Backroad Odyssey : Travel, Van Life & Lost Locations
Traveling America's backroads, history and road trip enthusiasts - Noah and Noodles - unearth fascinating locations overlooked while traveling.
Living out of a van, they research and visit each story location to share the (often shocking) secrets held within.
If you love travel, history and thoughtful storytelling - join us on the road!
Backroad Odyssey : Travel, Van Life & Lost Locations
Sun Records - The Birth of Rock and Roll
Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee claims to be the birthplace of Rock and Roll.
But just what does it mean to be “The Birthplace of Rock and Roll”?
Can we accept such a claim without first diving even deep into the murky depths of American musical history.
Noodles and I head to Memphis to find out …
(Beneath the shadow of Graceland and within earshot of the blues of Beale street - the small label hosted musical greats like Howlin’ Wolf, B. B. King, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Adams , Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and a young Elvis Presley.)
Works Cited:
Great book:
The Birth of Rock 'n' Roll: The Illustrated Story of Sun Records and the 70 Recordings That Changed the World
Fantastic documentary produced by Quincy Jones:
The History of Rock 'n' Roll - TV Mini Series (1995) - https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U2Ptv_7VqO4&list=PLIhBC_-F81kxTgSYJUMVXmjPwrLf8aXTP
Additional articles and references:
https://www.jstor.org/stable/30003142?read-now=1&seq=7#page_scan_tab_contents
https://www.jstor.org/stable/1214792?read-now=1&seq=17#page_scan_tab_contents
https://www.jstor.org/stable/494739?read-now=1&seq=2#page_scan_tab_contents
https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/16/the-elvic-oracle
https://sunrecords.com/history/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YXGubLQcnAg
https://wearememphis.com/play/music/brief-history-memphis-music/
https://musicmecca.org/a-brief-history-of-memphis-music/
https://timeline.carnegiehall.org/genres/rock-n-roll
https://timeline.carnegiehall.org/genres/boogie-woogie
https://www.classical-music.com/articles/blues-music
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/blues-music-guide
https://www.strathmore.org/community-education/public-education/shades-of-blues/blues-clues/
https://www.masterclass.com/articles/gospel-music-guide
https://thegoldenageofrock.com/rock/the-influence-of-gospel/
https://www.history.com/news/race-records-bessie-smith-big-bill-broonzy-music-business
https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/500-greatest-songs-podcast-hound-dog-elvis-presley-1234998378/
https://faroutmagazine.co.uk/the-whitewashing-of-black-music-five-singles-m
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Cruising down the street. I wonder where this road would lead so many possibilities. Care to share what you think. Oh, noodle Dolls, what do you see? Back Road, odyssey road odyssey.
Speaker 1:Sun records in memphis, tennessee, claims to be the birthplace of rock and roll. Beneath the shadow of graceland, and within earshot of the blues of beale street, the small label hosted musical greats like helen wolf, bb king, jerry King, jerry Lee Lewis, johnny Adams, carl Perkins, johnny Cash and a young Elvis Presley. But what does it mean to be the birthplace of rock and roll? Can we accept such a claim without first diving deep into the murky depths of American musical history? My dog Noodles and I head to Memphis to find out. We just spent the morning in Memphis Beautiful day, blue skies. We're both in great moods. My dog Noodles and I are walking around the Edge neighborhood now, which connects downtown to Midtown, and this is the area where the reported birthplace of rock and roll is Sun Records. We'll be touring Sun Records in just a little bit, but for now we've got some time to kill. So I figured let's walk to a location that's just about as important to our story today as anything. We're going to Beale street. It's about a 20 minute walk from Sun Records and it's deeply, deeply tied to the blues and, by extension, the history of rock and roll. Wc, handy, albert King, so many others helped popularize blues on that very street, and so when blues lover and founder of Sun Records, sam Phillips, moves to Memphis in 1945, beale Street's a real draw right. You can imagine him walking down the something like 15, 16 blocks of live music, really taking it all in.
