WNEW | Where Rock Lives

Ellie Greenwich: Leader of the Pack

You may not know Ellie Greenwich by name, but you probably know some of the songs she wrote. Or you should. During their early-'60s tenure at the Brill Building, in conjunction with producer Phil Spector, Greenwich and her then-husband Jeff Barry wrote several songs that defined the girl-group sound. The most famous are Be My Baby and Baby I Love You, recorded by the Ronettes, and Da Doo Ron Ron and And Then He Kissed Me, recorded by the Crystals. They wrote Christmas (Baby Please Come Home), titanically performed by Darlene Love. They also wrote or co-wrote the following:

• Hanky Panky (recorded by Tommy James and the Shondells, but recorded first by Greenwich and Barry under the name of the Raindrops)
• Do Wah Diddy Diddy, recorded by Manfred Mann
• Chapel of Love, recorded by the Dixie Cups
• River Deep Mountain High, recorded by Ike and Tina Turner

Founding Father: John Hammond

Too many fathers of rock have been lost to the mists of time, so join J.A. Bartlett of the Hits Just Keep On Comin' every Saturday as he reminds us who helped to set the groundwork for the music we love...

What do Billie Holiday, Count Basie, Aretha Franklin, Pete Seeger, Bob Dylan, Bruce Springsteen and Stevie Ray Vaughan have in common? They were all discovered by the same prolific talent executive, John Hammond.

In the early 1930s, after dropping out of Yale and writing for the British music publication Melody Maker, Hammond became a freelance record producer, working at Columbia. He brought together Benny Goodman with influential collaborators Charlie Christian, Teddy Wilson, and Lionel Hampton, all of whom played in Goodman's sextet, a racially integrated group in an era when Jim Crow still persisted. He arranged the first recording sessions for Holiday and Basie's band, and in 1938 and '39 organized annual concerts at Carnegie Hall known as "From Spirituals to Swing." The shows presented a wide variety of jazz and blues performers, some of whom had never appeared on a major stage before.

After military service in World War II, Hammond came home to find the Swing Era over, replaced by bebop, which Hammond never embraced. It would be the late 1950s before he rejoined Columbia and signed Seeger, Franklin, and Dylan. Other officials at Columbia were unimpressed with Dylan, and nicknamed him "Hammond's Folly," at least until the hits began. Hammond produced both the original recordings of both Blowin' in the Wind and A Hard Rain's Gonna Fall. Another Hammond project in this period was the reissue of Robert Johnson's legendary recordings from the 1930s. (Hammond had tried to book Johnson for "From Spirituals to Swing," not realizing the bluesman was already dead.) King of the Delta Blues Singers was released in 1961; a second volume followed in 1970. In 1972, Hammond auditioned Springsteen, eventually signing him to a contract. Jazz guitarist George Benson was another Hammond signee. Hammond retired from Columbia in 1975 at age 65, but continued to listen for performers who had it. His last major signing was guitarist Stevie Ray Vaughan, and he's listed as executive producer of Vaughan's 1983 debut album, Texas Flood.

"I heard no color line in the music," he wrote of his experiences in the 1930s, and he never did. Hammond's intention in organizing "From Spirituals to Swing" was to bring important black artists to the attention of white audiences. He remained a fighter for racial justice throughout his life. By the time he died in 1987, the music business had come a long way from the days when Goodman's racially integrated sextet was not welcome onstage in certain parts of the country.

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Founding Father: Phil Walden

Too many fathers of rock have been lost to the mists of time, so join J.A. Bartlett of the Hits Just Keep On Comin' every Saturday as he reminds us who helped to set the groundwork for the music we love...

Before the corporatization of entertainment took hold in the 1970s, it was possible for a single visionary individual to drive a record label and turn it into a hitmaking force. Think Sam Phillips at Sun, Berry Gordy at Motown, Jerry Wexler and Ahmet Ertegun at Atlantic, Jim Stewart at Stax -- or Phil Walden at Capricorn.

