Friday, May 25, 2012

Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston & Ike Turner

You women have heard of jalopies
You heard the noise they make
Let me re-introduce my Rocket 88

The Lost Soul has decided to take a look at what I believe has become the forgotten decade of rock and roll. Why do I believe that the fifties is a forgotten decade? From my perspective, the music of the 1950s seems to get some disrespect from radio, television, and even music stores.

Radio stations that play 1950s music are strictly the oldies format, but in this day and age, they focus upon the hits from the 1960s and 1970s for their rotation. My local oldies station dedicates an hour every Sunday to the 1950s, but in my opinion that is blasphemy. I have noticed at record stores that the 1950s CDs are placed ina corner near the World music and the other dust collecting genres. Why the hate? The 1950s were incredible and I'm here to show some love.

My first 1950s selection is 'Rocket 88' by Jackie Brenston with Ike Turner and His Delta Kings. The song was credited to Jackie Bresnton and His Delta Cats, but Ike's group was the backing band when this song was recorded at Sam Phillips' recording studio sometime during March 1951. The song was released by Chess Records as a single b/w 'Come Back Where You Belong' and was a major R&B hit.

Some rock and roll fans and historians view this as the first rock and roll song. If you take a listen to the YouTube clip below, you'll hear that this song is really cookin' with all the right rock and roll ingredients. 'Rocket 88' has a raw R&B style courtesy of the twelve-bar blues. The boogie of the piano and the driving saxophone really make this song a gem.

What's interesting about Rocket 88 is that this song was recorded and released when rock and roll was known as R&B or race music. Additionally this kind of music was played on a few radio stations in the United States, especially WHBQ in Memphis, Tennessee. That's enough of my blogging, let's get rocking!





Want to purchase this MP3 from Amazon? Click here to purchase. 

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