Buddy Holly

Damn! Buddy Holly was legit but Bill Haley opened the door. Origins of Rock Part 2

~ Cave_Guy ~ 3 Comments
English: (We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock b...
English: (We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley and his Comets, Decca 1954. Deutsch: (We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock von Bill Haley and his Comets, Decca 1954. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eq9FCBatl3A

Even though I hate to give any award on the Cave to Bill Haley and his Comets– The Cave has gone through the history -before Rock around the Clock there were a few rock songs out there but you would have to call them regional, novelty or maybe even underground.

After Bill Haley and his Comets smashed the surface of Pop music with this Number 1…the resulting explosion opened up the flood gates and all types of craft could roll on down this river. With my love of Blues music and the Sun record sound I wanted to give the award somewhere else but Bill Haley changed the culture and I can’t take that away from him. This hurts me and reminds me that Cave awards have to go by merit not just talent, originality and execution.

This brings me to what I consider the first refined vintage of a rock song – This song is what the kids today would call “Legit”-something that is an actual real version of itself, not faked at all. In other words=true, unmistakable quality.

“That’ll be the Day” by the Crickets – They dropped Buddy Holly from the title because of his record contract somewhere else-which made this technically a band release instead of a front man and band format which was standard for the time.  It was also the song that  The Quarrymen would pick to cover for their first demo –and we know what influence these guys would have on music as they evolved into The Beatles. And more importantly for this blog…I can feature a quality song in this post and add a true relic to the Cave.

Happy Birthday “Killer”

~ Cave_Guy ~ Leave a comment

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8yRdDnrB5kM

Starting this wordpress site on rock music got me thinking about the timeline of rock music. You know the proverbial “where did it all start?”
I’m not going back to the “Crossroads” with Robert Johnson although I want to because blues is the foundation of so much great music. I am also not buying “Rock around the Clock” with Bill Haley and the Comets. That song is just a little too processed to be the beginning. 1957 and “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” by the conflicted Wildman of Louisiana-Jerry Lee Lewis, born today in 1935-is where it all starts. The story is well known about the marriage to his 13 year old cousin that burned out his rise to fame very quickly. He was the first great character, kicking his chair across stage, playing piano with his feet. The “Killer” (that is his nickname) put on a show. The “Killer” is still putting on shows….he has outlived countless equally possessed souls who followed him down that path to stardom. From Buddy Holly to Lynyrd Skynyrd in plane crashes. Overdoses of Jimi Hendrix to Amy Whinehouse. Suicides of Kurt Cobain and Michael Hutchence…the list of the fallen goes on and on (This blog plans to get to a lot of these).  Jerry Lee survives to celebrate his 77th birthday and that says something about how the fire in your soul can keep you burning. “Great balls of fire” must keep you burning even longer…Rock on Jerry!