Walden's career in the music business actually began in the late '50s, when the R&B-obsessed teenager began managing local musicians in his hometown of Macon, Georgia. While still in college, Walden befriended Otis Redding, and he helped Redding land a record deal at Stax. By 1967, Walden was one of the top booking agents for R&B in the country, with clients including Sam and Dave, Percy Sledge, and Joe Tex. Then Redding died in a plane crash, and Walden got out of the booking business. He had met Wexler years before; now Wexler loaned Walden the money to start his own record label, which Walden named Capricorn.

Still plugged in to the world of R&B, Walden heard a guitarist soloing on a Wilson Pickett record and set about finding out who he was. The guy turned out to be Duane Allman, whom Walden promptly signed. The success of the Allman Brothers Band turned Capricorn into a major player in Southern rock, and it eventually became the home of the Marshall Tucker Band, Wet Willie, Elvin Bishop, Black Oak Arkansas, Stillwater, Sea Level, Grinderswitch, the Dixie Dregs, and other acts, including comedian Martin Mull. In the mid '70s, Walden took an interest in a former governor of Georgia who was running a quixotic, underdog campaign for President of the United States. He organized several fundraising concerts for Jimmy Carter -- but during Carter's term in office (1977-1981), Southern rock's popularity faded. Walden's financial backers called their loans and he went into bankruptcy.

After a period of chemical dependency in the '80s, Walden reemerged as a manager, but of actors this time, most notably Jim Varney ("Hey Vern!") and Billy Bob Thornton. In the early '90s, Walden relaunched Capricorn, but in Nashville this time instead of Macon. He signed Widespread Panic and Govt. Mule, among others, as well as a then-unknown country singer named Kenny Chesney. Walden sold the label in 2000, and died in 2006 at age 66.

Following Walden's death, former President Carter issued a statement that said, "Phil was one of the pre-eminent producers of great music in America. His many performing partners, including Otis Redding and the Allman Brothers, helped to put Macon and Georgia on the musical map of the world."

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Founding Father: Charlie Christian

Too many fathers of rock have been lost to the mists of time, so join J.A. Bartlett of the Hits Just Keep On Comin' every Saturday as he reminds us who helped to set the groundwork for the music we love...

In 1939, jazz was the most popular music in America, and Benny Goodman was the biggest name in jazz. Record producer John Hammond, who scouted talent for Goodman, recommended he hire a guitar player named Charlie Christian to join his sextet. But the electric guitar was a relatively new instrument at the time, and Goodman wasn't particularly interested in having one in his group. He was even less interested after Christian auditioned for him one afternoon.

Hammond believed in Christian, however, and was determined that he get another chance. So when Goodman showed up to play at a Los Angeles club the same night, he was surprised to see Christian on-stage, plugged in and ready to play. Goodman was not pleased, so for the group's first tune, he called an obscure number called Rose Room, thinking there was no way Christian would know it. But as a boy in Oklahoma City, Charlie Christian's musical education had begun with three jazz tunes, songs he played over and over again as he learned to solo: Tea for Two, Sweet Georgia Brown, and Rose Room. Goodman was so impressed with Christian that their first run through Rose Room on stage lasted 40 minutes.

Just six months after joining the Goodman sextet, Christian would be voted one of the top players in the country by fans and critics. But even as his star was rising, Christian was already suffering the health problem that would kill him, and the hectic lifestyle of a touring jazz player didn't help. He had contracted tuberculosis in the late '30s and was hospitalized early in 1940. After a brief recovery, his health began to decline again in 1941. By March 1942 he was dead, about five months shy of his 26th birthday, and only a bit more than two years since his breakthrough.

Although the guitar was primarily considered a rhythm instrument in jazz, Christian said he wanted to sound like a tenor saxophone, and he listened to horn players for inspiration. They also listened to him: jazz giants Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Miles Davis were fans, and Christian sometimes jammed with them. Together, these musicians and others developed bebop, a form of jazz that employed more complex rhythms and solos than the swing music that had dominated jazz during the '30s.

Christian's sound is remarkably modern for the early 1940s. It not only influenced jazz players who followed him, but guitarists like B.B. King, Chuck Berry, and Jimi Hendrix. His importance to rock was recognized in 1990 when the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted him as an early influence -- perhaps the first monster player ever to plug in. And here's a taste -- the Benny Goodman Sextet featuring Christian on guitar, doing Rose Room, recorded about six weeks after Christian's memorable on-stage audition.

