Rock Music - Who Did It First?

Now, rock and roll is a general term that encompasses many different styles of music including rhythm and blues, soul, rockabilly, progressive, and more. The rock music site Happiness Is a Warm Gun reported, "But rock and roll is also more than the defining electric guitar riffs, the narrative ballad, or the four and eight bar song stanzas that riddled early rock. Rock and roll is a feeling, a swagger, and catalyst for change. Rock and roll is a movement, whether it is on the dance floor or a statement of the times, rock and roll can be seen in all facets of American life." ("History Class: The First Rock Song," September 16 2010)

A description of the evolution of rock is always controversial. As the musical form was evolving,  music was moving into a new, distinctive style far from its segregated past. Rock music is said to have combined elements of blues, country music, jazz and gospel.

But, no part of the mixture contributed more to the origin of rock than black music of the times. In 1949, black music, which, until then, had been called "race records," was newly designated "rhythm and blues" in professional publications. The genre quickly gained an increasingly mixed mainstream audience.

Nothing about the style is debated more than one obvious question: What was the first rock and roll recording?

 First Rock Song

Standard answers to this question include Elvis Presley's "That's All Right (Mama)" recorded in July 1954 or Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" recorded on April 12, 1954. Many rock historians disagree and choose Jackie Brenston's "Rocket 88" recorded on March 5, 1951, or Fats Domino's "The Fat Man" recorded in December, 1949


The Warm Gun site supports none of the above. It states that (the) "movement began on May 1^st, 1948 with Wynonie Harris’s “Good Rockin’ Tonight”. Wynonie Harris’s “Good Rockin’ Tonight” conquered the charts as well as the title as the first rock and roll song." I tend to agree. Who was Wynonie Harris? I thought you would never ask.

Wynonie Harris

Wynonie Harris was born in Omaha, Nebraska, August 24. 1915. By 1938 Harris was already establishing a good reputation as a blues performer. He was a seasoned dancer, drummer and comedian when he left Omaha for Los Angeles in 1940. In Los Angeles played drums, danced, sang, and even appeared in a movie Hit Parade of 1943. He was heavily influenced by Louis Jordan's music.

Harris had a hit with Lucky Millinder and His Orchestra in 1945 with "Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well." The song went to number one on the Billboard R&B chart and stayed there for eight weeks. The song remained on the charts for almost five months, also becoming popular with white audiences as it climbed to #7 on the U.S. pop chart.

Later in 1945, Harris embarked on a solo career. He worked regularly with Illlinois Jacquet, Lionel Hampton, and Charles Mingus. Wynonie sang under the description of "Mr Blues" on recordings in his own name and backing from The Johnny Otis Orchestra. (livinblues.com, 2009)

"Good Rocking Tonight" (December 28, 1947) was written by Roy Brown, who first offered his song to Wynonie Harris but Harris turned it down. Maybe he refused the song in its original style. Brown's original version is a jump blues that parodies gospel music, and for the first time fuses the spiritual sense of "rocking" with the secular meanings of dancing and sex..

So, Brown recorded the song and it gained popularity in New Orleans. Then, of course, Brown (not an angelic, humble man) covered it with his own version on King Records of Cincinnati, Ohio, under legendary boss Sid Nathan.

Harris's cover was even more energetic than Brown's original version, featuring black gospel style handclapping. Much more upbeat and rhythmic, Harris's version led to a craze for blues with "rocking" in the title. This may have contributed to the composition's greater success on the national R&B chart.

Brown's original recording hit number 13 of the Billboard R&B chart, but Harris' record became a number one R&B hit and remained on the chart for half a year. Brown's single would re-enter the chart in 1949, peaking at #11. (Joel Whitburn, Top R&B/Hip-Hop Singles: 1942-2004, 2004) Later, among the many others who covered the song were Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Ricky Nelson, and Pat Boone.

Harris followed with more songs such as "Good Morning Judge," "All She Wants to Do Is Rock," and "Bloodshot Eyes," but he could never quite reach the same level of fame again that "Good Rocking Tonight"  had provided for him.

By 1955, it was clear that Harris's fortunes were in reversal. The gas was shut off and work was scarce. Some say that Harris then age forty-one didn't change with the times, so he didn't appeal to a younger audience. Others say he had always been arrogant and difficult to work with. His personal lifestyle must have contributed: Harris had been a heavy smoker and drinker and it had affected his voice. One certainty is that Harris was financially irresponsible, spending his money as fast as he made it. (Jean Sanders, "Wynonie Harris: 'Mr. Blues,' an American Idol of His Day," www.nsea.org, 2004)

During the late 1950s, Harris found occasional work singing but had to develop other sources of income. He tried management and promotion to no avail. He began living in a house with his son Wesley. In May 1955 he and Wesley argued. Wesley moved out, and that was the last time they saw each other. The next year he lost the house. In 1958 he and long-time girlfriend Ice Cream separated after losing another house.