Speaker 1:Why am I bringing this up? Aren't we supposed to be talking about rock and roll? Here's a point I want to make right away. We need to keep this in mind going forward. The history of rock and roll is not the story of one genre of music and it's most definitely not going to be traced to one white future label owner walking down Beale Street in 1945. The history of rock and roll is as rich and complex as just about anything. That's why, today, we can't simply tell the story of the quote birthplace of rock and roll, sun Records. To do this would ignore so much context, so much history. Come here, bud. All right, let's get into it. Here's our question, then Not an easy one to start with, my friends.
Speaker 1:What is rock and roll? Rock and roll has no beginning and no end, for it is the very pulse of life itself. Larry Williams, is this true? Does rock and roll really have no definitive beginning, no traceable origin, or can what we call rock and roll today be traced back to a singular person, place or time? The simple answer is people have tried to, but it's hard to claim a singular person created what we call rock and roll today or insist a charismatic rising idol came down from the mountain to reveal rock and roll to the masses will never, and hasn't ever been the full story. In reality, the seeds of rock and roll were planted well over a century ago. Blues is a tonic for whatever ails you. I could play the blues and then not be blue anymore. Bb King.
Speaker 1:Rock and Roll's first and probably most direct influence is the blues, a style of music born from the truly horrid conditions suffered by those enslaved in the Deep South. While being forced to work under the blaring southern sun, slaves would sing, willing themselves to get through each day. These songs focused on loss, on deep, deep injustice, and were from the beginning meant to serve as a tonic for pain, but blues didn't end with the abolition of slavery. Serve as a tonic for pain, but blues didn't end with the abolition of slavery. The style, with its emotive lyrics, colon responses, often improvised words and a slight lowering of the pitch, created an eerily beautiful way of acknowledging the pain of both the present and the past. It was in direct contrast with the bright, ringing tones of white American musical traditions, classical American folk, etc. Still, blues expanded, adapted and thrived From 1910 to around 1930,. The movement of Black Americans across the nation from the Deep South brought the constantly developing blues to bustling cities around the nation. And as this spreading of the blues quickened, so did its tempo. Sub-styles emerged, jump blues, west Coast, texas, all inching towards something new.
Speaker 1:Blues, regardless of any modification, always expressed and expresses the kind of gallows, humor and acknowledgement of having outlived such terrible and unjust conditions. There is a sound that comes from gospel, that doesn't come from anything else. It is a sound of peace, it is a sound of I'm going to make it through this, yolanda Adams. Like the blues, the roots of gospel can be traced back to the 19th century, when Black communities around the South began to develop individualized expressions of religious music that reflected their experiences. With its powerful vocals, passionate harmonies and deep emotional intensity, the style quickly became a staple of Black churches throughout the South and beyond. While blues tended to settle into the pain and the deep horror of the black experience in America, gospel both acknowledged the bad while leaving some room and expressing some hope for the good and for the future. These two styles, blues and gospel, influenced and melded with each other as time progressed. Both are fundamental in understanding the creation of what we know as rock and roll.
Speaker 1:Without blues, without gospel, we might just be singing sea shanties at a Springsteen concert. I'm on Beale Street now. It's maybe three in the afternoon, not much going on, just cool to be here. You know what's interesting? I was thinking this on the walk over. It's so easy to label someone as the first to ever do something With anything, but specifically with music. Think about it. You don't have Michael Jackson, really, without James Brown, eric Clapton without muddy waters, Springsteen uh, the stones without Chuck Berry, and even Chuck Berry without the trailblazer sister Rosetta Tharp just shreds on a guitar. She's so cool. Um, I'll post a video in the show notes. But my point is this it's easy to attribute anything's existence to one person, but the more you look into things, the more interconnected everything becomes. So, before we tour the birthplace of rock and roll, sun Records. It's essential. It's essential that we dive as deep as we can into the history.
