray Cats. This is one of the earliest rock songs. Its such a pure joy to hear it.
Folks don't realize Bill Haley started out yodeling like Jimmie Rodgers.
The drumming here is a gem - different flourishes/accents each time around give the song a great energy.
Yes. Different snare shot timings for each pair of verses.
This is the First #1 Hit for rock n roll ever..
One very interesting pre-rock recording that still sounds like early rock n' roll is Pete Johnson's "Roll 'Em Pete" from 1938. It sounds very close to Jerry Lee Lewis and has a really rocking rhythm. Worth checking out as it demonstrates that many of the elements of rock existed before the name of the genre was invented, as you also suggested with "Sing, Sing, Sing", an apt choice although it falls squarely under the jazz category. I just discovered that another of Johnson's songs, "Answer to the Boogie", is pretty similar to "Rock around the Clock" - it has a similar walking-line riff and rhythm but is instrumental.
This song is a strong fusion of 50's Jazz & Rock & Roll with a good Swing beat
Just great music
This band was one of my dad's favorites. When I was a kid we would play the heck out of the record even doing an impromptu air concert at one point. Great fun, great memories.
My late father was able to see a few shows in the 50’s, they were mostly reviews with many artists from a specific label, but he always said that Bill Haley & The Comets was the most impressive and got the biggest crowd response. (I still miss his stories of the old days.)
The horrors of breaking of tradition when people started moving freely in front of other people while not caring how they looked while focusing more on how they feel. Peace/JT
Most people don't realize how much of the percussion is coming from the bass. You really can't get this rhythm without it. The player plucks the note then slaps the string against the fingerboard. Pluck slap pluck slap.
For a quick demonstration do a TH-cam search for "Johnny Hatton - Rockabilly Slap Bass"
Such a fun examination. A true classic rock tune. I grew up in a Doo Wop house (my parents). This genre was Always playing. It felt like I was living in Happy Days or American Graffiti. I'm very grateful for the amount of music I was exposed to, as a child. Probably why I played drums in my youth. Rock-n-Roll, baby!
An amazing blueprint for all pop (and I do mean popular) music that follows across the decades
I started as a drummer, so it's STILL that 4 on the floor with a head-snapping snare that makes early Rock "rock" to me. The fast walking bass-line and amazing guitar work clinches it. For those saying this isn't Rock because it's a shuffle beat and based on Swing patterns are missing the point. Rock came OUT of jazz, blues and boogie-woogie just as they came out of the music that preceded them.
30 years later, Footloose came along and kept this spirit very much alive!
At the beginning of your channel when you said you are going to go through the history of Rock, this is the first song to pop into my head. I have been waiting for you to do this. I wonder how Carl will structure the rest of Rock history. Will it be just two songs per decade? I hope not. This was a great episode. I have heard this song all my life. it was fun to watch your reaction to it. Like Lee Kennison, I totally expected you to say "oh, I've heard this before."
For the initial run through I only do 2 songs per decade. We are now going back and recording about 10 songs per genre or style. There is no way I can encapsulate the history of Rock with 2 songs per decade. Hell I am not sure I could do it using 2 songs per month! LOL There will be lots more. I simply at this phase wanted Amy to hear the "sound" of the various periods, before we do a concerted study of the specifics. So wait there is more...!
I still put “Be Bop a Lula” on every time I see a 50s style cafe with a jukebox
My mom was a teenager in the 1950s so I heard this sort of music as a kid. Just a couple of small points. The instrumentation of the band: Bill Haley on vocals and acoustic rhythm guitar. The other instruments were Electric Guitar, Tenor Saxophone, Pedal Steel Guitar, Doubleass, and Drums. The part where you thought you heard trumpets was a blend of sax and electric guitar playing that voicing together. The steel guitar player didn't play notes, but rather tapped his slide on the strings to get a clicking sort of sound on beats 2 and 4 of each bar.
I love the Rockabilly guitar solo in this song; it's frenetic but not chaotic, and a really "jagged" sound over that smooth walking bass-line. I can't wait for the lesson on the percussion line! I'm really enjoying this history of rock series.
That is SOLID Rock & Roll, a perfect choice.
This was the very first record to sell over one million copies in the U.K! Which does not happen too often.
In 1955 this was revolutionary!
