On the day rock and roll was born, it made no news. That’s because the event itself wasn’t exactly a birth, but a morphing of so many different styles of music, it confused the most hardcore rock historians.
Rock and Roll was a true clash down by the river. It was a cosmic fusion of African American rhythm and blues with elements of swing, boogie-woogie, urban blues, Latin rhythms, Country, Western, Rockabilly, and Tin Pan Alley. Bringing that together in bits and pieces was a fresh new blank generation of teens who had to rebel against something after World War II. To be young in the mid-’50s to early ’60s and not be a rock fan was to be “square.“
The term itself can be found back among the flappers and the drugstore cowboys in the Roaring Twenties. The forgotten but fabulous Trixie Smith recorded “My Baby Rocks Me with One Steady Roll” in 1922. Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed took to the airwaves in 1951 with a rhythm and blues radio show “Moondog’s Rock and Roll Party.”
Today we rev up the Old School time machine magic bus to hover around the very early 50s, long before Elvis recorded Hound Dog in 1956. For many years that was considered the first rock and roll song, even though Elvis fans could make a better case with That’s All Right Mama recorded at the yellow Sun Records in Nashville studio on July 5, 1954.
But for this lesson we reach back to 1951 and only go up to 1954. And I think all these songs are rock and roll. Think of this show as the Pre Rock Pre Roll. Professor Mikey here. Take your seats unless you feel like dancing.
You know when they dig for mummies in Egypt, the newer mummies are closer to the top? Crazy Man Crazy is not the first rock record but it is certifiable and well as verifiable that it is the first recognized rock and roll recording to appear on the national Billboard American charts, peaking at #12 on their Juke Box chart[1] for the week ending June 20, 1953, and #11 for two weeks on the Cash Box chart beginning for the week of June 13.
Much of the mystery we have been tracking on this episode of Old School “Pre Rock Pre Roll” has had to do with terminology and trying to track down what was being called when. Exactly how the term rock and roll was popularized shook out over time. It is also important to note that not everyone was embracing the new sound that cut across many lines.
I wanted you to hear a little Alan Freed while we are swimming in the early 50s waters. Freed was a recording artists with a local reputation, but his real fame came from his making the new music the centerpiece of his radio show.
The music was new and enthusiastic but an old and boring cultural disease was at the root of much of the controversy.
This sound byte was recorded May 4, 1957–four months before Dick Clark also started appearing on 21-inch living room glass screens. THE BIG BEAT hosted by Alan Freed was the first national broadcast of a rock music television show. You’ll hear the showman himself, bursting with promotion and enthusiasm as he introduces 14 year old Frankie Lymon with his group The Teenagers. What you won’t hear, or see, is young Lymon dancing with a member of the audience who happened to be white and female. That was enough to get the show cancelled by the network only four weeks after it premiered.
Jumping back into this rather loose chronology, things start getting hot in 1954 for this genre in search of a perfect title. Here is Etta James and she is sweet 16.
Of all the tunes we will listen to on this episode, that one is 1957, after that rock and roll term was officially adopted by millions of music lovers around the world.
The Clovers from 1954, a great year for Cadillacs. Professor Mikey here. Today we have heard just a handful of the songs that were probably rock and roll before the term was officially adopted. It was and exciting time for music, as well as the world. The Americans as well as the Russians were testing bigger and better bombs every week. On a different scale, down in Montgomery Alabama, Rosa Parks was about to decide she wasn’t going to give up her bus seat to any more white men. In Minnesota, Bob Dylan was thinking about moving to New York. The times they were a changing.
The kind of music that would transcend into real rock and roll was filling the airwaves. There was too much experimenting going on to think about formalities and trivial naming ceremonies. The music was fun, great to dance to, and deserving of the volume control turned up to 11. Completely unexpected was what rock and roll was doing for society, bringing people together on 33, 45, and 78. It was surely a time of pre rock and pre roll.
Any music you may have heard in this session resides within the public domain or is used within the guidelines of fair use provided for in Section 107 of the copyright act of 1976. Podcast carriers compensate artists directly. If you are an artist who feels your work has been improperly used or misrepresented, please contact our producers at professormikey.substack.com and we will file your music in files labeled what might have been.
Unexpurgated episodes of Old School are available on Apple, Spotify, Stitcher, Pandora or wherever you get your podcasts. Several episodes are also ready to rock and ready to roll on Professor Mikey’s Old School on YouTube.
One more question that doesn’t have a definitive answer. What was the first rock and roll song? Many of our current music scholars point to one song, coming out of Sam Phillips Sun Studio that was recorded in 1951, long before Elvis walked in the door. Lets take a ride in a Rocket 88.
Thanks for listening, let the whole episode play especially in traffic and join us again soon for Old School where the past is a blast.
PRE-ROCK PRE-ROLL Playlist
CRAZY MAN CRAZY Bill Haley and His Comets (1953)
BEBOPPER Hank Jones Trio and The Gordons (1951)
SHAKE RATTLE AND ROLL Big Joe Turner (1951)
LOVIN’ JIM Little Mickey Champion (1952)
HOUND DOG Big Mama Thornton (1953)
MONEY HONEY Clyde McPhatter (1953)
BAM BALAM The Dewdroppers (1953)
MYSTERY TRAIN Junior Parker (1953)
WHY DO FOOLS FALL IN LOVE Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers (1957)
THE WALLFLOWER Etta James (1954)
WOODCHUCK Billy the Kid Emerson (1954)
I JUST WANT TO MAKE LOVE TO YOU Muddy Waters (1954)
MELLOW DOWN EASY Little Water (1954)
YOUR CASH AIN’T NOTHING BUT TRASH The Clovers (1954)
ROCKET 88 Jackie Brenston and the Delta Cats (1951)
March 22, 1952: Alan Freed hosts “The Moondog Coronation Ball” in Cleveland. Headlining was Paul Williams and his Hucklebuckers, supported by Tiny Grimes and his Rockin' Highlanders, the Dominoes, Varetta Dillard and Danny Cobb. Tickets were $1.50.
The educational underground pirate radio Old School podcast with Professor Mikey featuring rarities, stories, and surprises from the last half of the 20th century. A eclectic variety of discovery for newer music lovers, a reconnection for the rest of us, present in a theme format that thinks outside the album cover. Rock, country, blues, and anything else that might have captured the 20th century imagination, updated for a newer audience while remaining a comfort to older rockers.
Professor Mikey spent over 50,000 hours in various broadcast booths in 60-some markets, taking to the air at 16 a couple of months before The Beatles released Revolver. He rocked, informed, and amused his listeners in six different decades. Old School is his attempt to put it all together in a great set. He is confirmed AM-FM Positive.
The educational underground pirate radio Old School podcast with Professor Mikey featuring rarities, stories, and surprises from the last half of the 20th century. A eclectic variety of discovery for newer music lovers, a reconnection for the rest of us, present in a theme format that thinks outside the album cover. Rock, country, blues, and anything else that might have captured the 20th century imagination, updated for a newer audience while remaining a comfort to older rockers.
Professor Mikey spent over 50,000 hours in various broadcast booths in 60-some markets, taking to the air at 16 a couple of months before The Beatles released Revolver. He rocked, informed, and amused his listeners in six different decades. Old School is his attempt to put it all together in a great set. He is confirmed AM-FM Positive.
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