Speaker 1:It used to be called boogie woogie, it used to be called blues. It used to be called rhythm and blues. It's called rock. Now Chuck Berry, as blues entered the collective American line, largely played on the piano, bluesy vocals, but above all else, a driving rhythm intentionally designed to get people moving. Boogie Woogie was once a feature in logging and railroad camps throughout the South, but slowly moved to larger cities, attracting more and more crowds eager for an upbeat tune, a proper smash, as it were.
Speaker 1:You're talking about a music that was bred from Africa to the black church and over to gospel, which turned into blues and jazz and country music. And that's how it ought to be. That's how it started Quincy Jones by the 1940s, electric guitars, brass instruments, booming drums, accompanied greats like T-Bone Walker and Jimmy Rushing, both using blends of gospel, blues and boogie-woogie. And this blend of genres and sub-genres led to a certain amount of fluidity. Your blues songs could have a splash of gospel, some boogie-woogie, the newly coined fast-jump blues. But let's stop for a second and meet two primary drivers in the eventual creation of the term rock and roll, one, record companies and two, the need to classify. Let's explain this new freedom, this new blending of gospel blues, boogie, woogie, jump, jazz, harlem, stride, ragtime I could keep going Demanded some type of classification and segregated America.
Speaker 1:What was deemed quote pop music, that being songs and artists marketed to white America, was not and could not, to record executives and cultural understandings, be the same music pioneered by Black artists from Chicago to Philadelphia and beyond. So, consequently, this new and ever-evolving style performed and perfected by Black artists, was wrapped up in the dismissive, blanket term used by industry executives at the time quote race music. And race music would be marketed to listen by and sold directly to the black population. Rhythm and blues used to be called race music. This music was going on for years, but nobody paid any attention to it. Ray Charles, well, this melting pot of musical styles thrived. Many, rightfully so, found the grouping of all these artists, all these songs, all these different genres into one singular category, that of quote race music, deeply dismissive. Eventually enough, public pressure mounted that Billboard, following the lead of RCA Records, dropped the term quote race music as an all-encompassing categorization. Shortly thereafter, billboard began to use another term to describe the still-evolving amalgamation of genres rhythm and blues, segregation now, segregation tomorrow and segregation forever. Notorious dirtbag George Wallace. Whether you use the term, quote race music or rhythm and blues segregation, specifically the desire to segregate music, was still very much ingrained in the 1950s American psyche.
Speaker 1:In addition to segregated buses, schools, facilities, popular culture itself was segregated Purposefully, methodically, intentionally. Here's an example. Let's backtrack a bit to 1920s. America Recording equipment, still in its infancy, was bulky, expensive and almost entirely owned by white-owned record labels. Consequently, black artists primarily worked behind the scenes, writing many of the recorded hits, but receiving little money and even less credit for their contributions. This sliding would have continued on If these same record labels didn't smell out some potential profit In the early 20s, when blues singer Mandy Smith records songs meant to appeal to a white audience.
Speaker 1:The record labels had released tracks with marketing meant to downplay her race. Something unexpected happened. When these recordings were released and Black audiences heard for the first time that they could buy a recording of a Black performer, they rushed to the stores Buying right away 75,000 copies of Mandy's recordings. So now, rather than ignore this large and eager market, as record execs had been doing, they would release recordings of Black artists and sell them to the Black population with separate marketing. This made sense to them for two reasons. One, record companies were losing market share with the introduction of radio and two, it was at the time easier to exploit and underpay Black artists than white ones. Most songs written by them had never been published. Record execs could easily snatch up and forgo recording rights and recordings and they thought you know, we already control recording and distribution. We might as well maximize our profits in both pop, white music and the now called R&B market. Importantly, let's keep this in mind Black artists were still intentionally prevented from competing in white markets, so pop music would remain in the tight control of white recording artists and executives.
Speaker 1:They didn't want me to be in the white guy's way. I felt I was pushed into a rhythm and blues corner to keep out of rockers way, because that's where the money is. When Tutti Frutti came out and they needed a rock star to block me out of white kids' homes because I was a hero to white kids, the white kids would have Pat Boone up on the dresser and me in the drawer because they liked my version better. But the families didn't want me because of the image that I was projecting. Little Richard.