This was the theme song for Happy Days. It brings back great memories of this iconic tv show which premiered in 1974.
It’s the beginning, the 50s, dances where call a hop, kids were buying these snapped 45 records, radios stations was playing them. We got the King, the Killer, the Big Bop, Little Richie, Fats. I still have my Parents stack of 45s
Happy Days are hear again. This is one that I expected Amy to say, "I have heard this before." It was adopted as the theme on the very popular Happy Days TV show, which was set in the 1950s teenage culture. It first ran on TV in the 70s and 80s, but endured in syndication long after. I'm sure it was on Nick at Nite cable channel well into the 2000s era. I guess little Amy was too busy practicing her harp back in the day with no time for TV.😉
Little Amy was so busy practicing harp she didn't even know there was such a thing as TV! :)
@@VirginRock Well there is always TH-cam so you can now experience the joys of what you missed. Lots of Happy Days clips, although from a quick search I didn't see any full episodes. You have to experience the iconic TV character The Fonz, played by Henry Winkler. Also Ron Howard (little Opie from the Andy Griffith Show) played the teenage Richie Cunningham. And now you are saying, "What's the Andy Griffith Show?"
@@VirginRock Lol, I was just thinking of how the rolls have been reversed. When I was a kid I watched way too much TV. Now that I am an old man I rarely watch TV (haven't had cable in over a decade) because I am too busy practicing my instruments.😄 Whereas you had your priorities straight from the start.
I wish I had that sort of dedication to playing an instrument when I was younger considering how much I love music all different genres to...
First the movie American Graffiti, then the spin off tv series Happy Days.
Let's not forget that an entire dancing style developed with these early rock'n'roll pieces. There are still championships to this day and they can get quite acrobatic!
Or did it? That acrobatic dancing you saw in the early days of American Bandstand was really the same swing dancing that was being done in the 40s.
@@MichaelEdelman1954 I agree. The Jitterbug and Jiving were around long before Rock. But of course like the music itself it morphed with the time... Anyone wish to Mash Potato, or Twist!
The rhythm is not swing......it is ROCK AND ROLL!
it definitely has a Lindey hop clave with the 2 bar pattern of chord stabs on the & of 1 the 3 then the 1 and the & of 2
Even though this is sometimes called the first rock and roll tune, it’s more of a swing tune with a shuffle beat. What largely defined rock early on was the change from a swing bear to a straight eight note ostinato on the ride cymbal. What is interesting to me is that it’s an example of how rock came out of two traditions: R&B and Country. Haley and the Comets were very much a country band- note the steel guitar.
You are correct. There are a number of songs considered "the first" I see it more as an evolution. It is like asking when did the first human come into existence (putting Adam and Eve aside for the moment), and there was no particular moment. The same can be said of any music form. It morphs and eventually becomes a new style.
You can't forget about Rocket 88 which was recorded in 1951.
That up-tempo beat was literally the get people dancing faster so that they became thirstier and the bar Owners; Club owners would sell more product alcohol.
This is one of the first songs that was unapologetically Rock’n’Roll…
One of the big shifts from the big band era through jump blues to rock 'n roll was the SIZE of bands. So many changes were happening in jazz, like the Cabaret laws in NYC that made large bands at first prohibitive and later passé. That's just the tip of the iceberg, but then you could find four and five piece bands that could draw in good crowds.
This tune clearly defines how Rock is a hybrid between Country/Hillbilly music and the Blues. The structure is a 12-bar Blues pattern yet it's upbeat and positive - not all Blues is downbeat or dark or depressing - much of it is about 'combatting' the Blues. Like you said - the music is 'forcing' you to have fun despite your difficulties. The slapping and walking bass line and upbeat and bouncy danceability is also common in Country/Hillbilly music - hence why this is Rock-A-Billy music.
The rhythm sounds to me a an hour hand spinning around the “clock”!
"Escapism"... I like that. This music was a "little" before my time, but I think that description fits. It was post- WWII (and the Korean War) and everyone was tired of the depressing state of society so let's have some fun!!
Enjoyed. Thank you for sharing.
The constant ticking of the drumsticks is clever , but maybe it goes unnoticed by people that forget that clocks used to tick.
That is the slapping of the stand-up bass guitar strings making the "clicking" sound.
