By 1955, his producers “realized they had nothing more to teach Ray
about making hit records; now he was teaching them” (Ray Charles Man and Music).
Ray Charles “Hallelujah I Love Her So”
March 11, 2016
204 Johnny Cash (1932-2003) “I Walk the Line” 1956
The song derived from Cash listening to a tape of the Landsberg
Barbarians in reverse and talking with Carl Perkins about performers’ lack of
marital fidelity. Cash said, “Not me buddy, I walk the line” (Stephen Miller, Johnny Cash The Life of an American Icon).
203 Johnny Cash (1932-2003) “Folsom Prison Blues” 1956
Even though the song plagiarized “Crescent City Blues” by Gordon
Jenkins, this “in no way detracts from Johnny’s undoubted gifts as an original
songwriter…he is the only musician to have been inducted into the Country Music
Hall of Fame, the Rock And Roll Hall of Fame, and the Songwriter’s Hall of
Fame” (Stephen Miller, Johnny Cash The
Life of an American Icon).
Johnny Cash “Folsom Prison Blues”
Johnny Cash “Folsom Prison Blues”
202 Johnny Burnette (1934-1964) and the Rock and Roll Trio “Train Kept A-Rollin’” 1956
“One of the most distinctive of the late 1950s teen-beat idols,
Johnny Burnette began his career with brother Dorsey in the wild Rock’n’Roll
Trio…there was always this edginess, a wild and reckless man just waiting to
unleash his rockier side” (Alan Cackett, Maverick,
2011).
201 James Brown (1933-2006) and the Famous Flames “Please, Please, Please” 1956
“’Please Please Please’ was always my most popular song, and it
never failed to drive the audiences crazy! I’d come out at the top of the
show, politely introduce myself…Then I’d explode into a thirty-five,
forty-minute rendition of it, with Danny Ray serving as my ‘Cape Man,’ a job he
performs to this day” (I Feel Good).
March 4, 2016
200 Chuck Berry (1926-2017) “Roll Over Beethoven” 1956
“At age 17, he and two friends
were arrested for attempted robbery; Berry was sentenced to ten years in the Intermediate
Reformatory for Young Men in Algoa, Missouri. In the reformatory Berry sang
with a gospel group; he was released in 1947, on his twenty-first birthday.
Marriage and an upright life immediately followed his reformatory stint: Berry
married Themetta ‘Toddy’ Suggs in 1948 and took a job in an auto assembly
plant. After completing night courses in cosmetology, he worked as a
hairdresser, moonlighting as a guitarist for various bands to bring in extra
money” (Contemporary Musicians). Listed on the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.
Chuck Berry “Roll Over Beethoven”
Chuck Berry “Roll Over Beethoven”
199 Chuck Berry (1926-2017) “Brown Eyed Handsome Man” 1956
“It was in the Ville, one of the few neighborhoods in St. Louis where
African Americans could own property, that Berry spent his formative years,
honing his musical skills as a choir boy in his Baptist church, and as a bass
singer in his high school glee club. At the urging of a music teacher, he
bought a four-string tenor guitar (graduating later to a six-string guitar) and
taught himself how to play” (Contemporary
Musicians).
198 LaVern Baker (1929-1997) “Jim Dandy” 1956
“Born
Delores Williams on Chicago's South Side, she began performing in her hometown
at the age of 17. The niece of blues singer Memphis Minnie, Baker began her career by using the stage name
Little Miss Sharecropper…When her career slowed down in the late '60s, she
visited Vietnam to entertain the troops. Later, she relocated to the
Philippines where she spent most of the next two decades managing a club near
the U.S. military base and performing weekends” (Jet, 1997).
197 Elvis Presley (1935-1977) “Mystery Train” 1955
A few months after recording the song, Colonel Tom Parker
convinced Elvis and his parents to sign a contract with far-reaching
consequences. “This put the Colonel in what amounted to an all-powerful
position: He had the exclusive right to steer Elvis Presley’s career” (Elvis Presley A Life In Music). Presley's 1954-1955 Sun sessions are listed on the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.
