User:Ghmyrtle/a

Robert Palmer, The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll, 1981 UK edition, p.11: "Perhaps the most important and influential record to come out of this ferment was 'Rocket 88'..... 'Rocket 88' could almost have been a Wynonie Harris or Amos Milburn jump record, but the saxophone work (by Raymond Hill) was wilder and rougher than the work of west coast sax men like Maxwell Davis, and the boogie woogie beat that kicked the performance along was carried out by a fuzzed-out, overamplified electric guitar... These striking characteristics and the song's lyrics, which celebrate the automobile, have led some listeners to credit 'Rocket 88', a number one R&B hit in 1951, as 'the first rock and roll record'...."

Richie Unterberger, Music USA: The Rough Guide, 1999, p.213: "The distorted guitar was especially prevalent on Jackie Brenston's 'Rocket 88', an R&B hit often referred to as one of the first (or even the first) rock'n'roll records because of its dirty guitar licks and overdriven sax breaks...."

Nick Tosches, Unsung Heroes of Rock'n'Roll, 1984, pp.139-142 (in a whole chapter about the record): "Sam C. Phillips... is said to have expressed the view that a certain 1951 recording (which, as coincidence has it, was produced by him) was the first true rock'n'roll record ever made; and this notion from on high has been echoed by others. While it is certainly not the case - there being no first rock'n'roll record any more than there is any first modern novel - the fact remains that the record in question was possessed of a sound and a fury the sheer, utter newness of which set it apart from what had come before. In a way, it can be seen as a turning point, an embarking from the rock'n'roll of the 1940s towards a brave new world... 'Rocket 88' by Jackie Brenston and the Delta Cats.... It was Jackie Brenston's song, but he had derived it from a song in the band's repertoire - 'Cadillac Boogie', which Jimmy Loggins had cut for Specialty in 1947... Far from hiding this unoriginality, Brenston openly admitted it. Many years later, he told Jim O'Neil of Living Blues magazine that 'if you listen to the two songs, you'll find out they're both basically the same. The words are just changed... While the song itself may or may not have been original, its performance surely was... The success of 'Rocket 88' had far-reaching effects. It heralded a new and wilder wave of rock'n'roll. It stirred Sam Phillips's determination to found Sun..."

Donald Clarke, The Rise and Fall of Popular Music, 1995, p.383: "'Rocket 88' is often described as the first rock'n'roll record; it sounds tame today, but its four-wheeled subject matter beat Chuck Berry by four years..."

Nigel Williamson, The Rough Guide to the Blues, 2007, p.112: "The record clearly came out of the blues tradition. But was 'Rocket 88' really the first rock'n'roll record? Or was it just a very good R&B tune with an unusually fast, bottom-heavy eight-to-the bar boogie rhythm and a great lyric about cars, booze and women?  More than half a century later, that's under debate.  Phillips himself, however, had no doubt..."

Charlie Gillett, The Sound of the City, 1971 UK edition, p.156: "Brenston's 'Rocket 88', a fast boogie dance song that is one of several records that people in the music business cite as 'the first rock'n'roll record', was a hit for Chess in 1951...."

Nadine Cohodas, Turning Blues Into Gold: Chess Records - the label that launched the blues, 2001, p.59: "'Rocket 88' was a fast-paced tune named after the new Oldsmobile coupe.... The song was rhythmically similar to some of the Aristocrat tunes, and it echoed the harmonies of those Chicago jump blues. Buut in 'Rocket 88' there was no trumpet, just guitar, bass, tenor sax, drums, and Turner playing a boogie-woogie piano... Though 'Rocket 88' was touted by some, including Phillips, as the first rock and roll song, music critic Robert Palmer made the persuasive point that musically, even thoughb the song had a driving beat and a heavily amplified guitar, 'there was nothing particularly startling about the way 'Rocket 88' moved.' Some West Coast R&B musicians, he noted, had made records 'that rocked just as hard' even if they had less amplification..."

