First rock and roll record

There are many candidates for the title of the first Rock and Roll record. Numerous recordings mark the development of rock and roll as a separate musical form. Some songs are cited as having important lyrical content, others are seen as offering important melodic, harmonic or rhythmic influence. These songs include not only hits from the 1950s when the music emerged on the national and international scene, but also earlier precursors.

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Rock and roll - 1950s

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Wild cards from the 1920s and 1930s that seemed then to have come from nowhere but now clearly foreshadow rock and roll:

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1920s - 1930s

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• "My Daddy Rocks Me (with One Good Steady Roll)" by Trixie Smith (1922). Although it was played with a backbeat and was one of the first "around the clock" lyrics, this slow minor-key blues was by no means rock and roll in the modern sense. On the other hand, the title certainly underscores the original meaning attached to those two words (both of four letters), rock and roll.
• "Tiger Rag" by the Washboard Rhythm Kings, (1931) virtually out of control performance with screeching vocals, a strange tiger roar, and rocking washboard. This recording is standing in for many performances by spasm bands, jug bands, and skiffle groups that have the same wild, informal feel that early rock and roll had.

Tunes from the 1930s and 1940s that were early indicators of an important change in the music world:

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1930s - 1940s

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• "Roll 'Em Pete" by Pete Johnson and Joe Turner (1938) driving boogie woogie and a masterful collation of blues verses
• "Flying Home" by Lionel Hampton and his orchestra (1939), tenor sax solo by Illinois Jacquet, recreated and refined live by Arnett Cobb, the model for rock and roll solos ever since, emotional, honking, long, not just an instrumental break but the keystone of the song. (The Benny Goodman Sextet had a popular hit with a subdued "jazz chamber music" version of the same song featuring guitarist Charlie Christian.)
• "Rock Me" by the Lucky Millinder Orchestra with Sister Rosetta Tharpe vocals and guitar, a gospel song done like a city blues
• "I Wonder" by Cecil Gant (1944), an early black ballad performance that became widely popular, the first of the black tenors.
• "Straighten Up and Fly Right" by Nat King Cole (1946), very light on the rocking, but a popular hit with lyrics from African American folk tale, like Bo Diddley, but without the beat
• "Let the Good Times Roll" by Louis Jordan (1946)
• "We're Gonna Rock, We're Gonna Roll" by Wild Bill Moore (1947)
• "Oakie Boogie"; by Jack Guthrie (1947)
• "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee"; by Stick McGhee and his Buddies (1949)
• "Ragg Mopp" by Johnny Lee Wills and Deacon Anderson (1949), strange little novelty tune, the lyrics are simply the title spelled out or yelled out, re-released in 1954 by the Ames Brothers.

The hits from the 1950s typically are seen with an early performance much in the rhythm and blues style and a later cover performance more in the rock and roll vein. Often, the first performance was by a black artist and the second by a white artist. These white covers, while at the time sometimes disdained as exploitive and derivative, were a necessary part of the transition of the music. Nor were they all pale imitations, but sometimes earnest remakes by sympathetic performers, and more than a few were recognized as superior recordings to the originals.

Related Topics:
1950s - Rhythm and blues

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• "Good Rocking Tonight" (1949) by Roy Brown and Wynonie Harris, both black artists; Brown's original version is jump blues while Harris's version is definitely more modern rock and roll. Later spiritedly covered by Elvis Presley and less spiritedly by Pat Boone.
• "The Fat Man" by Fats Domino (1949), featuring Fats on wah-wah mouth trumpet, the first of his 35 Top 40 hits.
• "Rock Me to Sleep" written by Benny Carter and Paul Vandervoort II (1950), recorded by Helen Humes backed by the Marshall Royal Orchestra.
• "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (actually Ike Turner and the Kings of Rhythm) (1951), and Bill Haley and the Saddlemen (1951)
• "Crazy Man, Crazy", (1953) Bill Haley and his Comets, first rock and roll record on Billboard magazine chart. Not a cover, but an original. Haley said he heard the phrase at high-school dances his band was playing.
• "Rock Around the Clock", (1954) by Bill Haley and his Comets, first number 1 rock and roll record
• "Shake, Rattle and Roll", (1954) by Big Joe Turner, Bill Haley and his Comets, and Elvis Presley. Haley's version was the first international hit rock and roll record, actually predating the success of "Rock Around the Clock" by several months, though it was recorded later.
• "That's All Right (Mama)", (1954) by Elvis Presley; this cover of Arthur Crudup's tune was Elvis' first single, and is possibly the song most often cited (albeit this being the matter of a huge, sustained controversy), as the first rock and roll record.
• "Sh-boom" (1954) by the Chords and the Crewcuts, in this case, the latter was a pale imitation. The song is considered a pioneer of the doo-wop variant.
• "Maybellene", (1955) by Chuck Berry

In 2004 and 2005, debate was sparked between fans of Elvis, as well as many in the music business, who claimed "That's All Right Mama" was the first rock and roll song, with those who feel the proper claimant should be Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock"--both songs celebrating their 50th anniversaries in those two years. Rolling Stone Magazine took the controversial step of unilaterally declaring Elvis' song the first rock and roll recording, attracting criticism from many quarters.

