I can’t find out much about Jimmy Smith, except that this one is not the famous jazz musician of the same name, who popularised the Hammond B-3 organ that became a signature sound in soul music. (more…)

Roy Brown may not be a household name but he is another of the under-appreciated innovators of the pre-rock’n’roll era, and a big influence on everyone from Elvis to Little Richard. (more…)

Albennie Jones is another of the small handful of women to build the foundations of rock’n’roll with her song Hole In The Wall in 1949.

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Fats Domino’s debut single rocks and rolls, and that’s enough to make it another of the building blocks of rock’n’roll. (more…)

Erline Harris, whose career burned brightly and briefly at the end of the 1940s, was a rare female artist in the proto-rock’n’roll era.

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We tend to think of the 1950s as the decade when rock’n’roll was born. But there’s a whole legion of post-war musicians who lit the spark.

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Chuck Berry must have been listening when a teenage Goree Carter & His Hepcats released Rock Awhile in 1949.

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