Speaker 1:Here, my friends, we come to the apex of our question today. What is rock and roll? Let's go back now again to the 1950s, when two separate music markets now exist One catered towards white Americans, one very less resourced market catered towards Black Americans. In time, yet another idea pops up in the heads of these relentless record executives. The thought was this Rather than spend the time and the resources to promote original Black artists, why don't we make more money by re-recording black songs with established white groups and spend the money marketing them to a larger white audience? One thing kept them from doing this they just needed a face, an icon that they could sell to white America. One person who understood this early on was Sam Phillips, future founder at Sun Records. We're walking back now to Sun Records. The tour starts soon.
Speaker 1:Not sure what to expect and prepping for this, the deeper I went, the more expansive of a subject it became. So right now, I'm not entirely convinced that a singular place can claim the title of birthplace of rock and roll. You've got Chuck Berry, little Richard, fats Domino, sister Rosetta Tharpe. All this history, all this context. It's hard for me to imagine that Sun Records eclipses them all. But look, I'm open, I've not been there yet.
Speaker 1:I don't know what the story is, the role that it played in the history of rock and roll. Here's what I'll ask now, though If it, as I kind of expect, didn't play an all-encompassing role in the birth of rock and roll, what, if anything, did it contribute to the genre that we now call rock and roll? I had a notion about Memphis and its potential in music. Never has there been a greater symphony in the world than the symphony of the soul, impoverished but blessed with hardship, and then telling about it in a song. Anybody that has missed the profound statements of black music, southern white music, I feel sorry for them. I was lucky enough to be brought to this place and to these people and to these experiences.
Speaker 1:Sam Phillips. Sam Phillips is what we would call an industry disruptor. The pop sound in 1950 was smooth and harmonic, and by pop I mean what was distributed to white audiences. The driving rhythms of jump, blues and R&B were not mainstay for white America. Still, as in any population, some go against the grain. Phillips, born in rural Alabama in 1923, preferred music that sounded alive, authentic, real, and so, when he moves to Memphis in 1945, the sounds and the sights of the blues music hub were perfect fit During this early period in Phillips' life.
Speaker 1:With some experience in radio and recording, phillips starts a recording service and records the likes of Blues Legends, bb King and Howlin' Wolf. But with one caveat he records for other record labels. With one caveat he records for other record labels. Phillips thought that in licensing with other labels after recording he could concentrate on the music. He was never a practical man and despised the logistics of airplay distribution and all that. But it turns out a flat recording fee in exchange for all rights and publishing in perpetuity wasn't exactly sustainable.
Speaker 1:What many consider to be the first rock song, rocket 88 by Johnny Brenton and his Delta Cats, aka Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm, came from this period of recording. The story goes like this Turner and his band were on their way to a recording session with Phillips when the band's amp got damaged. Turner later shoves paper inside the amp to lessen the problem and this actually ended up providing a more distinct sound. When guitarist Willie Kessert plays, the sound from the damaged amp is likely to be one of the first examples of guitar distortion that, plus the upbeat R&B driving rhythm, make it stand out as a contender for one of the first rock and roll songs. But this is just an example of the sound that Phillips sought after Unpolished and raw. Rocket 88 is an example of one of the songs that once recorded belonged to somebody else. In this case it belonged to Chess Records out of Chicago, out of Phillips' hands entirely. He simply got tired of it. Enter Sun Records.
Speaker 1:Phillips, upon opening Sun Records in 1952, recorded music that he enjoyed, music that major record companies there were six at the time deemed kind of unprofitable, which is code for blues and R&B. Generally, phillips recorded music no one else would touch, recording it in his own way, releasing it on his own label. As such, son was basically designed as a walk-in business. If you had a song to sing, come on in and it will be recorded. Some came on their own, others were referred to by other artists, but in time Phillips would be the first to record the likes of Ike Turner, howlin' Wolf, the Prisoners, bb King, roy Orbinson, jerry Lee Lewis, carl Perkins, johnny Cash and a 19-year-old Memphis native who would walk into Sun Records to record a love song. Elvis was what they were looking for. To get that music not necessarily accepted, because it already had been accepted, but permissible for the white kids to listen to, and openly. Ruth Brown.
