#rock and roll history

[hooked-on-elvis]

This song is one of the ones I wish the most I could see Elvis performing live.

[turn-it-up]

Rita Lee Jones. ♥

[historydailyfrancischappellblack]

American Disc Jockey Alan Freed is Fired From WABC Radio Station in New York City for His Role in the Payola Scandal. November 21, 1959.

Image: Alan Freed, 1958. (Public Domain) On this day in history, November 21, 1958, American disc jockey Alan Freed is fired from WABC radio station in New York City for his role in the payola scandal. Though payola – paying a DJ to play a song on the radio to promote it – was not illegal at the time, bribery was, and Freed was accused of accepting such bribes. He was fired after refusing to…

[tabney2023]

RIP Tina Turner. Simply the Best

"Tina Turner was raw. She was powerful. She was unstoppable. And she was unapologetically herself—speaking and singing her truth through joy and pain; triumph and tragedy. Today we join fans around the world in honoring the Queen of Rock and Roll, and a star whose light will never fade." Quote by Barack Obama

[stringofpearlsx]

Janis Joplin had a gravestone erected for blues legend Bessie Smith, who was buried in an unmarked grave after she died in a car accident in 1937.

[zippocreed501]

Joe Meek

[hooked-on-elvis]

"Danny" (1958)

FROM THE "KING CREOLE" SOUNDTRACK ALBUM, RELEASED ON SEP. 19, 1958

ELVIS PRESLEY: (1) January 1958, during record session for the soundtrack to the "King Creole" film (Paramount Pictures). (2) "King Creole" photo shoot. Early March 1958.

Written by Fred Wise and Ben Weisman. Recorded for the motion picture King Creole. Recorded February 11, 1958 at Paramount Scoring Stage. Vocals: Elvis and The Jordanaires. Guitar: Scotty Moore, Tiny Timbrell. Bass: Bill Black, Ray Siegel. Drums: D.J. Fontana, Bernie Mattionson, Piano: Dudley Brooks. (Info: elvisthemusic.com)

THE RECORDING SESSION

Soundtrack Recordings for Paramount’s King Creole January 15–16 and 23, 1958 at Radio Recorders and February 11, 1958 at Paramount Soundstage, Hollywood. King Creole gave Elvis his most challenging movie role yet. Based on the Harold Robbins novel A Stone for Danny Fisher, it presented an opportunity to work with the acclaimed Hungarian-born director Michael Curtiz (whose work included Casablanca) and placed Elvis alongside accomplished actors such as Carolyn Jones [as Ronnie, Maxie's mistress], Walter Matthau [as Maxie Fields, the local gangster], and Dean Jagger [as Mr. Fisher, Danny's father]. The music was to be an integral part of this serious and rather dark story of a young singer (in the novel he’d been a boxer) trying to make it in the nightclubs of New Orleans. Traditional New Orleans music had its own very specific African-American roots, and Elvis always pointed to New Orleans R&B (Fats Domino was probably its leading exemplar) as instrumental to his development. But Elvis hadn’t gone over all that well in New Orleans when he appeared there three times in 1955, and the Memphis brand of rock ’n’ roll was very different from the New Orleans tradition. To help create an authentic Dixieland sound, Paramount hired some of L.A.’s best session players for the recording: a four-piece brass section augmented by bass player Ray Siegel, who doubled on tuba. Elvis’s own band was supplemented again by piano player Dudley Brooks, and by a second drummer at an extra recording date later when the complexity and variety of the rhythms proved too much for Bill Black and D. J. [Fontana] to handle. With fourteen musicians in the band, this was by far the largest group Elvis had ever worked with in the studio, but for engineer Thorne Nogar it would be business as usual. Elvis’s support team included Paramount musical director Charles O’Curran as well as Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, who had just signed on as producers for RCA. As Elvis’s favorite writers of the moment they brought material to the session, along with other Elvis Presley Music regulars like Aaron Schroeder and Claude DeMetrius, who sent in two infectious rock ’n’ roll originals. The ever-dependable Ben Weisman and his partner, Fred Wise, came up with “Danny” as a proposed title cut, along with several other new songs.

Excerpt: "Elvis Presley: A Life in Music" by Ernst Jorgensen. Foreword by Peter Guralnick (1998)

The Dixieland-flavored King Creole sessions. On January, 1958 Elvis worked on the soundtrack for King Creole at Radio Recorders and at Paramount's Soundstage in Hollywood, CA.

LYRICS — "DANNY" (Fred Wise/Ben Weisman)

My name should be trouble My name should be woe For trouble and heartache Is all that I know But Danny, yes, Danny is my name My life has been empty My heart has been torn It must have been rainy, oh, yeah The night I was born Oh Danny, oh Danny is my name I'm so afraid of tomorrow So tired of today They say that love is the answer But love never came my way I'm writing a letter To someone I know So if you should find it, yes, And if you're alone Oh Danny, yes, Danny is my name Oh Danny, yes, Danny is my name

Elvis Presley as Danny Fisher in scenes from "King Creole" (Paramount Pictures, 1958), directed by Michael Curtiz.

[staringintothedeep]

Jimi Hendrix and his first guitar, a right handed restrung upside down. I read in his autobiography he tuned his guitar after going to a guitar store and running his fingers across the strings of one he didn’t buy to get the notes to tune his to. Perfect pitch? Maybe! Apparently this is his first guitar 🎸❤️🎶

[vacilantom]

Coming this October...

[anotheruserwithnoname]

Rock Around the Clock turns 66!

On April 12, 1954, Bill Haley and His Comets first recorded Rock Around the Clock for Decca Records at the Pythian Temple studio in New York City. Although many other songs lay claim to the title of “first rock and roll song”, and there were others - including several by Bill Haley going back to “Crazy Man Crazy” in 1953 - that had already been hits, when Rock Around the Clock hit the top of the Billboard charts in the summer of 1955 (thanks to being used in the acclaimed film Blackboard Jungle), it blasted rock and roll out of its niche status and into the mainstream, opening the door for Elvis’ national breakthrough with “Heartbreak Hotel” in early 1956.

Of course, followers of my Doctor Who fan fiction know what really happened that day back in April 1954 when the Twelfth Doctor and his companion, Clara, raced to stop the evil Time Lord known as the Monk from interfering with this important moment in music history! (Read “When the Clock Strikes Twelve” on Archive of Our Own to learn more!)

[mchankscollection]

Green Day 1994 first newsletter after Dookie came out -right when they were on the cusp before the floodgates completely opened

[homeworldzine]

Like 60s rock and roll and folk music? Like the fairy tale story telling structure of Don McLean’s American Pie? Check out Homeworld’s newest zine, Kingdom of the Young! Get the zine here: https://buff.ly/2WtMhmO  Check out the Kingdom of the Young Playlist here: https://buff.ly/2UpNjD2

[tremble-and-shake]

Nothing like tales of rock and roll hedonism to read before bedtime.

[historianatlarge]

Some good music for you all.

Some of you might want something interesting and a little bit fun today, and here’s a short video of one of the all-too-often forgotten women who helped to create Rock and Roll, Sister Rosetta Tharpe. 

[waywaydowninside]

He is a Golden God. First photo jillcataldo.com "24 Hours at the Riot House," 2016.

[hooked-on-elvis]

♥ Scotty Moore appreciation ♥