If you can write a song that makes the girls dance, the boys will like it too and you have a hit.
Of course in the U.K., it made Teddy Boys riot and tear up theater seats.
Precisely
I am quite upset with Karl’s idea of apropos songs for the history.
For the Blues- he selected a 4th rock generation WHITE artist, Stevie Ray Vaughn, instead of a Black Bluesman of the pre-rock roots era like Leadbelly or Robert Johnson.
For the focus on rhythm- he went with the WHITE Benny Goodman and the Big Band Swing popular dance music of “Sing, Sing, Sing” with Gene Krupa instead of the Black Rhythm & Blues artists of the postwar period like Louis Jordan or Wynonie Harris or Jimmy Preston.
Now for lesson 2 which seems to be about the beginnings of actual Rock and Roll built on the pre-rock foundations, he chose WHITE (and five years into the genre) Bill Haley & His Comets doing “Rock Around The Clock” instead of the actual first examples of the genre by Black artists like Little Richard, Bo Diddley, Arthur Crudup, Ike Turner, Howling Wolf, or Muddy Waters.
Plus before jumping into 50s Rockabilly, which “Rock Around The Clock” is, a foundation of its ‘Hillbilly’ Country music predecessor needs to be examined with artists like Hank Williams, Merle Travis, Charley Ryan, or Bill Flagg (yes, White artists.)
Amy you are not getting a good exposure to where Rock came from.
I don’t think Karl is intentionally being racist, but so far the Black roots as well as the Country roots are being ignored. One good definition of late 1950s was it was what you got when White Country artists performed Black Rhythm & Blues merging the two genres (while R&B itself was the merging of the Blues & drums with horns dance music you could jitterbug to.)
So awesome how the Rush "Night flight" owl is standing guard on the wall right behind you.👍🏼😁 🦉 🎶 🎵 🎼
In the beginning Rock'n'Roll bands used a double bass (Yes, it was a walking bass line). But since the electric bass was "invented" by Leo Fender in 1950, bass players began to use it soon after to equal the loud volumes of the electric guitar.
The upright bass does not cut through, but definitely fits the rhythm. The clicking sound is the slapping of the bass strings.
Waiting for the day she gets to punk rock in this history series
It's so charming how you take in rock n roll...I love it.
This song shows the primary architecture of rock and roll songs.
The song that started it all.
Started it all? Not even close.
@@srdjr6760 "Started" is definitely not correct, if one rate the song musically as the beginning of Rock'n'Roll. But the track was the breakthrough and "officially" ushered the era.
Does Amy feel like tearing the cinema to pieces with excitement when she first hears this ?
It's like tryin' to tell a stranger 'bout Rock 'n' Roll
This is a very early Rock song. One of the first true Rock songs is "Rocket 88" by by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats
Thanks ever so much Amy for your analysis, a very very talented and intelligent musician you are may I say. I love BH and the Comets.
I love your exploration of something I grew up with and was in many bands as a bass player. I do hope that you get to "The Endless Enigma" by Emerson, Lake and Palmer to hear a blend of classic structure with rock power. Thanks, and am glad I found this channel.
One of my favor all time classics. I can't wait until you get to the more complex songs and talk about the evolution of rock,
This early rock and roll is another genre. I'm so glad we've moved on.
Recorded the day after I was born.
The Comets used a stand-up slapped double bass rather than an electric bass, which were still pretty uncommon in 1954.
That was fun! What struck me listening to it was thinking about Amy and her experience of not having heard any of this music. My situation is slightly different in that with my mom and dad being in bands from 1959-64 era, I usually heard their version of a lot of these songs that they had recorded on reel-to-reel tape before I ever heard the original version of the song. This song is an exception, as we usually watched "Happy Days" together as a family. That reel-to-reel thing was a "contraption", but the technology eventually led to 8 tracks and cassette tapes.
Rooting for the other song to be from Little Richard, but whoever it is, I'm sure it will be good.
Little Richard is on the list, among others like Elvis, Buddy Holly, and Chuck Berry!