Billy Vera, Foreword to Dawson & Propes, What Was The First Rock'n'Roll Record, 1992, p.ix "The first rock'n'roll record? My big question is: by what criteria?... 'Rocket 88' has the beat, the saxes, the car lyrics, which put it ahead of other teen-oriented tunes. But it didn't start a trend - yet...  I guess I'd have to say that rock'n'roll was an evolutionary process - we just looked around and it was here, to paraphrase Dion.  To name any one record as the first would make any of us look like a fool..."

Jim Dawson and Steve Propes, What Was The First Rock'n'Roll Record, 1992, pp.88-91 It indirectly helped launch Sun Records, and the performance itself, powered by a distorted electric guitar and a relentless boogie beat, influenced countless records in the 50s.... "Rocket 88" was a lot of firsts: the first hit recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis, the first number one R&B record on the Chess label out of Chicago, Ike Turner's first smash hit, and - to hear some folks tell it - the first rock'n'roll record, period. As was so often the case with groundbreaking recordings, much of the magic of "Rocket 88" was accidental... [Sam Phillips said]: "'Rocket 88' was the record that really started it off for me as far as broadening the base of music and opening up wider markets for our local music. I had great artists that I was working with like B.B. King, Roscoe Gordon and Howlin' Wolf, but 'Rocket 88' was the one that opened up the possibilities for us."

Michael Campbell, Popular Music in America: And The Beat Goes On, 2008, p.157"Among the most persistent subjects of debate among rock historians is the identity of the very first rock and roll record. Some have sought to identify the first instance of a musical feature that would later become commonplace in rhythm and blues or rock and roll: the honking saxophone, first popularized by Illinois Jacquet in the mid-1940s, or the accidentally distorted guitar of Willie Kizart in Jackie Brenston's 1951 R&B hit 'Rocket 88'. Others cite technology:.... Still others...."

Michael Campbell, Popular Music in America: And The Beat Goes On, 4th edition, p.164"Both the distortion and the relative prominence of the guitar were novel features of this recording - these are the elements that have earned 'Rocket 88' so many nominations as 'the first' rock and roll record. From our perspective, 'Rocket 88' wasn't the first rock and roll record, because the beat is a shuffle rhythm, not the distinctive rock rhythm heard first in the songs of Chuck Berry and Little Richard. Still, the distortion and the central place of the guitar in the overall sound certainly anticipate key features of rock style."

Charles Farley, Soul of the Man: Bobby "Blue" Bland, 2011, p.34"...the story of how 'Rocket 88', which rock historians have named as one of the first rock'n'roll tunes, got its unique sound..."

Joe S. Harrington, Sonic Cool: The Life & Death of Rock 'n' Roll, 2002, p.37"...'Rocket 88' was to have a profound impact in several different areas. For one, it helped establish Sam Phillips as a major A&R man. For another, it helped establish Chess Records in Chicago as one of the early rock'n'roll labels. Not surprisingly, 'Rocket 88' has often been referred to as 'the first rock'n'roll record' (and Sam Phillips would sure like to have you believe it.) However, by 1951 there were already several records in the same raucous vein, but perhaps none as gloriously irresponsible as 'Rocket 88'...."

Steve Waksman, The turn to noise: rock guitar from the 1950s to the 1970s, in Victor Coelho (ed.), The Cambridge Companion to the Guitar, 2003, p.109"Said by many historians to have been the first bona fide rock and roll recording, 'Rocket 88' achieved much of its distinctive sound from an accident.....'Rocket 88' laid down some of the groundwork for the reconstruction of rhythm and blues that would subsequently become known as rock and roll...."

http://books.google.co.uk/books?id=ITrXtuWLVMIC&pg=PA157&dq=%22Rocket+88%22&hl=en&sa=X&ei=mZQOUoT-LOmc0AWvgYHgAQ&ved=0CEAQ6AEwAzgK#v=onepage&q=%22Rocket%2088%22&f=false