I’m not talking about the meaningless umbrella term that people often use today, in which anybody from Elvis Presley to Beyonce is lumped under. I’m talking about the magnificent genre that exploded in the 1950s and petered out in the 1960s. I often feel like it’s considered “cool” to be into The Beatles and the Rolling Stones, but people look at you funny if you express an interest in the people they consider their heroes. I’ve always found this very peculiar and a great injustice, but the flipside is that it makes hunting original R&R records in second-hand shops is easy and cheap (unlike, say, hunting original Beatles records).
Anybody else love this genre? If so, post some of your favourite R&R classics here. Seeing as much of the music we now consider to be “rock and roll” came before the genre was codified, feel free to also post songs that you think helped birth R&R. I’d love to discover something new.
Here are two absolutely incredible performances to kick things off:
Gene Vincent and the Bluecaps, “Be-Bop-a-Lu-La”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=q9-ZQ9owbU0
“The Killer” Jerry Lee Lewis, “High School Confidential”:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WFgBoAVUyF8