Speaker 1:Although Phillips didn't seek out as actively as other record executives the quickest way to a smash hit to find a smash artist, he was well aware of the idea that if he could find a white face that could sing historically black music halfway decently and convincingly, the potential was huge. He knew that white teenagers, in Memphis specifically, were listening to R&B and he suspected this to be true in other parts of the country as well. Enter Elvis Presley. It's mid-July 1953, and a young Elvis walks into Sun Records and pays $3.98 to record and keep two songs. Upon arriving, miriam Kiesker, the tireless receptionist at the skeleton crew that was Sun Records, manned the studio alone. Phillips was away from the studio at the time, so she records Elvis singing the song is my Happiness by the Ink Spots and, rather upon hearing this than make the traditional and expected, brings Elvis back into the studio. Elvis starts singing an old R&B tune and the rest is history.
Speaker 1:In time, as we all know, elvis's fame skyrockets. Son produces hits like Mystery Train, blue, suede Shoes, folsom, prison Blues, I Walk the Line, ooby Dooby, a whole lot of shaking going on, great balls of fire. I could keep going, but Phillips, in short, becomes the talk of the industry. With the success of Elvis and others, largely brought to light by Phillips and Sun Records, rhythm and Blues is now proven to be able to be captured and repackaged to a white audience, and this fundamentally transforms the nature of quote pop music Just got done with the tour. I'm recording this across the street, looking now at the corner building with the iconic yellow guitar jutting outward.
Speaker 1:Let me describe what the tour kind of entails. So you go in the entrance, wait with other people who are also going to be going on the tour. Then you go upstairs and while you're up there you learn a lot about BB King, helen Wolfe, the Prisoners Carl Perkins, johnny Cash, elvis, sam Phillips obviously, the Prisoners Carl Perkins, johnny Cash, elvis, sam Phillips, obviously and they play songs that were recorded in the room below where you're learning all this. They give you background before you go to the actual recording booth, which is nice, because when you get to the studio you have context, you have appreciation for it.
Speaker 1:Do I think they lionized Sam Phillips a bit too much? I mean probably, yeah, but it's hard in a 40-minute tour to really get into the thick of everything. I could say the same thing about a podcast. But one question I still have after the tour is this they did a good job talking about why Sun Records itself was important, but I still have questions about the larger impact that Sun Records had on rock and roll in general. What did it contribute?
Speaker 1:Before Elvis, there remained an impenetrable wall between pop and rhythm and blues, historically white and historically black music, and so Phillips, in signing Elvis, who channeled R&B, began to break down this wall. It gave white consumers permission to openly like the R&B sound because it was a white person that was singing it. Still, as has been the case over and over again, the need to separate, to segregate, presents itself. The rise of Bill Haley, carl Perkins, elvis, etc. Presents to record executives again the need to further differentiate white artists from black artists who, keep in mind, are both singing the same music, both singing R&B. Let's face it, rock and roll is bigger than all of us. Alan Freed, an opportunity to differentiate white artists and black artists singing the same style of music presents itself.
Speaker 1:In Cincinnati, ohio, by radio host Alan Freed, freed creates the Moon Dog Show featuring rhythm and blues music and, to his credit, actually, he was one of the first to help popularize R&B, particularly among the white public who hadn't yet been exposed to R&B music. That was not re-recorded by white artists. But after moving his show to New York, a blind percussionist already possessed the name Moondog, so Freed could no longer call his show the Moondog Show. With now no defined name, freed chooses to rebrand the Moondog Show to the Rock and Roll Show, with the music being played rhythm and blues remaining the same.
