Rocket 88
"Rocket "88"" | ||||
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Length | 2:48 | |||
Label | Chess | |||
Songwriter(s) |
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Producer(s) | Sam Phillips | |||
Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats singles chronology | ||||
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Audio sample | ||||
"Rocket 88" (originally stylized as Rocket "88") is a song that was first recorded in
Many music writers acknowledge its importance in the development of
Composition and recording
The original version of the
Brenston later said that the song was not particularly original; "they had simply borrowed from another jump blues about an automobile, Jimmy Liggins’ 'Cadillac Boogie'".[14] The song was a hymn of praise to the joys of the Oldsmobile Rocket 88 automobile which had recently been introduced,[12] and was based on the 1947 song "Cadillac Boogie" by Jimmy Liggins.[15]
Drawing on the template of
A review of the record in Time magazine included:[16]
Rocket 88 was brash and it was sexy; it took elements of the blues, hammered them with rhythm and attitude and electric guitar, and reimagined black music into something new. If the blues seemed to give voice to old wisdom, this new music seemed full of youthful notions. If the blues was about squeezing cathartic joy out of the bad times, this new music was about letting the good times roll. If the blues was about earthly troubles, the rock that Turner's crew created seemed to shout that the sky was now the limit.
The legend of how the sound came about says that Kizart's amplifier was damaged on Highway 61 when the band was driving from Mississippi to Memphis, Tennessee. An attempt was made to hold the cone in place by stuffing the amplifier with wadded newspapers, which unintentionally created a distorted sound; Phillips liked the sound and used it.[17][18] Peter Guralnick, in his biography of Sam Phillips, has the amplifier being dropped from the car's trunk when the band got a flat tire and was digging out the spare.[19]
Phillips offered this reminiscence about the amp in an interview with
The song was recorded in the Memphis studio of producer Sam Phillips in March 1951, and licensed to Chess Records for release.[21] The record was supposed to be credited to Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm featuring Jackie Brenston, but Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats was printed instead.[22] Turner blamed Phillips for this error since he was the one who licensed it to Chess.[22] Turner and the band were only paid $20 each (US$235 in 2023 dollars[23]) for the record,[24] with the exception of Brenston who sold the rights to Phillips for $910.[25]
Whether this was the first record of the rock'n'roll genre is debated. A 2014 article in The Guardian stated that "Rocket 88's reputation may have more to do with Sam Phillips's vociferous later claims he had discovered rock'n'roll".[26] Time quotes The New Rolling Stone Encyclopedia of Rock & Roll and the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as confirming that "Rocket 88 may well have been the first rock 'n' roll record".[27]
In a later interview, however, Ike Turner offered this comment: "I don't think that ‘Rocket 88’ is rock ‘n’ roll. I think that ‘Rocket 88’ is R&B, but I think ‘Rocket 88’ is the cause of rock and roll existing".[28]
Chart performance
"Rocket 88" was the third-biggest
Influence
"When I was a little boy, that song fascinated me in a big way. I never heard a piano sound like that. I never played the piano then. Soon, I was trying. if you listen to 'Good Golly, Miss Molly,' you hear the same introduction as the one to 'Rocket 88,' the exact same, ain't nothing been changed."
— Little Richard (1999)[32]
Ike Turner's piano intro on "Rocket 88" influenced Little Richard who later used it for his 1958 hit song "Good Golly, Miss Molly."[32]
Music historian Robert Palmer, writing in The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll in 1980, described it as an important and influential record. He noted that Hill's saxophone playing was "wilder and rougher" than on many jump blues records, and also emphasized the record's "fuzzed-out, overamplified electric guitar".[36] Writing in his 1984 book Unsung Heroes of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Nick Tosches, though rejecting the idea that it could be described as the first rock'n'roll record "any more than there is any first modern novel – the fact remains that the record in question was possessed of a sound and a fury the sheer, utter newness of which set it apart from what had come before."[37] Echoing this view, Bill Dahl at AllMusic wrote:[38]
Determining the first actual rock & roll record is a truly impossible task. But you can't go too far wrong citing Jackie Brenston's 1951 Chess waxing of "Rocket 88", is a seminal piece of rock's fascinating history with all the prerequisite elements firmly in place: practically indecipherable lyrics about cars, booze, and women; Raymond Hill's booting tenor sax, and a churning, beat-heavy rhythmic bottom.
Rock art historian Paul Grushkin wrote:[39]
Working from the raw material of post-big band jump blues, Turner had cooked up a mellow, cruising boogie with a steady-as-she-goes back beat now married to Brenston's enthusiastic, sexually suggestive vocals that spoke of opportunity, discovery and conquest. This all combined to create (as one reviewer later put it) "THE mother of all R&B songs for an evolutionary white audience".
Michael Campbell wrote, in Popular Music in America: And the Beat Goes On:[40]
Both the distortion and the relative prominence of the guitar were novel features of this recording – these are the elements that have earned "Rocket 88" so many nominations as "the first" rock and roll record. From our perspective, "Rocket 88" wasn't the first rock and roll record, because the beat is a shuffle rhythm, not the distinctive rock rhythm heard first in the songs of Chuck Berry and Little Richard. Still, the distortion and the central place of the guitar in the overall sound certainly anticipate key features of rock style.