I recommend his “Skinny Minnie “ a must if you haven’t heard it yet .xx
According to the official record sheet from the session, however, the musicians on the famous recording are:
Bill Haley - vocals, rhythm guitar
Marshall Lytle - double bass
Franny Beecher - guitar
Billy Williamson - steel guitar
Johnny Grande - piano
Billy Gussak - drums (session musician)
Danny Cedrone - electric guitar
Joey Ambrose (aka Joey D'Ambrosio) - tenor saxophone
Sadly, Danny died from a fall shortly after recording this, becoming either the first or second fatality in Rock and Roll, the other being Johnny Ace’s death losing at Russian Roulette.
@@seed_drill7135 he russian roulette thing is a myth, debunked by those who was there.
Does anyone else hear the popping in the audio? It’s making me a little crazy.
The length of these songs were also based around the length you could fit on a 45RPM single. It became the standard for “pop” songs and still holds true today. Some of the music you have listened to before was from the height of the album age and so could be noticeably longer.
I had a Rock Around The Clock LP in the 1970s. I always remember from the sleeve that the drummer was called "Johnny Bam Bam Lane". Who was a drummer for Bill Haley & The Comets from 1962 to 1969 according to Google. The name just tickled me as a kid at the time. 😊
This is a great selection. Incredibly important to the history of the genre as the first "rock and roll" hit, but frankly it's just fun and catchy.
The slow blues music by black artists in the 1930s was sped up by artists like Chuck Berry and it became Rhythm and Blues. The white kids were listening to black radio stations (yes even the radio stations were segregated) and white artists adopted Rhythm and Blues. A DJ from Cleveland Ohio (future home of the Rock n Roll Hall Fame hint hint) by the name of Alan Freed labeled it Rock n Roll and the label stuck. Elvis Presley's first single was a double sided hit. The A side which was That's All Right Mama played on the the black stations. Since Elvis and Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and Johnny Cash were southerners they called it Rockabilly. The B side was a prime example of Rockabilly because Elvis did a rock and roll version of a Bluegrass country song named Blue Moon of Kentucky. It played solely on the white stations. Bill Monroe, the founder of Bluegrass music (and he never failed to remind everyone of that fact) called his music Bluegrass because he combined Scottish folk music from Appalachia with blues music. He studied under a black blues player too.
While wildly hailed as the birth of Rock, I've always got more of a swing feel from the drums on this track. While they are in a nice even meter, there's a shuffle there that's just not typical in rock music. But then again, rock is all about tossing the rules when applicable.
🤘🧙♂️🤘
Rich the Ancient Metal Beast
It is indeed widely considered to be the first rock song, but definitely has some pieces of other existing styles strewn around in there. Taken as a whole picture I think it is fair to say it was something new. Taking some of what is already known into a new space is kind of what rock has been ever since.
I think many of us wonder why you didn't start with this era of rock n roll. Swing influence.
Simple early Rock`n Roll certainly had its influences, inspirations, and innovations. Interesting to reflect on the infancy of the Rock genre. A great first listen, and we'll likely be sharing the ear-worm :)
The percussion side of this song reminds me a lot of skiffle, which if you didn't know, was another branch of popular music that was around in the 50's, but never really took off like rock 'n' roll did. But, it still have the same blues/folksy/jazz influences. The interesting part was the inclusion of non-musical instruments used to play, such as washboards, jugs that were blown into, etc. The one exponent that immediately comes to mind is Lonnie Donegan. It was more of a British phenomena, which might explain why it never really took off.
Aww?! False advertising with this video's thumbnail! I was looking forward to watching and listening to Amy give those e-drums a good ol' bashing! 😄
I wonder how many people owe their existence to this song.
A classic and great song
I really enjoyed this one. Thank you,
🎵Let those rock 'n' roll choir boys come and carry us away🎶- Joni Mitchell 'In France They Kiss On Main Street'.
Her song makes me think of all kinds of Rock N Roll songs from the '50s.
Bob Dylan's Visions of Johana, would be awesome to see a reaction of
As much fun as it is, it's also got a dark part. This is right around when the music industry really started discovering what a huge untapped music market they had, with young people.
Technology, sound etc was starting to improve.
The industry become extremely wealthy moguls, while most of the artists barely made a dime.