His final large-scale performance was at the Apollo, New York in November 1967, where he performed with Big Joe Turner, Big Mama Thornton, Jimmy Witherspoon and T-Bone Walker. On June 14, 1969 he died at the age of fifty-four. 
In 1994, Wynonie Harris was inducted into the W.C. Handy Blues Hall of Fame by the Blues Foundation in Memphis, Tennessee.

Living the Life of a Rock Star

This is reportedly the story of the first meeting between Wynonie and Sid Nathan (and a fellow King executive) in a back street hotel in Harlem New York in December 1947: 

"They knocked on the door and were invited in only to find Wynonie Harris lying on the bed in pink underwear accompanied by 3 naked ladies.
"At this point one of the ladies apparently spoke out of turn and was thrown out into the corridor still in her birthday suit!

"Needless to say subsequent negotiations were a little strange to say the least as Sid Nathan thought Wynonie Harris to be a drunken stupid individual. It is rumoured that the only time this ladies man par excellence wasn't involved in hanky panky was when he was either too drunk or suffering from a hangover.

"Nevertheless the hillbilly label boss was smart enough to recognize the growing popularity of black artists and they signed the former Lucky Millinder big band singer and transformed a promising performer into a consistent R&B hit maker."  ("Rock N Roll Heaven," Masters Entertainment Corporation, www.rocknrollshow.co.uk, 2009)

Listen to Wynonie Harris and "Good Rocking Tonight."