  

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Founding Father: Pete Seeger

Some albums are just too good to let slip away beneath the sands of time, so each week Bill Melville pulls one out, dusts it off and offers it up for your renewed consideration ...

You may have seen (either as it happened, on HBO, or before the video got yanked from YouTube) Bruce Springsteen and Pete Seeger singing "This Land Is Your Land" at the pre-inaugural celebrations in Washington, D.C three weeks ago. Springsteen you know. Seeger, perhaps not -- although the odds are pretty good that you know some of his songs.

Seeger was born in 1919, and during the Great Depression of the 1930s he was turned on to radical politics and folk music. He joined the Young Communist League at age 18, and eventually the Communist Party itself. One of his early jobs was assisting folk music scholar Alan Lomax as they sifted through recordings at the Library of Congress that Lomax had collected. Seeger appeared on a radio show Lomax hosted, performing alongside the likes of Woody Guthrie and Lead Belly. In 1941, he was a founding member of the Almanac Singers, a group with an activist streak, which sang often-controversial songs promoting such things as racial harmony and union membership. Seeger performed in the Almanac Singers under an assumed name because his father was an employee of the U.S. government. In 1950, the Almanac Singers rebooted under the name the Weavers. During their very first year, their recording of Goodnight Irene was #1 for 13 weeks.

Seeger's politics were an inseparable part of his music. In the early 50s, the Red Scare and McCarthy Era were underway, so the Weavers were not as overtly political as the Almanac Singers had been, but they ended up being blacklisted for their political views anyhow, in 1953. Seeger was called to testify before the Communist-hunting House Un-American Activities Committee in 1955, but refused and was indicted for contempt of Congress, a charge that was later thrown out. During the '60s, he opposed the Vietnam War. In 1967, when the Smothers Brothers comedy team invited him on their TV show to sing the anti-military song Waist Deep in the Big Muddy, CBS refused to let him do it. Seeger also worked on behalf of environmental causes. 

When the folk music boom began in the early '60s, Seeger was a father figure in the movement and was an early supporter of Bob Dylan. He was believed to be against Dylan's move to electric music, although he has modified his position over the years. And he's known for writing or co-writing several well-known songs: Turn Turn Turn, If I Had a Hammer, and Where Have All the Flowers Gone, and is credited with popularizing We Shall Overcome, Kumbaya, and Little Boxes. In 1996, he was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame as an early influence. In 2006, Springsteen recorded an album of folk songs called The Seeger Sessions. Although no songs written by Seeger appeared on the album, it captured the spirit of Seeger's music nevertheless. After a lifetime of arguing for racial harmony and progressive causes throughout his life (he'll be 90 in May), it was fitting that he should appear at the celebration of Barack Obama's inauguration.

Got memories of your own from this hidden gem? Share them in the comments section below ...

The Death of Buddy Holly

Too many fathers of rock have been lost to the mists of time, so join J.A. Bartlett of the Hits Just Keep On Comin' every Saturday as he reminds us who helped to set the groundwork for the music we love...

We've already covered the career of Buddy Holly here, but on this weekend, when the music world is commemorating the 50th anniversary of his death, it seems appropriate to revisit "the day the music died."

Holly was on a package tour of the Midwest in early 1959 with Ritchie Valens, J. P. "the Big Bopper" Richardson, Dion and the Belmonts, and Frankie Sardo. The "Winter Dance Party," which involved nightly shows hundreds of miles apart, would have been strenuous in any season, but in the depth of winter it was especially tough. The musicians traveled by bus, and the heater conked out almost immediately. (Holly's drummer had to be hospitalized for frostbite.) A very welcome off-day had been scheduled for February 2, but the tour promoter accepted an offer to play in Clear Lake, Iowa, that night, so after a February 1 show in Green Bay, Wisconsin, it was back on the bus.

In Clear Lake, Holly reached his limit. He decided to charter a plane for his band to travel to the next show, in Moorhead, Minnesota. Richardson had the flu and asked Waylon Jennings, a member of Holly's band, to give up his seat, which he did. Valens had never flown in an airplane before, so he asked Tommy Allsup for his seat. "I'll flip you for it," Allsup said, and Valens won the toss. Dion DiMucci decided that the price of a seat, $36, was too much, so he decided to take the bus.

