Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music. It dates back to the early 1950s in the United States, especially the South. As a genre, it blends the sound of country and western music with that of rhythm and blues, leading to what is considered "classic" rock and roll. Some have also described it as a blend of bluegrass with rock and roll.The American Heritage® Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition copyright ©2000 by Houghton Mifflin Company. Updated in 2009. Published by Houghton Mifflin Company. The term "rockabilly" itself is a portmanteau of "rock" (from "rock 'n' roll") and "hillbilly", the latter a reference to the country music (often called "hillbilly music" in the 1940s and 1950s) that contributed strongly to the style. Other important influences on rockabilly include Western swing, boogie-woogie, jump blues, and electric blues.
Defining features of the rockabilly sound included strong rhythms, boogie woogie piano riffs, vocal twangs, doo-wop a capella singing, and common use of the tape echo; and eventually came to incorporate different instruments and vocal harmonies. Initially popularized by artists such as Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, Johnny Burnette, Jerry Lee Lewis and others, the rockabilly style waned in the late 1950s; nonetheless, during the late 1970s and early 1980s, rockabilly enjoyed a revival. An interest in the genre endures even in the 21st century, often within musical subcultures. Rockabilly has spawned a variety of sub-styles and has influenced the development of other genres such as punk rock.
History
There was a close relationship between blues and country music from the very earliest country recordings in the 1920s. The first nationwide country hit was "Wreck of the Old 97", backed with "The Prisoner's Song", which also became quite popular. Jimmie Rodgers, the "first true country star", was known as the "Blue Yodeler", and most of his songs used blues-based chord progressions, although with very different instrumentation and sound from the recordings of his black contemporaries like Blind Lemon Jefferson and Bessie Smith.Mystery Train: Images of America in Rock 'n' Roll Music by Greil Marcus 1982 E.P. Dutton p.291
During the 1930s and 1940s, two new sounds emerged. Bob Wills and his Texas Playboys were the leading proponents of Western Swing, which combined country singing and steel guitar with big band jazz influences and horn sections; Wills's music found massive popularity. Recordings of Wills's from the mid 1940s to the early 1950s include "two beat jazz" rhythms, "jazz choruses", and guitar work that preceded early rockabilly recordings. Wills is quoted as saying "Rock and Roll? Why, man, that's the same kind of music we've been playin' since 1928!... But it's just basic rhythm and has gone by a lot of different names in my time. It's the same, whether you just follow a drum beat like in Africa or surround it with a lot of instruments. The rhythm's what's important."San Antonio Rose: The Life and Music of Bob Wills. Charles R. Townsend. 1976. University of Illinois. Page 269.
After blues artists like Albert Ammons, Meade Lux Lewis and Pete Johnson launched a nationwide boogie craze starting in 1938, country artists like Moon Mullican, the Delmore Brothers, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Speedy West, Jimmy Bryant, and the Maddox Brothers and Rose began recording what was then known as "hillbilly boogie", which consisted of "hillbilly" vocals and instrumentation with a boogie bass line.Country: The Twisted Roots of Rock & Roll by Nick Tosches 1996 Da Capo Press
After World War II, The Maddox Brothers and Rose were at "the leading edge of rockabilly with the slapped bass that Fred Maddox had developed". They had shifted into higher gear leaning toward a whimsical honky-tonk feel, with a heavy, manic bottom end and high volume.Workin' Man Blues: Country Music in California. Gerald W. Haslan. University of California Press. 1999. Pages 170, 171. . The Maddoxes were known for their lively, antic-filled shows, which were an influential novelty for white listeners and musicians alike.Workin' Man Blues: Country Music in California. Gerald W. Haslan. University of California Press. 1999. Page 170. .Workin' Man Blues: Country Music in California. Gerald W. Haslan. University of California Press. 1999. Page 132. .
Along with country, swing and boogie influences, jump blues artists such as Wynonie Harris and Roy Brown, and electric blues acts such as Howlin' Wolf, Junior Parker, and Arthur Crudup, influenced the development of rockabilly.Vladimir Bogdanov, Chris Woodstra, Stephen Thomas Erlewine, All Music Guide to Country: The Definitive Guide to Country Music, page 912 The Memphis blues musician Junior Parker and his electric blues band, Little Junior's Blue Flames, featuring Pat Hare on the guitar, were a major influence on the rockabilly style, particularly with their songs "Love My Baby" and "Mystery Train" in 1953.
Zeb Turner's February 1953 recording of "Jersey Rock" with its mix of musical styles, lyrics about music and dancing, and guitar solo, is another example of the mixing of musical genres in the first half of the 1950s.
Bill Monroe is known as the Father of Bluegrass, a specific style of country music. Many of his songs were in blues form, while others took the form of folk ballads, parlor songs, or waltzes. Bluegrass was a staple of country music in the early 1950s and is often mentioned as an influence in the development of rockabilly, in part owing to its favoring of fast tempos.
