Rock Awhile
1949 single by Goree Carter
"Rock Awhile" is a song by American singer-songwriter Goree Carter, recorded in April 1949 for the Freedom Recording Company in Houston, Texas.
The song was released as the 18-year-old Carter's debut single (with "Back Home Blues" as the B-side) shortly after recording. The track is considered by many sources to be the first rock and roll song, and has been called a better candidate than the more commonly cited "Rocket 88", which was released two years later. The song features an over-driven electric guitar style similar to that of Chuck Berry years later.
The former New York Times pop critic, Robert Palmer, made this comment about the recording in 1995:
"The clarion guitar intro differs hardly at all from some of the intros Chuck Berry would unleash on his own records after 1955; the guitar solo crackles through an overdriven amplifier; and the boogie-based rhythm charges right along. The subject matter, too, is appropriate -- the record announces that it's time to 'rock awhile,' and then proceeds to show how it's done."
01Personnel
- Goree Carter, vocals, electric guitar
- Lonnie Lyons, piano
- Louis "Nunu" Pitts, bass
- Allison Tucker, drums
- Conrad O. Johnson, alto saxophone
- Sam Williams, tenor saxophone (rhythm)
- Nelson Mills, trumpet (rhythm)
Sources and credits
This article is adapted from the Wikipedia article “Rock Awhile”, written by its contributors and licensed under CC BY-SA 4.0. Fathomly has changed the layout, removed citation markers, navigation and maintenance notices, and adjusted punctuation. This adapted version is shared under the same license. For references, see the original article.
Images, from Wikimedia Commons:
- Rock Awhile (fixed).png by Freedom Records, Fair use
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