Monumental musical anniversary: Rocket 88 was recorded exactly 75 years ago today

[Eric B]

https://youtu.be/buIcKKLeJgo?si=Xxupjrr2-fJdQZoM

 

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I guess I don’t know how to embed videos. Oh well. I know this is one of the few communities on the web that doesn’t need a YT video to know what Rocket 88 is. 

Edited Tuesday at 02:18 PM by Eric B

[Dan Gould]

👍

 

[Rabshakeh]

I never quite understood why Rocket 88 is considered early rock and roll. To my ears it sounds fairly squarely R&B. I guess the lyrics are about driving around getting teenage kicks.

[Dan Gould]

On 3/3/2026 at 9:18 AM, Eric B said:

 

 

I guess I don’t know how to embed videos. Oh well. I know this is one of the few communities on the web that doesn’t need a YT video to know what Rocket 88 is. 

I've never had trouble just copying and pasting video URL into the body of the post.

As to the question of "early rock n roll" maybe Ike got it right (from Wiki):

In a later interview, however, Ike Turner offered this comment: "I don't think that 'Rocket 88' is rock 'n' roll. I think that 'Rocket 88' is R&B, but I think 'Rocket 88' is the cause of rock and roll existing"

[Rabshakeh]

Maybe. That is closer to what my ears say. Although there's some complex musical DNA back there.

[JSngry]

Jacob stole the blessing.

[Big Beat Steve]

1 hour ago, Rabshakeh said:

I never quite understood why Rocket 88 is considered early rock and roll. To my ears it sounds fairly squarely R&B. I guess the lyrics are about driving around getting teenage kicks.

"Rocket 88" may be considered the direct precursor of the more outgoing, rougher small-group (usually Black) R'n'R recordings with a driving, rocking, no-frills rhythm. 
Of course the stylistic boundaries did overlap, so "Rocket 88" is just as much straight-ahead R&B as it may be labeled very early (i.e. pre-)R'n'R.
But at any rate Rock'n'Roll is a many-faceted genre. (I.e. REAL R'n'R of the pre-Beatles and preferably pre-assembly line Teen Idol era à la Avalon, Vee, Rydell etc. - and specifically NOT the blurred U.S. "definition" of R'n'R that would even label almost anything among later Rock as "Rock'n'Roll", from Psychedelic via Hard Rock and Alice Cooper et al. to Heavy Metal)
So it depends on what elements you hear in what tune from the pre-R'n'R era that might inspire you to see it as the first blossoming of musica traits that were omnipresent in c.1954-63 R'n'R.
Perennial food for thought and discussions of this will be found in "What Was The First Rock'n'Roll Record?" by Jim Dawson and Steve Propes. This book discusses 50 recordings that might qualify (depending on what aspect of R'n'R it is all about) - ranging (chronologically speaking) from "Blues Pt. 2" by that JATP crew of 1944 (for Illinois Jacquet's tenor sax solo as the father of all rockin' saxes) to Elvis' "Heartbreak Hotel" of 1956 (which would conform to rather a narrow, mainstreamish definition of the genre), and lots of in-betweens that all deserve some reflection. 
One overriding criterion of what would qualify as the "first" R'n'R record certainly is if these early recordings would alienate the typical crowds of the 50s-style R'n'R subculture when they are worked into the flow of tunes at record hops of if they would fit seamlessly in. From my own observations at such events I can tell you they would NOT be out of place there. (O.K., maybe some narrow-minded purists might object to a number of them, but they would quibble about certain authentic R'n'R tracks too)

And then there are some that aren't even listed. E.g. "Diggin' My Potatoes" by Washboard Sam that for its rhythm alone may rightfully be considered the ancestor of most rockabilly tunes. 

 

Edited yesterday at 03:35 PM by Big Beat Steve

[Rabshakeh]

I guess a lot does depend on what you mean by rock and roll. Maybe it if you don't mean Bill Haley or Jerry Lee Lewis or Chuck Berry but instead mean the Rolling Stones.

The Jim Dawson and Steve Propes book sounds really interesting. And a far more sensible approach to dealing with the question than any other that I could think of.

[Big Beat Steve]

See? The Stones as a whole are definitely OUT by the usual European definition within the R'n'R subculture (even if certain tracks - as with the Beatles' oeuvre - would fit into R'n'R, stylistically speaking). Haley, Lewis and Berry are IN. But they cover only SOME aspects of the ENTIRE spectrum of R'n'R. To varying degrees. 
And that "driving around getting teenage kicks" that you mentioned about the "Rocket 88" lyrics is ONE aspect that would rate this recording as "early" R'n'R. 
Whereas the recordings by Wynonie Harris (that often rock even harder) might not qualify that easily because THEIR lyrics - about boozing and the pimp making love to the preacher's wife in the kitchen - address a rather different audience. His "adult R'n'R" or "adult R&B" recordings therefore lack the "teenage/youth audience" angle that sets R'n'R apart as the first specific style of music geared specifically to the YOUNG'UNS. Not to what the elders would condescendingly allow their kids to listen to in the pre-1954 days.  (Not that WHITE parents in 50s US of A - or parents in the UK or Germany, for that matter  - would have been enthusiastic about their kids listening to Wynonie Harris, but I think you get what I mean. ) 
OTOH others (like me, incidentally ) may find the strictly adult lyrics no hindrance to R'n'R status if the music has the right vibe. So it all depends on what importance you place onto what aspect of the individual recordings. Not a question that can or will ever be settled. 

