Digital

I thought you might enjoy another dollop from my book on Rock Music. The book tells you about every single genre with all the important artists and outstanding tracks. (In the book the tracks are separated out but WordPress doesn’t seem to like that!)

Rock Routes: Amazon.co.uk: Goodwin, Opher: 9781514873090: Books

New Orleans Rock ‘n’ Roll

The New Orleans style of Boogie Woogie R&B, with a dollop of Cajun and Creole, gave rise to the New Orleans branch of Rock ‘n’ Roll. This was a seamless move.

There were two main branches of Rock that emerged out of New Orleans. The first evolved out of the Blues Shouting style of artists such as Roy Brown. It had a lot of Gospel in it and developed into the aggressive Rock style of Little Richard.

Little Richard’s piano pounding showmanship, storming songs and Gospel tinged shouting delivery provided Rock with one of its most dynamic acts and a string of classic Rock songs that are unsurpassed. These included ‘Long Tall Sally’, ‘Tutti Frutti’, ‘Rip it up’, ‘Ready Teddy’, and ‘Lucille’.

Little Richard was so successful that the labels hunted around for similar talent. They never quite cracked that although they came really close with the wonderful Larry Williams. He had a string of highly influential hits that ended up covered by the Beatles and a host of others, these include: ‘Dizzy Miss Lizzie,’ ‘Slow down’, ‘Boronie Moronie’ and ‘Short fat fanny’. Others such as Esquerita and Don and Dewey failed to break through to such heights although they produced some memorable tracks. Lloyd Price came up with his big hit ‘Lawdy Miss Clawdy’ in 1952 as a jingle for a radio station. He failed to follow that up successfully until 1958 when he had a hit with ‘Staggerlee’ and then in 1959 with the more commercially sounding ‘Personality’.

The other stream was more in the Boogie-Woogie style of Archibald, Champion Jack Dupree and Professor Longhair. This branch was epitomised by Fats Domino and Smiley Lewis. Fats, was by far the most successful. His lazy, mellow sound still retained that basic rolling beat and his piano boogie conspired to give him a string of million sellers. These included ‘I’m in love again’, Blueberry hill’, ‘Blue Monday’, ‘Walking to New Orleans’, ‘Aint that a shame’, and ‘I’m walking’. His cheerful beaming smile made him a favourite with the film men and gained him numerous cameo roles in the exploitative ‘Teen’ films. His amiable nature was unthreatening.

One of Fats contemporaries was Smiley Lewis. He had a big hit in 1955 with ‘I hear you knocking’. It had a harder edge than the easy going style of Fats but he failed to establish himself.

The New Orleans sound was successfully used to create a unique sounding series of Rock/pop hits called Swamp Pop. Huey ‘Piano’ Smith typified the style with sides like ‘Rockin’ pneumonia and the Boogie-woogie Flu’, ‘Don’t you just know it’, and ‘High blood pressure’.

Other artists included Frankie Ford with ‘Sea Cruise’ (produced by Huey), Bobby Charles with ‘See you later alligator’, Clarence ‘Frogman’ Henry with ‘Ain’t got no home’, Gary ‘US’ Bonds with ‘New Orleans and Cookie and the Cupcakes ‘Mathilda’.

Artist	Stand out tracks
Little Richard	Long tall Sally Rip it up Ready Teddy Good Golly Miss Molly All round the world Heeby Jeebies Ooooh my soul Get down and get with it Bama lama True fine mama Slippin’ and a slidin’ Miss Ann Jenny Jenny She’s got it She knows how to rock The girl can’t help it Lucille Kansas city Shake a hand Keep a knockin’ Hey Hey Hey Hey Send me some lovin’
Smiley Lewis	I hear you knocking
Fats Domino	Blueberry Hill The fat man Ain’t that a shame Walking to New Orleans I want to walk you home Be my guest I’m walking Blue Monday I hear you knocking I’m gonna be a wheel someday My blue heaven Let the four winds blow
Huey Piano Smith & the Clowns	High Blood pressure Rockin’ pneumonia & boogie woogie flu Don’t you just know it Little chicken wah wah Well I’ll be John Brown Don’t you know Yockomo
Frankie Ford	Sea cruise
Bobby Charles	See you later alligator
Don & Dewey	Jungle Hop Justine Farmer John Just a little lovin’ Ko Ko Joe Bim Bam Little Sally Walker
Esquerita	Rockin’ the joint I’m batty over Hattie Rock ‘n’ Roll is here to stay Golly Golly Annie Mae Ooh Baby Katie Mae
Larry Williams	Dizzy Miss Lizzy Slow down Bad boy Bonie Moronie Short fat Fanny She said Yeah High school dance You bug me baby Jelly Belly Nellie School girl Heeby Jeebies Hootchy-Koo
Gary US Bonds	New Orleans