RRSS: Hail, hail, rock and roll, deliver me from the days of old
Last Thursday night was dedicated to a few more of the artists who found the spotlight during rock and roll's first golden age: 1954-1959. '54 was the year Elvis Presley recorded his first single, and Bill Haley and the Comets recorded their biggest. These two represent a kind of dichotomy between the so called "first generation" and "second generation" of rock and roll. There is some border crossing, depending on where you get your information from, but the split generally falls between artists who were popular leading up to the crucial year of 1954, and artists who became famous afterward. Of the artists covered on the show, Bill Haley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry fit into the first category. In the second, there is Elvis, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Eddie Cochran, and the Everly Brothers. Some of these distinctions are arguable: Elvis only got more and more popular after 1956, but he cut his first record a year before Chuck Berry made his. Whatever categories you fit them into doesn't change the fact that 1) there was a great deal of musical innovation and invention during this period, and 2) the golden age would for the most part be over by 1959.
Since starting this little show I've become convinced that some of Elvis Presley's best music was released by Sun Records. "Mystery Train", "Baby Let's Play House", and "Milk Cow Blues Boogie" all have at the same time an energy and a wealth of musical space provided in part by Sam Phillips' unique echo effect. But there is certainly no guarantee that staying at Sun would have resulted in the same catapult effect of success that Elvis enjoyed upon his move to RCA. Maybe Sam Phillips' deep roots in country blues would not fully allow him to take Elvis where he would eventually go. Carl Perkins, the man who could have been Elvis, was hailed as the true king of rockabilly, but that's where he would stay. With the rock and roll craze in full swing and Elvis at the forefront in 1956, there were those who capitalized and those who didn't. Jerry Lee Lewis was raised on country music before he found a personality in rock and roll, but it was obvious that inside he was split between the two. It was obvious from the way he returned to country music in the late sixties, claiming in an interview with Peter Guralnick that it was the most natural move for him to make, something he should have known all along ("like a farmer sitting out on a three hundred acre farm, and all the time oil's flowing under him and he ain't got enough sense to get at it"). It was obvious from the way he held onto religion so tightly in the face of the devil's music. In Guralnick's book Feel Like Going Home, he spotlights Charlie Rich, whose music was too country to be rock and roll, and too blues to really be country. As a result of not fitting any single musical mold, he was not offered the fame and success he may have deserved. If one wanted the big crowds, it seems, it was rock and roll or bust. The displaced bluesmen in Guralnick's book can attest.
Maybe one of the most fascinating stories of early rock and roll and its effects belongs to Little Richard. When Elvis was still playing with his rockabilly combo, Little Richard had a rock and roll band. At his best he could out-sing, outplay, and outperform any of his contemporaries and those who would come after. His personality did not seem a rock and roll act, but a natural expression. His place in rock history is secure, but more so as an influence than an architect, and certainly not the king. This has, apparently, always struck him as wrong, and he has never been afraid to admit that. Last night I perused RollingStone.com's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Like most Rolling Stone lists, it's kind of pointless, but it makes for good reading for the fact that each artist on the list (save for one) gets a blurb written by another musician. Some were written by those who were simply influenced (The Velvet Underground by Julian Casablancas), and some by more immediate contemporaries (Bob Dylan by Robbie Robertson). Little Richard is #8. His entry reads "Little Richard by Little Richard". In it he states his case ("I was already known back in 1951. I was recording for RCA-Victor...before Elvis), makes his arguments ("The Rolling Stones started with me...The Beatles started with me...James Brown, Jimi Hendrix - these people started with me. I fed them, I talked to them, and they're always going to be in front of me"), and comes to the conclusion that has probably been set in his mind for years ("I wish a lot of things had been different. I don't think I ever got what I really deserved"). Just like Armando Galarraga knows he pitched a perfect game, Little Richard knows what he did and who he influenced. Both men will be remembered for their achievements, and those memories will include one big "however...".