Just after 1:00 on the morning of February 3, 1959, the plane took off from the airport at nearby Mason City, Iowa. Shortly after takeoff, an observer on the ground thought he saw the plane start to descend, but decided it was an optical illusion. The pilot failed to radio in a flight plan after takeoff and did not respond to radio calls, and when the plane was overdue in Fargo, North Dakota (adjacent to Moorhead) at 3:30AM, it was reported missing. A little after 9AM, wreckage was found about five miles from the airport. The three musicians and the pilot, 21-year-old Roger Peterson, were dead of severe head trauma. Investigators determined that poor weather and Peterson's inexperience contributed to the crash.

The origin of the phrase "the day the music died" is not entirely clear to me. Don McLean made it the centerpiece of American Pie, but I can't say for sure whether he's the one who coined it. The sentiment is accurate, though. The crash closes the first chapter of rock's history. The music would lose steam in the early '60s, with Elvis Presley in the army and record companies foisting manufactured idols on the teenage market. (One of them, Fabian, would replace Holly on some later Winter Dance Party dates.) Holly would be back, however, and rock would too. His ringing guitar and vocal style, as well as his songs, would inspire many of the young British musicians who shook the world from the mid-'60s onward.

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Another Mother: Wanda Jackson

Too many fathers of rock have been lost to the mists of time, so join J.A. Bartlett of the Hits Just Keep On Comin' every Saturday as he reminds us who helped to set the groundwork for the music we love...

Early rock 'n' roll was a man's world. Almost all of the earliest innovators were men; producers were men; songwriters and music publishing executives were men; sidemen were, uh, men; disc jockeys were men. The organized jazz world operated in similar fashion, although there were a few female artists who were credited as innovators rather than merely performers, such as singer Billie Holiday and pianist Mary Lou Williams. The blues world was even more egalitarian -- a handful of women are among the most important pioneers of the genre, including Bessie Smith, Ma Rainey, and Mamie Smith -- but in general, the job of a woman in music was to stand at the front of the stage, sing what she was told to sing, and look pretty when she wasn't singing. The induction of Wanda Jackson into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame this year as an early influence shows, however, that not every woman stayed on the creative periphery during rock's formative years.

Jackson followed a common route to stardom in the early 50s---she got her own radio show, on a station in Oklahoma City while still in high school, where she played country tunes on guitar and piano. One day Hank Thompson, a major country star of the time, heard her and invited her to record with his band. The result was a hit, but when Jackson tried to get a contract with Capitol, she was told that "girls don't sell records." Another label signed her, although Capitol would eventually realize its mistake and give her a record deal a couple of years later.

On Jackson's first concert tour, she opened for a guy named Elvis Presley, whom she dated for a brief while, and who encouraged her to sing the uptempo style known as rockabilly. For the next several years, she crossed back and forth from country to rockabilly, often putting one style on each side of a single. She encouraged her producer to shoot for a sound similar to that of Gene Vincent and the Blue Caps, although pop success took a while. She finally had some in 1960 with an Elvis cover, Let's Have a Party, although the bulk of her success before and after came on the country charts. She bagged back-to-back Top 10 hits with Right or Wrong and In the Middle of a Heartache in 1961; both of them crossed over to the Top 30 on the pop chart. She might be best remembered, however, for a song that didn't get a sniff of the charts in America, Fujiyama Mama, a rockabilly number that was #1 in Japan despite its opening lines: "I been to Nagasaki, Hiroshima too/The thing I did to them baby I can do to you."

Female country singers of the early '60s tended to be featured in the bands of male stars, but Jackson fronted her own group, the Party Timers. Female country singers also tended to go for cowgirl garb, but Jackson claims credit for bringing a more glamorous look to the stage by wearing long dresses, high heels, and earrings. She stayed on the country charts into the early 1970s, brassy persona and all. In a 1969 hit called My Big Iron Skillet, she threatens to brain an unfaithful spouse with said kitchen utensil. After getting religion in the early '70s, she moved over to the gospel field.

Founding Father: Johnny Cash

Too many fathers of rock have been lost to the mists of time, so join J.A. Bartlett of the Hits Just Keep On Comin' every Saturday as he reminds us who helped to set the groundwork for the music we love...

