Chuck Berry (God bless him) is one of the finest lyricists known to rock & roll. Chuck also plays inimitable, dynamic, guitar-driven old-school rhythm & blues. Except Chuck’s style isn’t quite that inimitable. That’s because, in April 1949, sounding very much like the Chuck Berry we all know and love, someone else released a song that was pure Chuck Berry.
Goree Carter preceded Chuck Berry
He was Goree Carter, an 18-year-old black electric guitarist from Houston, Texas, and his record was ‘Rock Awhile’. It was a track that helped, perhaps, change the very nature of rock music. Rock Awhile was written and performed by Carter with his jump blues band, The Hepcats. The song did everything a groundbreaking rhythm & blues record is supposed to do, except chart highly.
Wrote respected rock author, Robert Palmer, in his 1992 book, Church Of The Cosmic Guitar: “Rock Awhile in April 1949 … has been cited as a strong contender for the title of first rock and roll record and is a much more appropriate candidate than the more frequently cited, ‘Rocket 88’ (1951), by Ike Turner. The intro to Rock Awhile also resembles those in several Chuck Berry records from 1955 onwards.”
Again, Albert Ammons with Boogie Woogie Stomp in 1936 (see archive), would dispute that Rock Awhile was the world’s first rock & roll record. But, without doubt, Goree Carter was yet another unsung musical pioneer way ahead of his time. As
we all know, the world is, unfortunately, full of such musicians.
Carter, whose first release was Sweet Ole Woman Blues in 1949, recorded for several labels in the early 1950s, but last recorded in 1954. He continued to play
occasional local gigs in Houston with his last live performance being in 1970.
Goree Carter died in Houston, aged 59, in 1990.
Rock Awhile, from 1949, goes onto my list of the world’s first true rock & roll releases. Whether it’s number seven, eight, nine or ten is yet to be determined.
BLUESMUSE13 I’ve been researching to find out what was America’s, and therefore the world’s, third ever rock & roll record release after Albert Ammons in 1936, and then Big Joe Turner and Pete Johnson in 1938 (see earlier posts). This suggestion might be a bit more contentious to the purist than my first and second…
A short film featuring the first ever record mentioning rock & roll (from the 1920s), Ike Turner as Jackie Brenston, Muddy Waters and Jimmy Preston Jackie Brenston was Ike’s sax player. Check out the band above As you know, Ike Turner’s Rocket 88 in 1951 is often referred to as the world’s first rock & roll record,…
Keith and Mick back in the day Today is not just any old birthday for the esteemed Rolling Stones guitarist Keith Richards, it’s a massive one: a mind-blowing 70, would you believe. Not only that, 18th December is also the day slavery was abolished in the United States, which was 148 years ago in 1865;…
UPDATED MAY 31, 2018. Mess around … with a red dress on … know what I’m talking about? Not one, but three (not so little) girls standing there with red dresses on You might have read in my last post about the words ‘blues’ (as in music), and…
Updated 1 June 2016 The internationally acclaimed concert pianist, Percy Grainer Down Under this week, I visited Melbourne University’s Percy Grainger Museum. You’ve probably never heard of Percy Grainger, an Australian, but he was one of the more interesting composers that ever lived. Born in Melbourne in 1882, Grainger was an internationally-famous concert pianist, musical maverick and one of…
We dont need know educaishon STOP PRESS 25 July 2014. Weird Al Yankovic’s “Mandatory Fun” is the first comedy album to top Billboard’s album chart since 1963. Here was I, thinking correct written English was passé, when up pops America’s music parody ace, Weird Al Yankovic, with his latest pastiche, ‘Word Crimes’. The track’s a…