![]() In 1941, before Harris had joined them Millinder, who was a regular at the Apollo and the Savoy in Harlem, released ‘Big Fat Mama’ (“with meat shaking on her bones”) which was one of a number of his songs that pointed the way towards rock ‘n’ roll. Harris had sung with Lucky Millinder’s Orchestra, one of the swingiest, rockiest of the black big bands. Rolling forward through the jazz age, the big bands, and generally the fuller sounds that became popular with black musicians and their audiences we get to 1945 and a man named Wynonie Harris. They were all very much in the blues idiom. While the content, the words and the feel may all have some of the feel of rock ‘n’ roll about them the music for all this and the songs that went before did not. When I looked at the clock, clock struck one.įrankie also goes in for some no holds barred, nor blushes spared, heavy breathing just in case anyone was in any doubt about what his song was all about. It makes no difference if he’s hot or cold. Now, Tampa being a man doing a song about his Daddy rocking him with one steady roll obviously poses some questions, but on this occasion it wasn’t Tampa singing – it was instead the cross-dressing Frankie ‘Half-Pint’ Jaxon.įrankie put his own slant on Trixie’s lyrics… One weekend in April 1929 Tampa and his band recorded several tunes including ‘She is Hot’ which sounds like the perfect rock ‘n’ roll title and they also covered Trixie’s ‘’My Daddy Rocks Me (with one steady roll)’. Tampa recorded such risqué songs as ‘It’s Tight Like That’ and ‘Jelly Whippin’ Blues’ but he also fronted the Hokum Jug Band. Three years later, in 1929, a twenty-five year old by the name of Tampa Red, who seems to have hailed from Florida, but grew up in Georgia and was a bit of a whizz on the kazoo, as well as piano and guitar decided to do a little rocking of his own. There again it may also take us back towards the sex angle! Just like Maxwell House Coffee, yes.” When President Theodore Roosevelt visited the manufacturer of Maxwell House in 1907, had a cup of their coffee, saying “It’s good to the last drop” probably the only time a US President has been an advertising copy writer. Later in the song he even does a little advertising, “Good to the last drop. ![]() It’s a lot less sexy than Trixie and certainly seems to relate to some kind of dance, which is possibly evidence for the whole thing being a mix of both sex and dancing. His earliest record for the Paramount label in August 1926 had ‘West Coast Blues’ on one side of it. ![]() Four years after Trixie was rockin’ and rollin’ a man got around to it too Blind Blake, whose Christian name may or may not have been Arthur, was the first to use the word ‘rock’ in a song. Now hold those lyrics in your head because we’ll return to them soon enough. I looked at the clock and the clock struck one. There’s no slippin’ when he once takes hold. One of the sides Trixie and the boys cut was ‘My Daddy Rocks Me (with one steady roll) as clear evidence as you can get for the link between rock and roll, and sex… ![]() Who made up the Jazz Masters have been lost down the crack in the shellac, all except one – Fletcher Henderson a name ubiquitous within jazz circles and whose band Louis Armstrong joined in 1924. Nearly 90 years ago in September 1922 in New York City 27 year old Trixie Smith along with the Jazz Masters went into the studio to cut a couple of sides.
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