Like Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Roy Orbison, Johnny Cash was a performer who straddled the line between country and rock known as rockabilly. And like Perkins, Lewis, and Orbison, Cash is another of the founding fathers of rock 'n' roll. From 1955 to 1958, Cash recorded for Sun Records in Memphis. He scored four #1 singles on the country charts during that period, including the iconic I Walk the Line in 1956, although his biggest pop hit during the period was I Guess Things Happen That Way. He moved to Columbia Records after that, where it took a few years before his next classic recording appeared, Ring of Fire in 1963. Cash was one of the earliest performers to cover a Bob Dylan song, taking It Ain't Me Babe into the top five on the country charts in 1964.

The outline of Cash's life during the 1960s is familiar to anybody who's seen the movie Walk the Line, and 1968 was a pivotal year. He finally kicked his drug addictions and married June Carter; he also recorded the album Johnny Cash at Folsom Prison. (His song Folsom Prison Blues dated back to his Sun Records days.)

Cash scored his own network TV show in 1969, and it became one of the most rock-friendly venues programs on TV -- Dylan, Eric Clapton, Neil Young, Ray Charles, and others appeared on the show during its two-year run. By the mid '70s, however, Cash was scoring country hits less frequently. He began recording gospel albums and appearing on television. He left Columbia after nearly 30 years for a brief term with Mercury, but his recording career would not be fully revitalized until he began working with producer Rick Rubin on the American Recordings label. (He signed with Rubin after singing with U2 on their Zooropa album) One of the most memorable recordings of Cash's career came out of this period---his cover of Nine Inch Nails' Hurt, released in 2002.

Johnny Cash died in 2003 at age 71. His rockabilly records contributed to the development of early rock, and via television he exposed a new audience of country fans to the likes of Clapton, Dylan, and Young, but Cash's greatest contribution to rock may have been his social consciousness. Out of a musical genre known then and now for being reactionary, Cash criticized the Vietnam War (in a quiet, subtle fashion) and spoke up for the rights of prisoners, minorities, and the less fortunate. As he said in his song The Man in Black, "Just so we're reminded of the ones who are held back/Up front there ought to be a man in black."

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Founding Father: Carl Perkins

Too many fathers of rock have been lost to the mists of time, so join J.A. Bartlett of the Hits Just Keep On Comin' every Saturday as he reminds us who helped to set the groundwork for the music we love...

Carl Perkins thought Johnny Cash had lost his mind. Cash told Perkins a story from his Air Force days involving a fellow airman who referred to his regulation dress shoes as "blue suede shoes." Then, Cash suggested that would be a good idea for a song. Perkins was stumped. "How can I write a song about shoes?" he asked. But then, inspiration struck. While on tour in Arkansas, Perkins heard a man warn his date not to step on his shoes. Many writers say their best ideas come from overhead bits of conversation, and Perkins couldn't get the man's comment out of his head. That night, he began fooling with a lyric, and later got out of bed to start fooling with a tune. And it wasn't long before an early rock 'n' roll classic was born.

Blue Suede Shoes was recorded in December 1955 and released on January 1, 1956. Later that winter, both Perkins and Elvis Presley performed the song on national television, on separate shows. By April, Perkins' recording rose to #2 on Billboard's pop and country charts and #3 on the R&B charts and sold a million. Perkins himself nearly missed that accomplishment -- on the way from Norfolk, Virginia, to New York to perform the show on national TV again, Perkins and his band were in a car crash. Perkins nearly drowned when the car ended up in a ditch full of water; he was hospitalized for several days with broken vertebrae, a broken collarbone, and a concussion. He recovered within weeks, however, and returned to recording and touring.

The Beatles were introduced to Perkins on his 1964 tour of Britain, where he shared the bill with Chuck Berry and was backed by the Animals. At a post-concert party one night, the Beatles sat at Perkins' feet while he played, and Ringo Starr asked if the Beatles could record his song Honey Don't. Later, they would also record his Matchbox and Everybody's Trying to Be My Baby, a song Perkins had adapted from an original recorded in the 1930s.

