Little Richard was not just one of the formative figures in the birth of rock’n’roll but an influence on those to follow. Even if he did ‘borrow’ his own sound and look from a little known predecessor.

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Hank Williams would have been 100 years old on Sunday. Instead he died, on New Year’s Day 1953, at the age of 29.

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Here’s a blast of primal punk… no, wait. Not that. It’s the theme music of Douglas Sirk’s magnificent film Written On The Wind, written by Sammy Cahn and sung by The Four Aces.

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I have to confess that growing up I only knew the name Brenda Lee from the Golden Earring song Radar Love. I’m not sure I even knew she was a real person. But she was.

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This song has history. In 1955 it gave Johnny Ace his biggest hit single… but only after his unusual death at the age of only 25.

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Huey “Piano” Smith was one of the key figures in the transition from RnB to rock’n’roll in the Fifties. And a legend in his native New Orleans.

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Chuck Norris didn’t do karate but he earned his chops playing session guitar in California in the late 1940s and early 1950s. He also cut a handful of solo singles like this. (more…)

No one played the slide guitar like Elmore James. Well, they did – but he did it first. This was his first recording, and became his signature song. (more…)

Saxman Big John Greer is another of those seminal figures turning jump blues into rock’n’roll in the postwar era. (more…)

Here’s a song by one of rockabilly’s revered elder statesmen that just makes you want to get up and dance, whatever music you like.
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