The Origins of Rock and Roll Music

What are the true origins or rock and roll music? Anyone embarking on this twisting journey of discovery soon finds out multiple roads to the source are somewhat obscure and definitely controversial. Rock and roll resulted as a blend of many musical influences merged in the melting pot of 20th Century America. Due to its many forms, most of which are still recognized today, a singular "catch all" description of exact emergence is impossible. Surely a widely held popular belief that Elvis Presley began the phenomena with Sam Phillips' produced Sun Recordings was not the actual beginning of rock, but Elvis played a major part in the crossover of "race" records to "white" hits. Rock and roll was well on its way to popularity long before the King catapulted out of Memphis. Rock and roll roots lay mainly in blues, rhythm and blues, country, folk, gospel, and jazz. As pioneering DJ Alan Freed states in the 1956 film Rock, Rock, Rock, "Rock and roll is a river of music that has absorbed many streams: rhythm and blues, jazz, rag time, cowboy songs, country songs, folk songs. All have contributed to the big beat." Fats Domino Rock and roll contained African musical traits brought into America beginning in 1619 and fusion with the European music brought here by the colonists. Recorded in memory and relayed only live, forms such as the Blues were born in the North Mississippi Delta following the Civil War. Influenced by African roots, field hollers, ballads, church music and rhythmic dance tunes called jump-ups, the blues evolved into music for a singer who would engage in call and response with instruments such as a guitar. The blues form was first popularized about 1911-14 by the black composer W.C. Handy (1873-1958). However, the poetic and musical form of the blues first crystallized around 1910 and gained popularity through the publication of Handy's "Memphis Blues" (1912) and "St. Louis Blues" (1914). Ray Charles African melodic intervals which came with the slaves to America, and that one hundred years later would made up rock and roll, are also everywhere in mountain fiddle tunes. The tradition of storytelling Celtic ballads and string-instrument playing emerged in America. And, the tradition survived in isolated rural communities but developed an American accent as music for square dances and hoe-downs. This also led to modern country music really beginning in 1927 in Bristol, Tennessee, with The Carter Family and Jimmie Rodgers. African music merged so completely with the immigrant Scots-Irish melodies in the 1800’s as to become one music – what we now refer to as old-time. The 2/4 beat of the “boom” and the “chuck” in old-time music creates a rock and roll motion, and provides the groove with the emphasis on rhythm that emphasizes the African influence. Louis Jordan and Band Rock styles took root and evolved as they moved from the rural plantations of the Mississippi delta and the melting-pot metropolis of New Orleans, up the Mississippi River to urban centers like Memphis and later, Chicago. The story of this musical interaction is also the story of American popular music and includes the plantation songs of Stephen Foster, the ragtime of Scott Joplin, and the early blues of Bessie Smith and others. Akin to this claim is that the origins of "rocking and rolling" can be traced back to steel driving men working on the railroads in the Reconstruction South. These men would sing hammer songs to keep the pace of their hammer swings. "At the end of each line in a song, the men would swing their hammers down to drill a hole into the rock. The shakers — the men who held the steel spikes that the hammer men drilled — would 'rock' the spike back and forth to clear rock or 'roll,' twisting the spike to improve the bite of the drill." (Scott Reynolds Nelson, Steel Drivin' Man pg. 75) Roy Brown An alternative claim is, for many years and probably centuries previously, the term "rocking and rolling" had been used as a nautical term to denote the side-to-side and forward-and-backward motion of ships on the ocean. This meaning was used metaphorically in such records as Buddy Jones' "Rockin' Rollin' Mama" (1939) "Waves on the ocean, waves in the sea/ But that gal of mine rolls just right for me/ Rockin' rollin' mama, I love the way you rock and roll." The first coupling of the words "rock" and "roll" on record came in 1916, in a recording of a spiritual, "The Camp Meeting Jubilee," by an unnamed vocal "quartette" issued by Little Wonder Records. The lyrics include "We've been rocking and rolling in your arms / Rocking and rolling in your arms / In the arms of Moses". Meaning something akin to spiritual rapture, rock and roll was a metaphor for "to shake up, to disturb or to incite." ( http://www.littlewonderrecords.com/music-library.htm) W.C. Handy But, the phrase "rocking and rolling", as secular black slang for dancing or sex, appeared on record for the first time in 1922 on Trixie Smith's "My Man Rocks Me With One Steady Roll." As in Bluesman Roy Brown's "Good Rocking Tonight, the verb "roll" was a medieval metaphor which meant "having sex." Writers for hundreds of years had used the phrases "They had a roll in the hay" or "I rolled her in the clover." One example of such a tune was Thomas Morley's song, "Now Is the Month of Maying" (Barley-break is Renaissance-speak for "a roll in the hay.") "Good Rocking Tonight" in 1947 (also covered the next year by Wynonie Harris in an even wilder version), suggested "rocking" was ostensibly about dancing but was, in fact, a thinly-veiled allusion to sex. The line "commence to rock and roll" appeared in the swing tune "Get Rhythm in Your Feet and Music in Your Soul" recorded by Benny Goodman and his orchestra in July 1935. The big band influence on rock and roll cannot be denied. The overall rhythm accented the backbeats. Count Basie and Lionel Hampton bands were important bridges between swing and R&B. Basie's 1937 "One O'Clock Jump" and Hampton's 1942 "Flying Home" were signs of things to come. Robert Johnson With the ending of the Swing Era, the big bands broke into smaller units, jazz and blues going their separate ways to bebop units and dance house R&B jump blues bands that played music with a big dance beat and broad appeal. The jump bands began as smaller versions of the swing bands, consisting of a rhythm section and a couple horns that played hard driving riffs and solos over blues progressions, and a boogie derived bass and beat. Little Richard Many claim Louis Jordan and his group can be credited with the first pure rock and roll songs. Jordan released dozens of hit songs, including the swinging "Saturday Night Fish Fry" (one of the earliest and most powerful contenders for the title of "First Rock and Roll Record"), "Blue Light Boogie," and the comic classic "Ain't Nobody Here but Us Chickens." Other hits by Louis Jordan include "Buzz Me," "Ain't That Just Like a Woman", and the multi-million seller "Choo Choo Ch'Boogie." Louis Jordan still ranks as the top black recording artist of all time in terms of the total number of weeks at #1 -- his records scored an incredible total of 113 weeks in the #1 position (the runner-up being Stevie Wonder with 70 weeks). Here are some other contenders for the first recorded rock and roll song. In fact, one of the first true rock and roll songs mentioned came from Joe Turner, black blues artists, who sang, “Shake, Rattle, and Roll.” If one listens to this song by Joe Turner it should be very clear that this is the, or one of the, first true rock and roll songs. It sounds like a rock and roll song, not a blues song. The beat is up tempo and the words and rhythm of the song depict the sounds and feelings of a true rock and roll song. It was recorded February 15, 1954. Another first rock and roll song was “Rocket 88, which was a number one R&B song on March 5, 1951, and credited to "Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats," a group that really didn't exist. This song was first recorded by the Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm, not Bill Haley and the Comets. Other contenders: "Kansas City Blues" by Jim Jackson recorded on October 10, 1927 "Pine Top's Boogie Woogie" by Clarence "Pinetop" Perkins recorded on December 29, 1928 "Crazy About My Baby" by Glind Roosevelt Graves and brothe Uaroy recorded in 1936 "I Believe I'll Dust My Broom" and "Crossroads Blues" by Robert Johnson recorded on November 23 and 27, 1936 "Rock Me" by Sister Rosetta Tharpe recorded on October 31, 1938 "Ida Red" by Bob Wills and the Texas Playboys recorded in 1938 "Down the Road a Piece" by the Will Bradley Orchestra in 1940 "Boogie Woogie Bugle Boy" by the Andrews Sisters recorded in 1940 "Mean Old World" by T-Bone Walker recorded in 1942 "Blues, Part 2" by Illinois Jacquet recorded in 1944 "The Honeydripper" by Joe Liggins recorded in 1945 "I Can't Be Satisfied" by Muddy Waters recorded in 1947 "Move It On Over" by Hank Williams recorded in 1947 "Rock the Joint" by Jimmy Preston recorded in 1949 "Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee" by Stick McGhee and his Buddies recorded on February 14, 1949 "The Fat Man" by Fats Domino recorded on December 10, 1949 "Sixty Minute Man" by the Dominoes recorded on December 30, 1950 "Hound Dog" by Willie Mae "Big Mama" Thornton recorded on August 13, 1952 "Gee" by the Crows recorded on February 10, 1953 "Sh-Boom" by the Chords and the Crew-cuts recorded on March 15, 1954 "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley recorded on April 12, 1954 "That's All Right Mama" by Elvis Presley recorded in July, 1954 "I Got a Woman" by Ray Charles recorded in November, 1954