Speaker 1:The term rock and roll, funnily enough, had been around for a while. Take the 1939 bluesman Joe Turner and Pete Johnston's lyrics in Cherry Red Take me pretty, mama, chuck me in your big brass bed and rock me, mama, till my face turns. Cherry red, rockin' and rollin' as terms sometimes had a sexual undertone to it, but most often it referred to a good party, a good time, just what Rhythm blues had been doing for years. And Freed himself freely interchanged the terms rhythm and blues and rock and roll because he believed rightfully that they represented the same music. But in this new term the music industry saw a chance to brand rising stars like Elvis, like Bill Haley, as their own thing. They would no longer be late adapters of an already established music. They were now pioneers of rock and roll.
Speaker 1:Everybody started calling my music rock and roll, but it wasn't anything but the same rhythm and blues I'd been playing down in New Orleans. That's Domino, behind Sun Records. To be in the room where so many icons recorded, where so much history was made, was special. But what's truly unique about visiting Sun Records and why I think anyone passing through should is that it opens the door to so much more. It's a small part, it's a very small part of a much larger story, and to visit is to start to realize that. So that's what I think we're going to roll out. We're heading to Georgia today, definitely hope to be coming back to Memphis. I'd love to spend a night near Beale Street and experience the music there. So, all right, we'll see you. From this, I think we can all agree that the history of rock and roll is not the history of Sun Records, not even close. Sun Records is, instead of turning point in the classification and marketing of a music that had been around for years and years Rhythm and blues.
Speaker 1:The term rock and roll itself started as a misnomer, a fresh coat of paint over an already established tradition of black artists pushing and refining genre and look, rock stars, from the Stones to the Beatles to the who. Zeppelin will all tell you that. Don't believe me, let's get a brief rapid fire in. Muddy Waters was the focus, perhaps, of all the good things about that Chicago blues era. He was a big influence for me. Mick Jagger, it still is the most important music in my life today, the music of Muddy Waters, eric Clapton, gospel you can't forget gospel. Tom Petty, little Richards Records are great. They still sound great. They always will. Joe Strummer of Clash. Look at tribute covers as well Nirvana's cover of their favorite artist, lead Bellies, where Did you Sleep Last Night? Led Zeppelin's cover of Sonny Boy Artist Lead Bellies, where Did you Sleep Last Night? Led Zeppelin's cover of Sonny Boy. Williamson's Bring it On Home. Springsteen talks all the time about the influence of Chuck Berry on his music. Look for the soul of James Brown in Michael Jackson.
Speaker 1:The point is this Rock and roll is just a piece of a massive, massive story. To overlook the racially charged history of rock, the building blocks of its creation and the real motives for the term itself is just to tell part of the tale. It's noah here. Thank you for listening. I genuinely, genuinely appreciate your time. Uh, the more I looked into this topic, the more I felt I had to spend time understanding it deeply. And the deeper I went, the more I began to appreciate the really complex, fascinating history of rhythm and blues, later rock and roll. I'd be remissed and rather missing the point of this episode if I didn't credit the public domain recordings I used during today's episode. John said he saw a number by Arizona Drake's, 1926, jimmy Blythe, chicago Stomp, 1924, and Mammy Smith Crazy Blues, 1920. Links to all of these and additional recordings, videos, books, everything that I used are found in this week's truly massive show notes.
Speaker 1:I've also got a great recommendation for everyone. There's a 10-part series on the history of rock and roll on YouTube, produced by Quincy Jones. That's a great starting point in getting into this stuff. I'll post something about that. Tom Petty, the who, ozzy Osbourne, kiss, ruth Brown, tina Turner, aerosmith, springsteen the guests on this program are endless and they all, it seems, have a deep respect and knowledge really about the blues, about R&B, the history of rock and roll, so it's fascinating. I'll post that.
Speaker 1:I might be talking a little more about Sun Records specifically. I might be talking a little more about Sun Records specifically more candidly in a future Van Life Diaries. But until then, I really, really hope I did my work and did some justice to the history of rock and roll. If you appreciate the effort that me and Noodles put into episodes like this, a great great way to help us continue to do this, continue to grow, is to take a second to rate wherever you're listening now Really really helps the show. I appreciate you. So thank you again. Be good to each other. Where to next? Backroad Odyssey.
