Tag: early rock

Egelidating Hot Links

Say You’ll Be Mine, The Ecuadors (1959) Chess RecordsA combo of Chess artists are featured in this one-off recording session. Not to be confused with another band of the same name who recorded for RCA Victor, The Ecuadors were Harvey Fuqua on lead vocal, Billy Davis & Etta James backing vocals. Session band was Chuck Berry with HIS classic Chess lineup that included Willie Dixon, Matt Guitar Murphy, Johnny Johnson and Fred Below.

Gravity.

Fill ‘er up.

Wanna fez?

Pistachiomg.

Magnetic slimebot.

Self defense lesson.

Fundo de Quintal OFC.

Zoom in on Nightwatch.

Sometimes Behave So Strangely.

High-functioning autistic has built-in GPS.

Since we’ve had some visitors from The Republic of The Gambia lately,  here’s their National Anthem.

[Top image: Donkey Nanny.]

From the Archives: 1 year ago. 5 years ago. 10 years ago.

Saturday Matinee – Oorutachi, Pokey LaFarge, The Crows & Elwood Blues

Bizarre, and with a great soundtrack. Oorutaichi [via].

Pokey LaFarge performing “La La Blues” at Music City Roots live from the Loveless Cafe on 20 April 2011 [via]. So what should follow that? Maybe something in C Am F & G…

The Crows‘ “Gee” from 1953 may have been the first R&B crossover hit, and it was a B side experiment.  Ike Turner earned the prize for the first rock and roll  hit “Rocket 88” in 1951, recording as Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats . Y’all have heard that classic, or should have by now, and James Cotton did a kickass version.

More recently Dan Akroyd took a shot at it and pulled it off.

Have a great weekend, folks.

Saturday Matinee – Etta James, Johnny Otis, Contours, Ruth Brown & Illinois Jacquet

Etta James passed away on 20 January 2012, and there aren’t many live vids out there on the Utoobage (this one’s from 1962). She was tough on the eyes, but gorgeous on the ears.

We also lost the great Johnny Otis on 17 January. Although I never saw The Johnny Otis Show on television, his 1990s radio show was great, playing old R&B and early R&R. (I spoke with him on the phone once about some trivia about The Contours.)

So here are The Contours live in 1963. I love early R&B, so we might as well continue with that theme.

Ruth Brown recorded “(Mama) He Treats Your Daughter Mean” in 1953, and it’s a great example of “jump blues” that morphed, terminology-wise from “Race Records” into “Rhythm and Blues” and later into “Rock and Roll.”

According to the late Eubie Blake, the phrase “Rock and Roll” originated in the late 1800s. It described a ragtime piano style that kept the patrons of brothels moving along. (Even the name “ragtime” is bawdy, and you can connect the dots for yourselves.)

Jump Blues. From the Utoobage description:

Illinois Jacquet and his band in the “Jive Crazy” scene from the 1949 noir movie “D.O.A.” — at least, according to the movie publicity.

So that might not be Illinois Jacquet’s band, but it’s still a great scene. And that makes five jumpy and jivey vids for the Saturday Matinee. Have a great weekend folks.

Saturday Matinee – Tea Party, Neil Innes, Johnny Cash, Eddie Cochran, Weird Al

The Tea Party protesters are really getting out of hand. Here’s footage from 20 March 2010 in Washington D.C.
[Update: Oop. My mistake. Those aren’t Tea Party people.]

Neil Innes was a protester before you were a protester.

Johnny Cash’s snare drum is awesome.

Turn up the treble for this classic from Eddie Cochran.

I’m 16% behind Weird Al on this, and 84% behind him on this one:

Have a great weekend folks.