196 Elvis Presley (1935-1977) and the Blue Moon Boys “Milkcow Blues Boogie” 1955
“what Elvis is doing in his Sun records is repeating instinctively
that process of making music new by recharging its rhythm in a way that has
characterized every stylistic revolution in the history of twentieth-century
pops,” which “gives the Sun sides an archetypal quality” (Goldman, Elvis). His 1954-1955 Sun sessions are
listed on the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.
February 26, 2016
195 The Platters “The Great Pretender” 1955
“The group’s manager, Buck Ram, had worked as a songwriter and arranger since the 1930s and was in his late forties as rock and roll began to dawn. Yet, unlike so many of his peers who resisted the new music, he was able to write songs with a feel for the musical present using a craft steeped in the past. In the songs he wrote for the Platters, which included 'The Great Pretender' … he managed to marry a straightforward harmonic-phrase design with a melodic elegance and lyrics that appealed to an all-ages romantic sensibility” (Albin Zak, I Don’t Sound Like Nobody, 2010)
The Platters “The Great Pretender”
The Platters “The Great Pretender”
194 The Platters “Only You (and You Alone)” 1955
In the film Rock Around the Clock, the Comets starred alongside the Platters, a mixed-gender vocal group as silken as the Comets and Little Richard were brash. The Platters’ 1955 hit, “Only You (And You Alone),” was the first in a series of twenty top-forty hits they scored over the course of six years, almost all of which were ballads” (Albin Zak, I Don’t Sound Like Nobody, 2010).
The Platters “Only You (and You Alone)”
The Platters “Only You (and You Alone)”
193 Muddy Waters (1913-1983) “Mannish Boy” 1955
He listened to a new performer, Bo Diddley, auditioning a song, “I’m a Man.” “He figured, ‘This guy is nothing, give me that song…Then I go on it with ‘Mannish Boy’ and just drove him out of my way’” (Can’t Be Satisfied).
Muddy Waters “Mannish Boy”
Muddy Waters “Mannish Boy”
192 Little Richard (1932- ) “Tutti-Frutti” 1955
“’I think my legacy should be that when I started in show business, there wasn't no such thing as rock & roll,’ Richard says. ‘It was “swing and sway with Sammy Kaye.” It was John Lee Hooker, Elmore James and then after a while, here comes Chuck Berry. And when I started with “Tutti Frutti,” that's when rock really started rocking, with wop-bob-a-loo-bop-a-lop-bam-boom, you know?’” (Rolling Stone, 2013). Listed on the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.
Little Richard “Tutti-Frutti”
Little Richard “Tutti-Frutti”
191 Smiley Lewis (1913-1966) “I Hear You Knockin’” 1955
“His best songs were often covered and sanitized by white artists, and he died before the Jazz Fest generation could discover his music. Plus, the fact he sang about getting his head bad, hard work, womanizing, going to jail for hitting his wife and cheating on his wife kept his singles out of the mainstream and the charts” (Offbeat, 2010).
Smiley Lewis “I Hear You Knockin’”
Smiley Lewis “I Hear You Knockin’”
February 19, 2016
190 Johnny Ace (1919-1954) “Pledging My Love” 1955
Born John M. Alexander, the “short, tragic life of Johnny Ace was
played out in two arenas: Memphis, where the blues were born, and Houston,
where rhythm plus blues mean a full house and money in the bank.” He was an
enigma, “a moody man who drank and cried alone.” After performing a duet with
Big Mama Thornton, he shot himself playing with a pistol (Ebony, 1955).
189 Bill Haley (1925-1981) and his Comets “Rock a-Beating Boogie” 1955
“he was lost in thought, …passing the time in a
Sambo's on Tyler Street in downtown Harlingen…Bill Haley
was making rock and roll records when Elvis was still in high school. For that
matter, he was playing rock and roll when Chuck Berry was working in a beauty
parlor, Jerry Lee Lewis was studying at the Southwestern Bible Institute, and
Little Richard was washing dishes in a bus station…Why didn't anybody seem to
remember?” (Michael Hall, Texas Monthly,
2011).