In the context of this show, none of this really matters, since much of what made rock and roll so exciting would be finished by the decade's end. Little Richard had a revelation and joined the ministry in 1957. In 1958, Elvis joined the army and Jerry Lee Lewis' career was in shambles. Chuck Berry was arrested in 1959. Buddy Holly died in '59 and Eddie Cochran in '60. Those who were still alive resurfaced later on to try to make something of their careers. Lewis, as mentioned, found success with country music. Little Richard made gospel music for a while before switching back to rock. Chuck Berry, who never had a hit single with any of his rock and roll staples, reached #1 in the US in 1972 with "My Ding-a-Ling".
Elvis, as we all know, exploded. As I mentioned before, he returned from the army to make critically panned but financially successful movies throughout most of the sixties, until his unofficial "comeback" special in 1968, broadcast on NBC. People understood why they loved Elvis in the first place, for his fire and his passion. He would go on to give them more reasons to love him, growing and growing, until all the love was spent. He could give his audience no more. This is the subject of Greil Marcus' best chapter in Mystery Train. Elvis' performances in the years leading up to his death were no longer about creation, but about confirmation. He had stopped making choices long ago. The mark of a good musician, says Marcus, is a focused vision, a narrow scope. Great art excludes as much as it includes, often more so. Elvis opened up his act and his life to everyone, and made no decisions to exclude anyone when he sang American Trilogy in the same set as Hound Dog and How Great Thou Art. His music was powerful, but it was not Elvis as much as it could have been anyone else in the world and at the same time nobody but Elvis.
As we say goodnight to Elvis, I'll turn back to the man who may or may not have made it all possible. In Rolling Stone, Little Richard closed by saying that people want "joy and fun and happiness, they want to hear the old time rock and roll. There's only a few of us left: myself, Bo Diddley, Chuck, Fats, Jerry Lee, The Everly Brothers. It's getting thin". He wrote this in 2004, and Bo Diddley died in 2008. Even though Jerry Lee Lewis may have dethroned Little Richard at the piano, and even the Everly Brothers came after him building on his rock and roll energy with their cutting acoustic guitars, he recognized them as his contemporaries and members of a disappearing generation. The joy and the fun and the happiness is, for Little Richard, largely absent in today's music, or else why would fans crave old time rock and roll? "So I think this is the last of it", he writes, "the last of he good days. Soon there'll be a totally new thing. But it won't be the same. Never."
Hail, hail, rock and roll, deliver us from days of old.
As you were,
Ian
Since starting this little show I've become convinced that some of Elvis Presley's best music was released by Sun Records. "Mystery Train", "Baby Let's Play House", and "Milk Cow Blues Boogie" all have at the same time an energy and a wealth of musical space provided in part by Sam Phillips' unique echo effect. But there is certainly no guarantee that staying at Sun would have resulted in the same catapult effect of success that Elvis enjoyed upon his move to RCA. Maybe Sam Phillips' deep roots in country blues would not fully allow him to take Elvis where he would eventually go. Carl Perkins, the man who could have been Elvis, was hailed as the true king of rockabilly, but that's where he would stay. With the rock and roll craze in full swing and Elvis at the forefront in 1956, there were those who capitalized and those who didn't. Jerry Lee Lewis was raised on country music before he found a personality in rock and roll, but it was obvious that inside he was split between the two. It was obvious from the way he returned to country music in the late sixties, claiming in an interview with Peter Guralnick that it was the most natural move for him to make, something he should have known all along ("like a farmer sitting out on a three hundred acre farm, and all the time oil's flowing under him and he ain't got enough sense to get at it"). It was obvious from the way he held onto religion so tightly in the face of the devil's music. In Guralnick's book Feel Like Going Home, he spotlights Charlie Rich, whose music was too country to be rock and roll, and too blues to really be country. As a result of not fitting any single musical mold, he was not offered the fame and success he may have deserved. If one wanted the big crowds, it seems, it was rock and roll or bust. The displaced bluesmen in Guralnick's book can attest.