Edited yesterday at 04:00 PM by Big Beat Steve

[Dan Gould]

The consideration of specific tracks is certainly a good place to start.

To me "Rock n Roll" signifies the time when a saxophone was the dominant solo instrument.  I don't mean that guitar wasn't equally at home but if you are talking early rock n roll tunes its got to be a tenor sax in there.

When guitar not only became predominant, but overbearing and frankly, sometimes musically masturbatory, that's when it became "rock".

[JSngry]

Chuck Berry and saxophone?

[Dan Gould]

Chuck Berry represents the start of the change ... the convo is early rock n roll and to me that is saxophone.

Pretty sure rock n roll started before 1955 and Maybellene.

[JSngry]

1947(?)

Thinking about the development of Black Popular Music only as a feeder into White Popular Music is actually myopic and, really, just wrong.

[JSngry]

What kind of a car was a Rocket 69 anyway?

1947

Intentional distortion, not happy accident, again from 1947:.

Not Rick & Raoul. Just something else that happened, because electric guitar.

[GA Russell]

I think there are two distinct concepts - the music and the perception.

I think of Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock to be the first rock 'n' roll record because it combined jump blues with country.  Maybelline did as well.  And Bill Haley's was the first the American public became aware of.   And promptly after came Elvis with his country style of singing black music.

However, Alan Fried coined the term "rock 'n' roll", and he did it playing the r&b and doo wop of the day.

PS - If we consider only the music, I would go back to Louis Jordan's Saturday Night Fish Fry for the first hit.  It had the beat, and he sang, "Rock! Rock! Rock!"

Edited 14 hours ago by GA Russell

[JSngry]

1951;

 

[Big Beat Steve]

13 hours ago, JSngry said:

 

Thinking about the development of Black Popular Music only as a feeder into White Popular Music is actually myopic and, really, just wrong.

Of course it is. Rock'n'Roll may have been a name initially coined to describe R&B marketed to white audiences or R&B(-influenced music) played by white artists. But during the heyday of actual R'n'R (not just - later - "Rock") during, say, 1954 to 1959, there were both white and Black R'n'R artists, bands and sounds that all added to this mix.
And of course Black music did continue to evolve outside of the R'n'R spectrum.
During the R'n'R era some Black artists didn't change their style much and yet were part of the core of R'n'R - e.g. Fats Domino. And the Treniers from that video always remained  themselves both in pre-R'n'R years and in their R'n'R movie appearances, etc. And yes, the Treniers would have deserved a place in the "Which Was The First Rock'n'Roll Record?" book too. Whereas the Atlantic recordings of Big Joe Turner fitted seamlessly into R'n'R, but of course he would not have had anything even remotely resembling teen appeal. So it all depends on which criteria you highlight to what extent.   Like GA Russell said: It's the music on the one hand and the perception on the other. 

As for the presence of the tenor sax as a solo instrument as a key criterion of what constitutes R'n'R (as Dan Gould said) - I'm not convinced. The sax was very present on many BLACK R'n'R recordings but I'd see this largely as a holdover from the evolution of R&B since 1945. It was much less dominant on white R'n'R records (with the possible exception of the featured sax in certain backing bands). In general, one major facet of SELF-MADE (self-played) white R'n'R (which of course includes rockabilly as one subgenre) was the preponderance of the guitar as a solo instrument that set the general sound patterns. To an extent hitherto unheard. Not that surprising as most of the white artists came from the Country side of the two main ingredients that combined to form R'n'R. 

But again, I think the common consensus in all these debates of where and how R'n'R started and what makes up R'n'R has always been and still is that to qualify, no recordings will have to meet ALL criteria of music (style) and perception (image). 

 

 

9 hours ago, JSngry said:

What kind of a car was a Rocket 69 anyway?

 

One that did not clock up much mileage beyond the singer's or listener's bedside. 
 

Edited 5 hours ago by Big Beat Steve

[Rabshakeh]

The first Rock and Roll record was 'We're Not Going to Take It', by Los Angeles-based band Twisted Sister.

It is the first song to combine the core rock and roll genre characteristics of pouting, guitars and a music video where the dad gets beaten up.  

All other minds of music that preceded it are just pastoral shepherd flute music or Chinese opera.

Edited 5 hours ago by Rabshakeh

[Big Beat Steve]

Sounds like you've given up on the subject. 

[Rabshakeh]

7 minutes ago, Big Beat Steve said:

Sounds like you've given up on the subject. 

Not at all. But this is an area on which academic consensus is so clear that it is hardly worth debating. Those who claim that the first rock and roll record was actually 'Wig Wam Bam' by The Sweet are deluded in my view. 

[JSngry]

 

[gvopedz]

2 hours ago, Rabshakeh said:

Those who claim that the first rock and roll record was actually 'Wig Wam Bam' by The Sweet are deluded in my view. 

Speaking of The Sweet, “Ballroom Blitz” is fine with me – but the cover version by the Rezillos is the version I listen to.