The Honky Tonk sound, which "tended to focus on working-class life, with frequently tragic themes of lost love, adultery, loneliness, alcoholism, and self-pity", also included songs of energetic, uptempo hillbilly boogie. Some of the better known musicians who recorded and performed these songs are: the Delmore Brothers, the Maddox Brothers and Rose, Merle Travis, Hank Williams, Hank Snow, and Tennessee Ernie Ford."The Roots of Rock 'n' Roll 1946–1954" 2004 Universal Music Enterprises
Tennessee White sharecroppers' sons Carl Perkins and his brothers Jay and Clayton, along with drummer W. S. Holland, had established themselves as one of the hottest bands on the honky-tonk circuit around Jackson, Tennessee. Most of the songs they played were country standards with a faster rhythm. It was here that Carl started composing his first songs. While playing, he would watch the dance floor to see what the audience preferred and adjust his compositions to suit, writing them down only when he was sure they were finished. Carl sent numerous demos to New York record companies with no success; the producers believed the Perkins' style of rhythmically-driven country was not commercially viable. That would change in 1955 after recording the song "Blue Suede Shoes" (recorded December 19, 1955) on Sam Phillips' Memphis-based Sun Records. Later made more famous by Elvis Presley, Perkins' original version was an early rock 'n' roll standard.
In the early 1950s, there was heavy competition among Memphis area bands playing an audience-savvy mix of covers, original songs, and hillbilly flavored blues. One source mentions both local disc jockey Dewey Phillips and producer Sam Phillips as being influential.The Blue Moon Boys: The Story of Elvis Presley's Band. Ken Burke and Dan Griffin. 2006. Chicago Review Press. Pages 8, 9. An early radio show on KWEM in West Memphis, Arkansas quickly became a mix of blues, country and early rockabilly.Billboard April 3, 1999. "Modern Rockabilly Reaches Back Decades for Its Roots". Page 89. The Saturday Night Jamboree was a Memphis stage show held every Saturday night at the Goodwyn Institute Auditorium in downtown Memphis, Tennessee from 1953–1954. The Jamboree shows were sometimes broadcast live on KWEM. A number of future notables performed there, including Elvis Presley. The performers often experimented with new sounds in their dressing rooms, incorporating the best ones into their shows.
In 1951 and 1952, brothers Johnny and Dorsey Burnette, as well as Paul Burlison, played a blend of blues, country, and rockabilly at live shows in and around the Memphis area. in 1953, they played with Doc McQueen's swing band at the Hideaway Club for a time. While there, they wrote a song called "Rock Billy Boogie", named after the Burnette brothers' sons Rocky and Billy (Rocky Burnette later became a rock and roll star in his own right; Billy Burnette also had a music career and was in Fleetwood Mac in the late 80s to mid 90s), although they did not record the song until 1957. The Burnettes disliked the popular music McQueen played, so they began playing smaller shows on their own, focusing on their budding rockabilly sound. The trio released "Train Kept A-Rollin in 1956, listed by Rolling Stone magazine as one of the top 500 rock songs of all time. Many consider this 1956 recording to be the first intentional use of a distortion effect on a rock song, which was played by lead guitarist Paul Burlison.
Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley's first recordings took place at Sun Records, a small independent label run by record producer Sam Phillips in Memphis, Tennessee. For several years, Phillips had been recording and releasing performances by blues and country musicians in the area. He also ran a service allowing anyone to come in off the street and for a modest fee, record themselves on a two-song vanity record. One young man who came to record himself as a surprise for his mother, he claimed, was Elvis Presley.Newsweek August 18, 1997 "Good Rockin' page 54
Presley made enough of an impression that Phillips deputized guitarist Scotty Moore, who then enlisted bassist Bill Black, both from the Starlight Wranglers, a local Western swing band, to work with the young man.Newsweek August 18, 1997 "Good Rockin' page 55 The trio rehearsed dozens of songs, from traditional country to gospel. During a break on July 5, 1954, Elvis started playing "That's All Right Mama", a 1946 blues song by Arthur Crudup, and Moore and Black joined in. After several takes, Phillips had a satisfactory recording. "That's All Right" was released on July 19, 1954.elvis.com
Presley's version of "That's All Right Mama" melded country, a genre associated with European-American culture, and rhythm & blues, a genre associated with African-American culture. The resulting track was denied airplay on both country radio stations and R&B stations for being "too black" and "too white", respectively. Country deejays told Phillips they would be "run out of town" for playing it. When the song was finally played by one rogue deejay, Dewey Phillips, Presley's recording created so much excitement it was described as having waged war on segregated radio stations.
All of Presley's early singles featured a blues song on one side and a country song on the other, both sung in the same genre-blending style. Presley's Sun recordings feature his vocals and rhythm guitar, Bill Black's percussive slapped bass, and Scotty Moore on an amplified guitar. Slap bass had been a staple of both Western swing and hillbilly boogie since the 1940s. Scotty Moore described his playing style as an amalgamation of techniques he had picked up from other guitarists over the years.Elvis Presley Classic Albums DVD by Eagle Eye Media EE19007 NTSC Peter Guralnick Presley's unique musical style rocketed him into the spotlight, and drew masses of followers.Helen McNamara, June 9, 1956, Issue Saturday Night Magazine