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NOTE ABOUT THE TITLE, "KING OF ROCK AND ROLL"

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In connection with the controversy which arose over the first rock and roll record, another controversial issue has dogged rock historians, some of the performer themselves, and the general public, and that is the title of "King of Rock and roll". It should be noted, at the outset, that the real, substantive and, what is more important, untinterrupted launch of rock as a distinctive medium and which extends, with its various derivations to this date, is marked by the arrival, at the top of the US charts, of "Heartbreak Hotel", Elvis Presley`s first single for RCA, in 1956.

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From that date onwards, singles from all musical genres previously dominant in the US market were not just momentarily unable to reach the top of the US singles charts ( as it was the case when Bill Haley`s "Rock around the clock" topped the chart a year earlier), but were definitively relegated to ocassionally entering the Top Ten. Rock, as a distinctive musical idiom, may have been even born in 1955, or even earlier, but it took off like a rocket, in 1956.

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That year, Presley`s outstanding hold of the US singles market, via radio, television, merchandiding, and aided by a frantic schedule of personal appearances (in excess of 230) paved the way for his simultaneous grab of a significant portion, both in sales and as a percentage of weeks spent in the US Billboard charts, of the US album market as well, a feat not achieved, previously or soon thereafter, by any of the early rock founders.

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As the 1956 year advanced, the domination of rock and roll , with Elvis Presley at the helm, as the most popular musical genre of the second half of the 1950`s also extended not just to radio, personal appearances, merchandising and television but, to a certain extent, to the motion picture industry itself.

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As a result, in late November of 1956, the prestigious weekly trade paper, "Variety", named Elvis Presley the "King of Rock and Roll". The title, which has been a subject of a huge "personal" controversy amongst at least three of his contemporaries, namely Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley, as well as from an evenly divided media, and the public, was not meant to enshrine Presley`s work as being the "best" amongst its contemporaries. Nor, did "Variety" insinuate that Presley was the "first" to bring the rock medium to the attention of the general public.

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What "Variety" meant was that Presley`s 1956 success, over that of his peers and across the board, namely in record sales, radio, merchandising, personal appearances, television and, finally, at the movies and in what was then still a nascent musical genre, was of such proportions that it merited not only for the genre to be finally "recognized", but that Presley, by virtue of his phenomenal output that year, was the most likely candidate for being, precisely, its first "King".

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As he repeated his huge success the year after, and was soon drafted in the US Army, with no recording star being fully able to take his iconic place, even while he was away in Germany, Presley`s title has survived, through the years, not necessarily because of the absence, or not, of any equally commanding solo rock star to arrive in the music scene in the fifty years that have thus far followed, but rather by his ability to secure, more than anyone before, during, or after, and based on an enormous talent, a series of comebacks, and an extremely ecclectic output, a highly elastic, loyal, large and, what is even more important, sustainable fan base, even 28 years after his passing away.

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For a "King", in any of its denominations, to be truly seen as one even after he is no longer alive, he must have, and keep, a loyal base, large enough to offset, over the long run, other equally loyal bases and for longer periods of time. Rock music, which some people thought started as a fad, is now 50 years old. Record sales, and milestones, are no longer determined as short races, but rather as marathons, and Presley, deservedly, and based on his continuance as a remarkably hot seller, remains the most accomplishied of the long distance solo rock runners.

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Presley`s outstanding success, in 1956 alone, is summarized below.

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a) 5 #1 singles ("Heartbreak Hotel", "I want you, I need you, I love you", "Don`t be cruel", "Hound Dog", y "Love me tender"). When combined, these five singles stayed at the top for 25 out of the 52 weeks). This particular record has yet to be broken, by either another solo artist, by a duo, or group of artists.

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b) 2 # 1 albums( titled "Elvis Presley" y "Elvis"), the first being the earliest rock LP to ever reach the top of the album chart.

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c) 500,000 tickets sold in his 230 sold-out shows that year, the attendance figure being the most, by far, any singer had yet attracted in US entertainment history.

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d) 10 million records sold, also the most any recording artist had by far, achieved up to that date in a one year period, between singles, EP`s and albums ( or half the sales of RCA, then the biggest label in the world),

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e) 238 million cumulative TV viewers(*)

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f) 7 million additional paying customers, those watching his first film "Love me tender".

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