Later in the 1960s, Perkins joined Cash's band, and he also collaborated with Bob Dylan. The 1970s were a decade of legal battles over rights to his recordings and the royalties from them; Perkins eventually gained control of his songs in 1977. In the '80s, he collaborated with Paul McCartney and played with Ringo, George Harrison, and Eric Clapton on a British TV special. In 1986, he recorded with Cash, Roy Orbison, and Jerry Lee Lewis in tribute to the Million Dollar Quartet, a 1956 jam session that had featured Presley, Cash, and Lewis. (The original Million Dollar Quartet recordings would eventually be released in Europe during the '80s and in the States in 1990.) In 1987, Perkins was inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. He was diagnosed with throat cancer in 1992, but continued to perform and record until shortly before his death in 1998 at age 65.

Carl Perkins is pretty famous for a guy who had only one major hit, but it was quite a hit. Consider this: Elvis Presley covered it at the height of his fame in 1956 and could only get it to #20. Perkins was one of the creators of rockabilly, a style that greatly influenced the sound of rock 'n' roll, and he inspired some of rock's most essential performers. Paul McCartney once said, "If there were no Carl Perkins, there would be no Beatles." And over 50 years since it ruled the charts, "Blue Suede Shoes" remains one of rock's most famous songs. Here's Perkins performing it on TV in 1956.

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Founding Father: Hank Williams

Too many fathers of rock have been lost to the mists of time, so join J.A. Bartlett of the Hits Just Keep On Comin' every Saturday as he reminds us who helped to set the groundwork for the music we love...

In a recent edition of This Week in Rock History, I mentioned that the Christmas-night 1954 death of R&B singer Johnny Ace, who is said to have killed himself playing Russian roulette backstage, was the first tragic star death of the rock era. Almost exactly two years before, however, another famous musician met his end in a way that would become quite familiar during the rock era.

Hiram Williams was born in a log cabin in Alabama in 1923. His strong mother kept the family together during the Great Depression while his father was disabled, although at age 9, the boy moved in with his aunt and uncle for a time. During that period, his aunt taught him how to play the guitar. When Williams was 14, his mother moved the family to the big city -- Montgomery, Alabama -- and the boy started playing his guitar and singing outside the local radio station. Eventually he was invited inside to perform, and adopted a new first name: Hank. By age 16, he had dropped out of school to pursue a musical career with his group, the Drifting Cowboys.

Before he was 20 years old, Hank Williams was already an alcoholic. (Chronic back pain from a birth defect contributed to his use of alcohol.) In 1942, he was fired from his radio show for showing up drunk. in 1944, his temporarily derailed career began to thrive again when he married Audrey Shepard, and she became his manager. Williams made his first hit records in 1947, including his first national hit, Move It on Over. His version of Lovesick Blues hit #1 on the country charts in 1948, and his Cold Cold Heart became a pop-music standard in 1951. Other songs Williams either wrote or made famous include Jambalaya (On the Bayou), I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry, Your Cheatin' Heart and Hey Good Lookin'. Here he is, performing the latter on The Kate Smith Show:

The Kate Smith appearance in the spring of 1952 caught Williams at the peak of his fame. Later that year, on December 31, Williams hired a driver to take him from Knoxville, Tennessee, to Canton, Ohio, where he was scheduled to play a concert. In the early hours of January 1, 1953, the driver made a stop in Oak Hill, West Virginia, and found Williams dead in the back seat of the car. He had injected himself with vitamin B12 and morphine, and a few beer cans were found in the back seat as well. He left behind a son, Hank Williams Jr., and a daughter, Jett, who would be born five days after his death. His funeral is still said to be the largest public event ever held in Montgomery.

Williams lived hard in public, as many rock stars who followed him have done. He died of self-medication, as many rock stars who followed him have done. He died young: just 29. And he left behind a number of songs that are known by people who have never heard of him, songs that have been recorded by George Thorogood, Jimmy Buffett, John Fogerty, Tony Bennett, Johnny Cash, Ray Charles, Cowboy Junkies, Van Morrison, and dozens of others. He's also become the patriarch of a musical family he never knew -- not just his son and daughter, but his grandchildren, Hank Williams III and Holly Williams.

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Founding Father: Bill Haley

Too many fathers of rock have been lost to the mists of time, so join J.A. Bartlett of the Hits Just Keep On Comin' every Saturday as he reminds us who helped to set the groundwork for the music we love...