Bill Haley and his Comets “Rock a-Beating Boogie”
Bill Haley and his Comets “Rock a-Beating Boogie”
188 Jesse “Lone Cat” Fuller (1896-1976) “San Francisco Blues” 1955
He played a “ramshackle mix of pop, vaudeville, jazz, spirituals,
fancy instrumentals, children’s songs, hillbilly, work songs and medicine and
minstrel show material. A powerful, exceedingly expressive vocalist and
extraordinary 12-string guitarist, he developed an incomparable one-man band
approach around his fotdella and harmonica/kazoo gig” (Gary von Tersch, Sing Out, 2010).
187 Tennessee Ernie Ford (1919-1991) “Sixteen Tons” 1955
Ford joined the Air force and served as a bomber instructor during
World War II. He returned to a singing career and “carved a niche in
American popular culture in 1955 with his song ‘The Ballad of Davy Crockett,’ which became the theme song of an immensely popular Walt Disney television
program. But Ford had an even bigger recording hit that same year. ‘Sixteen
Tons’ was a single that sold more than 1 million copies within three weeks of
its release” (American National Biography).
186 Lonnie Donegan (1931-2002) “Rock Island Line” 1955
Raised in London, Donegan “was the undisputed king of skiffle—a
jazz-tinged hybrid of American folk and blues.” He formed a band with his
former army buddies and recorded the Leadbeally song, “Rock Island Line,” “which
became a major hit in Britain and America.” Even though Donegan disliked rock
music, his imitators such as the Beatles “discovered that their skiffle skills
prepared them perfectly to play amplified blues-based American rock ‘n’ roll” (Contemporary Musicians).
Lonnie Donegan “Rock Island Line”
Lonnie Donegan “Rock Island Line”
February 5, 2016
185 Fats Domino (1928-2017) “Ain’t That a Shame” 1955
“Well before the British Invasion reintroduced African-American
music to white American audiences, Domino had been the harbinger: he crashed a
host of mainstream venues (Steve Allen, Ed Sullivan and Dick Clark, for
starters) and played everywhere from the Apollo to all-white clubs. He was
proud that his subversive, sensual music caused riots” (Kirkus Reviews, 4/1/2006).
184 The Cheers “Black Denim Trousers and Motorcycle Boots” 1955
Prior to his career as TV guest star and game show host, Bert
Convy (1933-1991) achieved minor fame playing baseball and singing with the
Cheers during his college years at UCLA (www.biography.com).
183 Bo Diddley (1928-2008) “I’m a Man” 1955
“Diddley was born Elias Bates in December of
1928 in McComb, Mississippi. At age eight he was adopted by his mother's
cousin, who taught Sunday school in Chicago, and changed his last name to
McDaniel. He took classical violin lessons from O. W. Frederick at Ebenezer
Baptist Church, but later switched to guitar after hearing John Lee Hooker on
the radio. In his teens he started boxing and became known by his nickname, Bo Diddley (Contemporary Black Biography). Listed on the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.
182 Bo Diddley (1928-2008) “Bo Diddley” 1955
Diddley was invited to sing Tennessee Ernie
Ford’s hit, “Sixteen Tons“ from cue cards on the Ed Sullivan Show. He sang “Bo
Diddley” instead. Doug Pullen in MusicHound Rock: The Essential Album Guide wrote “Diddley's distinctive
‘chunka, chunka’ rhythm guitar riff is the stuff of which rock's bedrock was
made” (Contemporary Black Biography). Listed on the National Recording Registry of the Library of Congress.
181 Big Maybelle (1924-1972) “Whole Lotta Shakin’ Goin’ On” 1955
Influenced by gospel music at a young age, Mabel Louise Smith was
dubbed “Big Maybelle” by producer Fred Mendelsohn. “Her mountainous stature
matching the sheer soulful power of her massive vocal talent, Big Maybelle was
one of the premier R&B chanteuses of the 1950s” (www.allmusic.com).