History of Rock n Roll

One of the things I’ve wanted to put together is kinda a historial review of Rock n Roll music. There’s a lot of information out there, but I could not find a good overview with music embedded. I haven’t really decided on a format, but the possibilites are artist overviews, studio highlights, year highlights and maybe something else. I mainly wanted to write this for my niece and nephew to teach them something about Rock n Roll’s history. This sadly is not covered in school. Music appreciation and history are something I believe one should learn even if you have to go out and discover it yourself.

First up I think I should start with is the first Rock n Roll song to make the American Billboard music charts back in 1953. At that time it only recognized most played music, it was not broken down into different genres of music. “Crazy, Man Crazy” by Bill Haley and the Comets.

The next year in 1954 Bill Haley and The Comets recorded “Rock Around the Clock,” but it didn’t hit Number 1 on the charts until 1955. It also hit Number 1 on the UK charts. It stayed in the Top 100 for a then record 38 weeks (approximately 9 1/2 months).

This is tending to lean toward Bill Haley, but he was the early genesis of Rock n Roll and the Rockabilly style.

List of Billboard Number one singles of 1954

List of Billboard Number one singles of 1955

1955 in music

Compare this to 16 Tons by Tennessee Ernie Ford followed “Rock Around the Clock” in the Number 1 slot.

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Daily Journal: For the Love of Music

I watched For the Love of Music: The Story of Nashville on my ABC app the other day. It had me tearing up. This is the nearest “city” to where I grew up. I mean when my grandfather was in the VA hospital my 7th grade year, we were up there practically every Sunday. It’s a very musical city. I’m never surprised to see buskers in Nashville. Other cities it’s kinda jarring. Nashville and maybe New Orleans, it’s organic. It’s got a bit of hero worship of the older generation going on, especially the surviving rebels. One of the lines from this documentary, from a songwriter that I can’t recall his name, he was talking about just watching Kris Kristofferson play, “He (Kristofferson) has erased better lines than I’ve ever written.” Kristofferson is quite a person. He’s actually best known in music circles for his songwriting. Most non-music-nerd people don’t realize he wrote Janis Joplin’s hit “Me & Bobby McGee.” He was also a Rhodes Scholar. He’s acted in movies. He’s made and sung his own records. I mean everyone will admit he doesn’t have the greatest voice, but there’s just that interesting quality about hearing the song from the original songwriter.

Thinking back if you watch the commentary on the movie Walk the Line when June Carter wrote “Ring of Fire.” She wrote it while falling in love with someone who was a bad bet for her. Johnny Cash made it famous, but it was June who wrote it about Johnny and it was such a personal song for June that for many years she couldn’t record it. Because at the time she wrote it, Johnny was in the thrall of drug addiction and still married to his first wife.

Another song by Johnny Cash that stands out for me is “Hurt” which was written, recorded and released by Trent Reznor and Nine Inch Nails. A quote from Trent was when he saw Cash’s video “It was like I lost my girlfriend.” “Hurt” was a 20 year old dealing with depression when recorded by Reznor. “Hurt” by Cash was an elder man looking back on a life lived both roughly and richly.

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