Revolutionaries usually have charisma. Something about them says, "Follow me." Che Guevara had it; so did John Lennon. But what was it about this guy?

A balding, heavyset guy in a suit, past 30 years old, blind in one eye with a spit-curl in the middle of his forehead? A revolutionary? Indeed he was. Bill Haley and His Comets were the first band to make it big in rock 'n' roll.

Haley started playing western swing, an uptempo blend of jazz, swing, and country elements, during the 1940s. The critical moment in his career occurred in 1952 when he cut a version of Rocket 88, the Jackie Brenston song now recognized as the first rock 'n' roll record. It wasn't a hit, but Crazy Man Crazy was -- it became the first rock 'n' roll record to make the pop charts, in 1953. Not long after, Haley and His Comets recorded Rock Around the Clock, which bombed. Shake, Rattle, and Roll did not, however. Haley's version --- the white-artist cover of a black artist's original -- was huge in the States during 1954 and became the first rock 'n' roll record to chart in the UK.

In 1955, Rock Around the Clock was used over the opening credits of Blackboard Jungle, a movie about an inner-city teacher and his wild, violent students. (The film was advertised as "the most startling motion picture in years!" although it looks mighty tame now.) The second time around, it was a smash. Rock Around the Clock became the first rock 'n' roll song to reach #1 in America. In the wake of its success, Haley was nicknamed "the father of rock and roll," and was briefly music's biggest star. He and the Comets appeared in a couple of movies, Rock Around the Clock and Don't Knock the Rock (with Alan Freed). But Elvis Presley, a decade younger and more handsome, quickly eclipsed Haley, who vanished from the American charts. He and the Comets continued to tour, and to record in Europe, for the next 20 years. Haley's health began to fail in 1980, and he died in 1981 at age 55.

It's not all that hard to hear why Bill Haley's greatest hits had the impact they did. They borrow heavily from R&B, but a strain of country is audible in them. They're propelled by a loose and wild beat, a very black sound -- but the fact that Haley and the Comets were white speeded their acceptance among white teenagers. It's worth remembering -- because many people don't -- that despite Elvis, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, and all the rest of the pioneers of rock, Bill Haley was there first. And even if none of his other records had succeeded, Haley would be memorable for Rock Around the Clock, a song that's encoded in the DNA of rock, and of every rock fan.

(An excellent, more detailed biography of Haley is here.)

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Another Mother: Etta James

Too many fathers of rock have been lost to the mists of time, so join J.A. Bartlett of the Hits Just Keep On Comin' every Saturday as he reminds us who helped to set the groundwork for the music we love...

The new movie Cadillac Records is the fictionalized story of the Chicago label Chess Records, and features Beyoncé Knowles as Etta James. R&B aficionados have known Etta's name for a long time, although the majority of people flocking to the megaplexes might not. So who is she? Someone who's been singing from the very beginnings of R&B, and who has influenced a list of performers ranging from Rod Stewart to Christina Aguilera to Beyoncé herself.

Etta was born in 1938, started taking voice lessons at age 5, and made her first record at age 16 after auditioning for R&B impresario Johnny Otis. Her recording career began thanks to a short-running fad of the 1950s for answer songs -- songs that responded directly to the subject matter of other songs. After Hank Ballard scored a big hit with Work With Me Annie, Etta and Otis conceived an answering song called Roll With Me Henry. It was quickly renamed The Wallflower, and Etta recorded it. Although the record would make #1 on the R&B charts in 1955 and enter the Grammy Hall of Fame in 2008, it didn't make the pop chart at all. As was common practice in the 1950s, a white singer named Georgia Gibbs got the hit, with the lyrics altered and the name changed to Dance With Me Henry. That version made #1 on the pop charts, and it was one most listeners in 1955 would have known.

After James signed with the Chess subsidiary Argo in 1960, she continued to score R&B hits and eventually made the lower reaches of the pop chart. Label boss Leonard Chess saw this as evidence that she might be turned into a pop star, so he encouraged her to record standards such as Stormy Weather and Sunday Kind of Love. But it was the ballad At Last that proved Chess was right. Although it was only a modest pop hit in 1961, it has remained Etta's most famous song.