The Earliest Style of Rock and Roll

Rockabilly music is a seminal, first-generation rock-and-roll style distinguished by extreme rhythmic drive and a full-tilt approach to both singing and instrumental soloing.  Rockabilly came about when poor white kids in the southern states of the US grew up listening to hillbilly, gospel and blues, and mixed these musical influences and developed this hard-driving fusion of country and rhythm and blues.  In Memphis, Tennessee, radio engineer turned record producer Sam Phillips began recording Black musicians in 1950.  Record reviewers coined the term rockabilly, which literally meant rock and roll played by hillbillies in order to describe the intense, rhythm-driven musical style introduced by Elvis Presley on his first recordings.  In July 1954, in his first session for Sam Phillips’s Sun label of Memphis, Tennessee, Presley recorded ‘That’s All Right’ which would lay the foundation for rockabilly.  This song was written by Mississippi bluesman Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup and recorded in 1946.  At the recording session, while Elvis was singing and strumming an acoustic guitar, with Scotty Moore on electric guitar, and Bill Black on upright bass, they reached a momentary musical impasse, so they took a break.  Their conservation got around to the blues, when Elvis asked if they knew this song and history was made.  Other musicians that recorded rockabilly music were Buddy Holly, Marty Robbins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Gene Vincent, Carl Perkins, Eddie Cochran, Chuck Berry, Roy Orbison, Wanda Jackson, Brenda Lee, Ricky Nelson, and Johnny Cash.

Last week we had Bayou Sound where the theme was to find Swamp rock songs.  This week the theme is to find Rockabilly music.  Take some time to read the posts of other bloggers who respond to this music challenge, and even better, read as many of them as you can as you will probably find many enjoyable songs and it is quite possibly that you will learn a thing or two.  Share your music with others and post a video, try do some research and let everyone know something about the song that you post.  Tell everyone why you like the song, whether it was a hit, or what you think the song is about.  Show the lyrics, let’s all listen to our favorite songs and explore some new music.  Try to find a song that fits the theme, then write your post and create a pingback, or you can just place your link in the comments section.

Suggestions
• Try to use the prompt words or at least conform to a general theme, as you see it.  If the song you select does not meet the criteria, then please explain why you chose this song.
• It would be good if you could post the lyrics to the song of your choice, as this is helpful for the people that want to follow along with the music.
• Please try to include the songwriter(s) – it’s a good idea to give credit where credit is due. It would also be a good idea to give credit to the singer and the band associated with your song.
• Your post can be as long or as short as you want it to be, but please try not to include too many videos as that just makes it take longer to look at all of the other posts.
• Link to the YouTube video, or you can pull it into your post, so others can listen to the song.
• Ping back to this post or place your link in the comments section below.
• Read at least one other person’s blog, so we can all share new and fantastic music and create amazing new blogging friends in the process.
• Feel free to suggest future prompts.
• Have fun and enjoy the music.

This week I will be writing about the Gene Vincent song ‘Blue Jean Bop’, and next week, I will be writing about the song ‘Shoot the Curl’ by The Honeys.  The upcoming prompts will be:
March 12, 2023 – Surf Rock
March 19, 2023 – Bluegrass
March 26, 2023 – Grunge music
April 2, 2023 – Alternative Rock outside the mainstream