@noromance: Big Jay McNeely---now yer talkin’! Do you have the Honkers & Screamers/Roots Of Rock ’n’ Roll Vol. 6 double LP on Savoy Records? BJM, Lee Allen (Little Richard’s tenor sax man, who was in The Blasters when I saw them back Big Joe Turner at Club Lingerie on Sunset Blvd. in Hollywood in the mid-80’s), Sam "The Man" Taylor, Paul Williams, and Hal Singer, all doing the late-40’s Jump Blues that was in essence the first Rock ’n’ Roll.
When popular "Rock" music was becoming absolutely unlistenable in the late-60’s and early-mid 70’s (Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath---are you fu*ckin’ kidding me?!, etc.), every American musician worth his salt (and some Limeys, such as Dave Edmunds and Albert Lee) starting looking back, tracing Rock ’n’ Roll back to it’s sources. What we found were guys like McNeely, the black musicians the Southern Hillbillies were hearing on KDIA Radio out of Memphis, and going to see in the bars on the "colored" side of town, along the Hillbillies that were being broadcast on The Grand Old Opry.
Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Johnny Burnette, Johnny Cash, Eddie Cochran, Buddy Holly (in Texas), and dozens of other Southern whites mixed that black Jump Blues with white Hillbilly, and voila---Rockabilly!
In ’74 I joined a band that played around the Bay Area (in clubs such as Keystone Berkeley, San Francisco, and Palo Alto), performing songs by guys like Louis Jordan and Johnny Otis, and the audiences went crazy. People actually got off the asses and danced, a sure sign you’re doing something right. The club owners liked us too, ’cause dancing people drink more. ;-)
The dry period ended with the debut album of The Dwight Twilley Band (Sincerely) and Dave Edmunds' Get It. Everyone should own both albums. Next came Tom Petty and The Ramones, and things were back on track!
