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…)

Hillbilly boogie was a postwar hybrid popularised by white folk in the South and evolved into rockabilly in the mid-1950s. (more…)

Released in 1951, this is the tune that a considerable consensus of people – mostly old white people – believe to be the first rock’n’roll song. (more…)

Here’s another of the songs that shaped rock’n’roll, by one of the most flamboyant characters – and greatest guitarists – of that postwar era. (more…)

Here’s a hard-rocking instrumental by a guitarist who must surely have been a major influence on Chuck Berry.
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Back before rock’n’roll got given its name, and nuclear war was a clear and present danger, a flamboyant fellow called H-Bomb Ferguson exploded on to the music scene.

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