Hot and loud and vulgar music, non-stop for five hours

epub or mobi

To the older generation rock 'n' roll came to mean Teds and violence. There was a riot in Berlin. Some countries banned rock 'n' roll altogether. In Singapore police were called in to stop British soldiers jiving in a cinema foyer after a midnight premiere of Rock Around The Clock. The Rev. Albert Carter of Nottingham denounced rock 'n' roll from his pulpit: 'The effect of rock 'n' roll on young people is to turn them into devil-worshippers; to stimulate self-expression through sex; to provoke lawlessness, impair nervous stability, and destroy the sanctity of marriage.' In Miami, Florida, the head of the local censorship board described rock 'n' roll dancing as 'nothing more than shoving boys and girls around' and 'vile gyrations'! Racialist Asa Carter of the North Alabama White Citizens' Council was scared too: 'Rock 'n' roll is a means of pulling down the white man to the level of the 'Negro'. It is part of a plot to undermine the morals of the youth of our nation. It is sexualistic, unmoralistic, and the best way to bring people of both races together.' Many older musicians hated rock 'n' roll: 'Viewed as a social phenomenon, the current craze for rock 'n' roll material is one of the most terrifying things ever to have happened to popular music ... Musically speaking of course, the whole thing is laughable ... Let us oppose it to the end.'

this whole slew of crude recordings on shoestring labels.

pdf (190 pages / 135MB)

I had a friend who lived in this flat in west London - a really vile, scruffy, horrible, bloke's flat - but the one thing pristine in this mess was a Dansette in mint condition and a bunch of records on the auto changer. And they were all vintage London records, which he'd bought the first time round. And he wouldn't have parted with them, even though he was dirt poor. So I told him about Ted's stall, less than a minute's walk away. I remember the famous Elvis wallpaper and all these other stalls with their thin dividing walls, selling hippyish jewellery, retro clothing - and there, at the end of the row was a smelly, greasy caff - you'd go past the caff, and Ted had the whole back space, in an L-shape, with the stock behind the counter, belting out rock'n'roll and R&B at full blast.

Wanda Jackson sounded like she could fry eggs on her mons veneris

epub or mobi, [dead links, check comments] with thanks to the original sharer

It was the voodoo of radio and jukeboxes that brought the new music to the ears and feet of post war beboppers. No one knew what to call it, whether it were fish or fowl, but Dewey Phillips understood it instinctively. He talked that down home hipster jive and jumped to radio right out of a record shop on Beale Street. He never learned how to operate a control board, but his show Red Hot and Blue was a smash hit with the public. WHBQ put George Klein in the control room to make sure that Dewey didn't wreck the studio on his night time slot. Every declaration, expletive, hoot and holler Dewey spewed on the air was infused with rollicking tribal power. He played the rocking guitar picking, gospel shouting Sister Rosetta Tharpe right along side of the corn whiskey and amphetamine fuelled pumping piano of Jerry Lee Lewis. The records got into the hands of DJs with the compliments of Sam's brother, Jud Phillips. Due to the promotional efforts of Jud Phillips, the Sun label broke across the Mid South hotter than a fresh fucked fox in a forest fire. - Tav Falco

residency at The Rice Cellar,a converted whorehouse on the waterfront

pdf scan (5 pages/9MB)

"I didn't name it, Bobby Howard was the one, you see 'Jack the Ripper' was a dance in the black communities, and when I played it I used to do the dance right along with it. A real dirty dance, bumps, grinds and all. It was part of the song."

Mojo,Voodoo and all that jungle stuff

New Link 14/2/12 here