Ike Turner himself said, in an interview with Holger Petersen:[2]
I don't think that "Rocket 88" is rock'n'roll. I think that "Rocket 88" is R&B, but I think "Rocket 88" is the cause of rock and roll existing ... Sam Phillips got Dewey Phillips to play "Rocket 88" on his program – and this is like the first black record to be played on a white radio station – and, man, all the white kids broke out to the record shops to buy it. So that's when Sam Phillips got the idea, "Well, man, if I get me a white boy to sound like a black boy, then I got me a gold mine", which is the truth. So, that's when he got
Elvis and he got Jerry Lee Lewis and a bunch of other guys and so they named it rock and roll rather than R&B and so this is the reason I think rock and roll exists – not that "Rocket 88" was the first one, but that was what caused the first one.[2]
The song was covered by several artists over the years, the first being Bill Haley & His Comets in July 1951.[41] No matter which version deserves the accolade, "Rocket 88" is seen as a prototype rock and roll song in musical style and lineup, as well as its lyrical theme, in which an automobile serves as a metaphor for sexual prowess.[42]
References
- ^ Sims, Lydel (March 28, 1951). "Rocket Becomes Flying Disc, Spins Toward Record Glory". The Commercial Appeal. p. 1.
- ^ a b c Petersen 2011, p. 156.
- ISBN 9780742544444.
- ISBN 9781627310918.
- ^ "When was rock'n'roll really born?". The Guardian. April 16, 2004.
- ^ "Mississippi Blues Trail Reaches 200th Marker with 'Rocket 88'". Mississippi Development Authority. November 9, 2017. Retrieved June 21, 2020.
- ^ O'Neal, Jim (November 10, 2016). "Hall of Fame Inductees: Rocket '88' – Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats (Chess, 1951)". The Blues Foundation. Retrieved June 21, 2020.
- ^ "Grammy Hall of Fame". The Recording Academy Grammy Awards. Retrieved June 21, 2020.
- ^ Graff, Gary (April 18, 2018). "Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inducts Songs for the First Time, Including 'Born to Be Wild' & 'Louie Louie'". Billboard. Retrieved June 21, 2020.
- ^ "The Notorious B.I.G., The Chicks, Green Day & More Selected for National Recording Registry (Full List)". Billboard. 2024-04-16. Retrieved 2024-04-16.
- ^ a b Whitburn 1988, p. 54.
- ^ a b Hamilton, Andrew. "Jackie Brenston: 'Rocket 88' – Review". AllMusic. Retrieved June 21, 2020.
- ^ Weinstein 2015, p. 34.
- ^ "Rocket '88' - Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats (Chess, 1951)". Retrieved June 9, 2021.
- ^ Collis 2003, pp. 70–76.
- ^ Farley, Christopher John (July 6, 2004). "Elvis Rocks. But He's Not the First". Time. Retrieved August 8, 2020.
- ^ Palmer 1981b, p. 222.
- ^ Palmer 1995, p. 201.
- ^ Guralnick 2015.
- ^ Kaye, Elizabeth (February 13, 1986). "Sam Phillips: The Rolling Stone Interview". Rolling Stone.
- ^ Guralnick 1994, p. 38.
- ^ a b Turner & Cawthorne 1999.
- ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
- ^ "The Story of Ike Turner". Unsung (Television series). TV One. June 3, 2015. Episode 83.
- ^ Turner & Loder 1986.
- ^ ISSN 0261-3077.
- ^ "Elvis Rocks but He's Not the First". Time. June 30, 2017. Retrieved August 8, 2020.
- ^ "Listen to the first rock and roll song ever recorded". Faroutmagazine.com. 13 November 2021. Retrieved December 26, 2022.
- ^ Whitburn 1988, p. 597.
- ^ "Best Selling R&B Records / Most Played Juke Box R&B Records" (PDF). Billboard. June 23, 1951. p. 33.
- ^ "Most Played R&B Juke Box Records" (PDF). Billboard. July 7, 1951. p. 28.
- ^ a b Turner & Cawthorne 1999, p. xi.
- ^ "Did Rock 'n' Roll Really Begin With a Song About a Car?". MotorTrend.com. 25 March 2020. Retrieved June 9, 2021.
- ^ Gillett 1970, p. 156.
- ^ Birnbaum 2012, p. 17.
- ^ Palmer 1981a, p. 11.
- ^ Tosches 1984, p. 139.
- ^ Dahl, Bill. "Jackie Brenston: Biography". AllMusic. Retrieved June 21, 2020.
- ^ Grushkin 2006, pp. 26–27.
- ^ Campbell 2011, p. 164.
- ^ "Artists, Bill Haley & His Comets". Ed Sullivan. June 14, 2015. Retrieved November 10, 2023.
- ^ Dawson & Propes 1992.
Bibliography
- Birnbaum, Larry (2012). Before Elvis: The Prehistory of Rock 'n' Roll. Lanham, Massachusetts: Scarecrow Press. ISBN 978-0810886384.
- Campbell, Michael (2011). Popular Music in America: And The Beat Goes On (4th ed.). Boston, Massachusetts: Cengage Learning. ISBN 978-0810886384.
- Collis, John (2003). Ike Turner: King of Rhythm. London: Do Not Press. ISBN 978-1-904316-24-4.
- ISBN 0-571-12939-0.
- ISBN 978-0722138601.
- ISBN 978-0316332200.
- Little Brown.
- Grushkin, Paul (2006). Rockin' Down the Highway: The Cars and People That Made Rock Roll. MBI Publishing. ISBN 978-0760322925.
- Palmer, Robert (1981a). The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll. Picador.
- ISBN 978-0-14-006223-6.
- ISBN 0-517-70050-6.
- ISBN 978-1554830589.
- ISBN 978-0826463227.
- Tosches, Nick (1984). Unsung Heroes of Rock'n'Roll. Secker & Warburg.
- ISBN 185-2278501.
- ISBN 978-0688059491.
- Weinstein, Deena (2015). Rock'n America: A Social and Cultural History. Toronto: University of Toronto Press. ISBN 9781442600188.
- ISBN 0-89820-068-7.