A Record a Week: Buddy Holly - A Rock and Roll Collection

SIDE 1.
RAVE ON
TELL ME HOW
PEGGY SUE GOT MARRIED
SLIPPIN' AND SLIDIN'
OH BOY!
NOT FADE AWAY

SIDE 2.
BO DIDDLEY
WHAT TO DO
HEARTBEAT
WELL ALL RIGHT
WORDS OF LOVE
LOVE'S MADE A FOOL OF YOU

SIDE 3.
REMINISCING
LONESOME TEARS
LISTEN TO ME
MAYBE BABY
DOWN THE LINE
THAT'LL BE THE DAY

SIDE 4.
PEGGY SUE
BROWN EYED HANDSOME MAN
YOU'RE SO SQUARE
CRYING, WAITING, HOPING
READY TEDDY
IT DOESN'T MATTER ANYMORE

Boy, I should really get an autochanger. Back-to-back weeks of having to switch records four times to hear them in sequential order (big problems, I know).

This record has a good deal of the songs recorded in Holly's very short career. The most amazing thing to me is that the quality of the recordings seem to vary greatly, despite the fact that they must have taken place in a relatively short span. These recordings, among others, retain everything that he would record prior to the fateful plane crash killing him and other musicians. Throught the record it's easy to see his influences, as well as those he influenced. His sound is not unlike Elvis, with his own flair thrown in. It's clear that he came out afterward, but is certainly not a clone at all.

It's amazing to imagine a time when 'black music' and 'white music' were something that needed bridging (though hip-hop in the '80s and '90s was largely considered such.) In that time, though, there were many discriminations by race that we've only really begun to overcome. Holly was part of that movement to bring that style to a larger white audience (though one might argue that has only minimally increased the exposure of african-american musicians when compared to the positive effect it's had on white rock musicians.)

It's always really interesting to listen to the foundation of the music I've listened to my whole life. Over time, I plan to chip away at the building blocks of modern music until I end up back in the wax cylinder days.

A Record a Week: Earl Hines - Fatha and His Orchestra On Tour

SIDE 1.
I JUST WANNA MAKE LOVE TO YOU
SECOND BALCONY JUMP
PASSION FLOWER
MY HEART STOOD STILL
I FEEL SO SMOOCHY
ALL OF ME

SIDE 2.
SOMEBODY LOVES ME
NIGHT IN TRINIDAD
CANNERY WALK
THINGS AIN'T WHAT THEY USED TO BE
MELODICA BLUES
EASY TO LOVE

Listening to this record, I am reminded that there was a time when the player was the namesake of the group, even if he or she was not the singer. Not to take anything away from the singer in this group, she's wonderful; but it is clearly Hines that is in control and the best of the bunch.

Teaming up with jazz greats Louis Armstrong and Duke Ellington(among countless others) he over the years, Hines was considered amongst the elite in jazz and what would later become 'bebop'. He triumphed through a move to Chicago(where jazz was king at the time), powered through the times when African-Americans were discriminated against everywhere, and even maneuvered much of his band being drafted into the army, missing only a short stint as a result. I am not an aficionado of this style of music at all, but I can tell a good piece when I hear it. If my record player were upstairs, this would certainly be perfect cocktail party background music. I'm going to go against the grain of saying 'I should have been born in (insert era)' and just go ahead and say more modern musicians should do well done versions of music from eras past.

A Record a Week: Chuck Berry's Golden Decade

SIDE 1.
MAYBELLENE
DEEP FEELING
JOHNNY B. GOODE
WEE WEE HOURS
NADINE
BROWN-EYED HANDSOME MAN

SIDE 2.
ROLL OVER BEETHOVEN
THIRTY DAYS
HAVANA MOON
NP PARTICULAR PLACE TO GO
MEMPHIS
ALMOST GROWN

SIDE 3.
ALMOST GROWN
SCHOOL DAYS
TOO MUCH MONKEY BUSINESS
OH, BABY DOLL
REELIN' AND ROCKIN'
YOU CAN'T CATCH ME
TOO POOPED TO POP

SIDE 4.
BYE BYE JOHNNY
'ROUND AND 'ROUND
SWEET LITTLE SIXTEEN
ROCK AND ROLL MUSIC
ANTHONY BOY
BACK IN THE USA

Chuck Berry was part of the formation of rock and roll throughout the 50's and 60's. His career was helped along by Muddy Waters, who told him to take his music to Chess Records, where he signed on. Taking his influences of southern blues and R&B, he kicked up the tempo and focused on riffing guitar solos over simple blues bass lines. Many of his songs are extremely popular, even iconic. Many of the early rock bands like the Beatles and the Stones were influenced by and covered his music. In fact, the Beach Boys song Surfin' USA is essentially Berry's Sweet Little Sixteen with surfing lyrics sung over top.

Even though this record covers the earlier and perhaps most successful part of his career, he has gone on to write and play music for decades, always sustaining a great popularity.

I love that early rock and roll sound and it makes me sad to see what passes for Rock and Roll today. Besides making you dance, it was a vehicle for change. It helped break down walls between race and gender, as well as being a powerful tool for uniting people to stand up for what they believe in. These days, much of so-called rock music is about getting wasted and 'picking up sluts'. It's almost like a reverse in meaning. Music that stands for something can often feel forced and leave you wondering if it is sincere or if it's meant for making a buck, and that shouldn't be. I'm not saying that Chuck Berry's songs are particularly meaningful or change-inducing on their own, but they were heavily influential to an entire generation of music that saw much of that. It is interesting, though, to chart the changes in rock music and hopefully it can reinvent itself in a way that is less packaged and commercialized in the future.

Listening to this collection provided many opportunity to 'shake it' with my daughter as she held my hands to balance her wobbly stance.