Bill Haley and his Comets was a Texas Swing band. When signed by Decca in 1953, they were assigned to the 'race records" division and began recording covers of R&B songs. It was 2 yrs before they had a hit, this being it. The first Rock and Roll song to break the charts and prove the viability of genre. This can't be overlooked. Once this song hit, record labels began a mad dash to sign up other acts. Still one of the greatest guitar solos, and a song that helped cement the guitar as the feature instrument of RnR.
For a flip side of Texas Swing you should listen to Chuck Berry's "Maybeline", a rewrite of a Texas Swing song (which itself was a cover of a blues song, but Chuck didn't know that). Maybe that's what Carl has planned.
I always thought of it as a transition between big band swing and rock and roll. I can kind of hear a whisper of Glenn Miller....
Yes the guitar is playing like the walking bass used in Jazz. This could also be considered Rockabilly (which I don't know if you have heard of) is one of early forms of rock and roll music dating back to the early 50s in the south. This style blends the sound of Western musical styles such as country with that of rhythm and blues, leading to what is considered "classic" rock and roll. Defining features of the rockabilly sound include strong rhythms, boogie woogie piano riffs, doo-wop acapella singing, and common use of the tape echo. Progressive addition of different instruments and vocal harmonies led to its dilution. One well known musician that performs this style is Brian Setzer.
No sure where else to put it so I'll put it here, some suggestions of songs to try
Alice in chains - would
Porcupine tree - lazarus or anesthetize
Opeth - ghost of perdition
Primus - wynona’s big brown beaver
Iron maiden - the trooper or flight of icarus
Mastodon - the wolf is loose
Less than Jake - all my best friends are metalheads
Nikki and the dove - coconut kiss
Buckethead - the ballad of Buckethead
Oh and sultans of Swing by dire straits
Hi Amy. You see it as just an amusing piece of fun but you have to understand that before this was released there were no rock songs to compare it to. It blew the kid's minds. All they had ever heard before it was music hall, crooning and tame country music. It was used in the film Blackboard Jungle and the teenagers in the UK literally tore the cinemas to pieces. No song in the history of music has had the effect on people that this did.
I don't know how true it is but I grew up believing this was the first rock song
Child's song, rock and rolls infancy
and context again... what you see ... or hear today as a child song was a sensation back in his days. Many radio stations in the 50s didnt play this song because of the bad influence it might have.
Great pick!!!
Bobby socks and poodle skirts! Hard to not at least tap you toes to this 😁
Heres a tid-bit for you. The song was recorded with each instrument miked. That give"s it some 'uhmf' to its dynamic.
All thanks to Milt Gabler, who produced the session and forced the tech engineers to get the VU audio meter "in the red" for the first time ever at a Decca Recording session.
Yeah you can here swing influences in it now that I think about it. A boogie woogie (eight to the bar) bass line. I'm sure others have pointed out it's often referred to as rockabilly. The song that put rock and roll on the map and kicked off the rock era going to number one the summer of '55. Rock like songs did exist a few years before but this one really started it all. Always reminds me of the tv show "Happy Days" that used it as their theme song its first season.
Its a perfect pop song with a perfect arrangement. Chuck Berry next please.
You should have watched the video. This is the song that got me into Rock as a very little kid in the 60s watching the movie.
It would be hard to discuss the birth of Rock N Roll without including Fats Domino. A great integration of all the themes Carl and Amy talked about before, and also credited with the first ever Rock N Roll song called The Fat Man.
The Fat Man is on my list. Considered to be the first Rock song of all time, however that is arguable. I actually have a couple of songs by Fats on the list that Amy will hear. Thanks for bringing that up! Karl
@@karlsloman5320 There are many "first" rock and roll songs. Really there is no first. By the way, tru to get Amy to listen to Hank William's "Move It On Over", not necessarily for a video but just for kicks. See if she hears the similarities to Rock Around the Clock. It is a great piece of early rock and roll which pre-dated the Fat Man and Ike Turner's Rocket 88,.another "first" rock and roll record.
Blues and Jazz deserve a lot of credit for the foundations of rock n roll, but as usual country is being completely left out of the conversation. Bill Haley himself was a very prominent Western player and yodeler and just like most of the the other early rockers they took huge influence from the likes of Hank Williams, Ernest Tubb, Bill Monroe, Bob Wills and all the way back to Jimmie Rodgers.
It's fair to bring up country music, especially with regard to rockabilly songs like this.