Maybe one of the most fascinating stories of early rock and roll and its effects belongs to Little Richard. When Elvis was still playing with his rockabilly combo, Little Richard had a rock and roll band. At his best he could out-sing, outplay, and outperform any of his contemporaries and those who would come after. His personality did not seem a rock and roll act, but a natural expression. His place in rock history is secure, but more so as an influence than an architect, and certainly not the king. This has, apparently, always struck him as wrong, and he has never been afraid to admit that. Last night I perused RollingStone.com's list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. Like most Rolling Stone lists, it's kind of pointless, but it makes for good reading for the fact that each artist on the list (save for one) gets a blurb written by another musician. Some were written by those who were simply influenced (The Velvet Underground by Julian Casablancas), and some by more immediate contemporaries (Bob Dylan by Robbie Robertson). Little Richard is #8. His entry reads "Little Richard by Little Richard". In it he states his case ("I was already known back in 1951. I was recording for RCA-Victor...before Elvis), makes his arguments ("The Rolling Stones started with me...The Beatles started with me...James Brown, Jimi Hendrix - these people started with me. I fed them, I talked to them, and they're always going to be in front of me"), and comes to the conclusion that has probably been set in his mind for years ("I wish a lot of things had been different. I don't think I ever got what I really deserved"). Just like Armando Galarraga knows he pitched a perfect game, Little Richard knows what he did and who he influenced. Both men will be remembered for their achievements, and those memories will include one big "however...".
In the context of this show, none of this really matters, since much of what made rock and roll so exciting would be finished by the decade's end. Little Richard had a revelation and joined the ministry in 1957. In 1958, Elvis joined the army and Jerry Lee Lewis' career was in shambles. Chuck Berry was arrested in 1959. Buddy Holly died in '59 and Eddie Cochran in '60. Those who were still alive resurfaced later on to try to make something of their careers. Lewis, as mentioned, found success with country music. Little Richard made gospel music for a while before switching back to rock. Chuck Berry, who never had a hit single with any of his rock and roll staples, reached #1 in the US in 1972 with "My Ding-a-Ling".
Elvis, as we all know, exploded. As I mentioned before, he returned from the army to make critically panned but financially successful movies throughout most of the sixties, until his unofficial "comeback" special in 1968, broadcast on NBC. People understood why they loved Elvis in the first place, for his fire and his passion. He would go on to give them more reasons to love him, growing and growing, until all the love was spent. He could give his audience no more. This is the subject of Greil Marcus' best chapter in Mystery Train. Elvis' performances in the years leading up to his death were no longer about creation, but about confirmation. He had stopped making choices long ago. The mark of a good musician, says Marcus, is a focused vision, a narrow scope. Great art excludes as much as it includes, often more so. Elvis opened up his act and his life to everyone, and made no decisions to exclude anyone when he sang American Trilogy in the same set as Hound Dog and How Great Thou Art. His music was powerful, but it was not Elvis as much as it could have been anyone else in the world and at the same time nobody but Elvis.
As we say goodnight to Elvis, I'll turn back to the man who may or may not have made it all possible. In Rolling Stone, Little Richard closed by saying that people want "joy and fun and happiness, they want to hear the old time rock and roll. There's only a few of us left: myself, Bo Diddley, Chuck, Fats, Jerry Lee, The Everly Brothers. It's getting thin". He wrote this in 2004, and Bo Diddley died in 2008. Even though Jerry Lee Lewis may have dethroned Little Richard at the piano, and even the Everly Brothers came after him building on his rock and roll energy with their cutting acoustic guitars, he recognized them as his contemporaries and members of a disappearing generation. The joy and the fun and the happiness is, for Little Richard, largely absent in today's music, or else why would fans crave old time rock and roll? "So I think this is the last of it", he writes, "the last of he good days. Soon there'll be a totally new thing. But it won't be the same. Never."
Hail, hail, rock and roll, deliver us from days of old.
As you were,
Ian
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