Happy 75th b-day Elvis!
- Thread starter Bubbahotep
- Start date
Ummm...pretty sure there was a guy named Chuck Berry that was right along side him in the whole rise of Rock n Roll...
I firmly believe that he would have taken up Yoga and a vegan diet in the 80's and slimmed down to a solid 185, atoning for the excesses of the 70's. Today he would be selling juicers with Jack LaLanne, making peanut butter and banana smoothies.
And even before that, Louis Jordan can be looked at as the grandfather of Rock and Roll and maybe even really the father technically. That guy was SO far ahead of his time.
Anyway, Happy belated b-day Elvis
If you wanted to keep going back even more, you could say that Robert Johnson invented rock n' roll.
Yes and No. Comparing their influence to rock n roll is not the same. While many of Robert Johnson's songs were covered by people in Britain like Cream, Rolling Stones, etc, the style of music is completely different. Robert Johnson's songs were constructed still a little differently. You have to understand the "fad" in the 50's and early 60's in Britain after everyone got through with their Skiffle fads...they got a hold of American blues records from guys like Robert Johnson and put their own spin on it that a few other guys like Louis Jordan and Stick McGhee had kind of been doing.
If you're going to say that Robert Johnson invented rock and roll, then you better give credit to every other Mississippi Delta blues player at the time because the only reason Robert Johnson's songs were covered is because kids in britain in the late 50s and early 60s got a hold of his records and liked what they heard, and decided to put their own spin on it. Robert Johnson didn't invent rock and roll, he just influenced certain facets of it.
Anyway, if you listen to Louis Jordan, who is considered the top or one of the top Jump Blues guys, it sounds a lot like Rock n Roll except it's from the 40s, not 1951-1956.
If you were to play the song Saturday Night Fish Fry by Louis Jordan (which is considered to a lot as the first Rock N' Roll record by the way) to someone who isn't 100% up on their 20th century music history, I can almost guarantee you they'd think it was an early rock and roll (R&B) song from the 50's even though it's from 1948/1949. You could go back even further to say 1946 and Choo Choo Ch'Boogie which sounds like an early rock song.
http://www.npr.org/blogs/allsongs/2009/06/rock_roll_summer_school_jump_b.html
Do a little research on Louis Jordan's producer Milt Gabler from the 40's, who produced all of Bill Haley's hits and Jordan's guitarist who was a major influence on guys like Chuck Berry.
[ame="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=b1QfXQakX2w"]YouTube - Louis Jordan - Saturday Night Fish Fry[/ame]
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lol thanks, don't worry about it...
I'm just surprised on how many people think so and so was the father of rock and roll and all of this but they totally disregard jump blues guys like Jordan which really ...rock and roll was before it was labeled R&B/Rock and Roll.
It's also not like Jump Blues was a small thing in the US in the 40s..it was pretty damn popular and these guys were well known
Elvis is still the King. Period.
But yes, all of the great rockers were heavily influenced by the Blues. Go listen to Elvis again, or throw in some Rolling Stones or Led Zeppelin. If you recognize it, you will hear a lot of it.
Happy Birthday Elvis. Been to Graceland and cannot wait to go back.
Yes, there's a difference between being "King" and "Earliest Innovator"...you don't have to be the earliest innovator to be king.
I still love Elvis to death and I'm aware of his influence.. I wasn't debating THAT. The guy has influenced me even.
Elvis is King in my book because he's the first guy to help push it into the mainstream. He was doing what a lot of guys were doing, but those guys weren't pushing it into the mainstream like he had success doing at the time.
(Blues is also a very loosely used term...there's a MAJOR difference between jump blues and delta blues for example.)
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