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| Ten Thousand Motels |
N.J. town where Haley born claims birthplace of rock title
Fri, June 22, 2007
By GEOFF MULVIHILL, AP
London Free Press
GLOUCESTER CITY, N.J. -- Bill Haley was a small-time disc jockey and unsuccessful country and western singer when he took up a six-nights-a-week gig at the Twin Bar in this gritty industrial city.
Soon, he started messing around with rhythm and blues and the sound he created there in 1951 and 1952 made him one of the first stars of rock and roll.
But do his appearances here qualify as the birth of the genre?
Officials in Gloucester City and Camden County think so. Of course, they also think claiming ownership of such historic trivia could help the city's redevelopment efforts and even attract a few tourists.
"I would say it puts Gloucester City on the map," Mayor Bill James said Wednesday at an event to stake the city's claim.
To celebrate, officials are planning a music festival next month, a plaque to commemorate Haley's breakthrough and a mural on the outside wall of the bar, which is now known as Jack's Twin Bar.
Coined "rock and roll" in 1952 by Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed, the genre has been commonly defined as a fusion of rhythm and blues with country and western. The musical trend began springing up across America in the early 1950s, though its birthplace is the subject of debate.
Wildwood, N.J.; Cleveland; Hattiesburg, Miss; Galveston, Texas and Memphis also claim the title as the birthplace. Until now, though, Gloucester City had not been part of the conversation.
Jim Henke, the chief curator at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland, said Wednesday that he had never heard of the Gloucester city claim and isn't sure it's possible to pinpoint the moment, or place, where rock began.
"It was this sort of gradual evolution," he said.
Bill Haley was a pioneer, Henke said, but so were Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Elvis Presley and plenty of others.
Gloucester, like many cities along the Delaware River, was heavily industrialized in the early 1950s and was (and still is) full of churches and bars.
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Galveston true birthplace of rock ’n roll
By Gordon Haire
Contributor - Galveston Daily News
Published June 22, 2007
Gloucester City, N.J., declared itself the “Birthplace of Rock ’n’ Roll” on Wednesday, basing its claim to the title on the mere fact that Bill Haley and his band played there for 18 months in the early ’50s at Twin Bar, now Jack’s Bar & Grill on Broadway.
Wildwood and other Jersey burgs have made the same claim, which cannot stand up under even cursory research.
If any city deserves the birthplace title based on Haley, it would be Philadelphia, where he recorded a cover version of “Rocket 88” at Dave Miller’s Holiday Records in 1951.
“Rocket 88,” erroneously believed by some to be the first rock ’n’ roll song, was originally recorded by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats earlier that year in Memphis by Sam Phillips, owner of Sun Records, where Elvis Presley’s first release was “That’s alright mama.”
If “Rocket 88” is accepted as the first rock ’n’ roll song, then the genre’s birthplace would be the Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale, Miss., where Ike Turner wrote the song.
Galveston trumps all of these claims by about four years. “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” undeniably rock ’n’ roll, was written, arranged, performed and recorded by Roy Brown in Galveston in 1947.
One performance was broadcast live on radio station KGBC from its studios in The Commerce Building on The Strand.
In a Sept. 26, 2005, Rolling Stone article, “New Orleans’ hottest musical exports,” James Sullivan wrote a roundup of New Orleans artists, listing the names of their songs and the stars who made cover versions.
Roy Brown topped the list:
“Good Rockin’ Tonight” (Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Pat Boone, Jerry Lee Lewis, James Brown, Paul McCartney); “Rockin’ at midnight” (Honeydrippers).
“Good Rockin’ Tonight” is ranked No. 14 of the Top 100 Songs of 1954 by Digital Dream Door.com, based on its initial and lasting popularity and on its impact on the overall scope of musical history.
Of course, the best-known contender for the title of birthplace of rock ’n’ roll is the home of the Rock ’n’ Roll Hall of Fame, Cleveland, Ohio.
It was in that city that record-store owner Leo Mintz recommended that Alan Freed play rhythm-and-blues tunes at WJW radio in the summer of 1951.
Freed, who called himself Moondog, is credited with coining the term “rock ’n’ roll” and for promoting the first rock ’n’ roll concert, the Moondog Coronation Ball, at the Cleveland Arena on March 21, 1952.
Galveston is undeniably The Birthplace of Rock ’n’ Roll, and we should proudly proclaim it as such.
[Gordon Haire is the official historian for the Galveston chapter of the Society for the Preservation of Rock & Roll. He is also a retired newspaperman and a former Galveston firefighter.]
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
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| mojoman |
the chicken laid the egg |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
quote:
mojoman wrote:
the chicken laid the egg
...and the pervert laid the chicken. |
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| fireontheplatter |
they both came together... |
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| mojoman |
quote:
Ten Thousand Motels wrote:
...and the pervert laid the chicken.
so the chicken crossed the road to get away from pervert? |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
"I'm gonna get me a chicken."
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| mojoman |
little red rooster |
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| guitarman53 |
The blues had a baby & they called it Rock 'N' Roll. |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
quote:
guitarman53 wrote:
The blues had a baby & they called it Rock 'N' Roll.
There is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one
My mother was a tailor
She sewed my new bluejeans
My father was a gamblin' man
Down in New Orleans
Now the only thing a gambler needs
Is a suitcase and trunk
And the only time he's satisfied
Is when he's on a drunk
------ organ solo ------
Oh mother tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun
Well, I got one foot on the platform
The other foot on the train
I'm goin' back to New Orleans
To wear that ball and chain
Well, there is a house in New Orleans
They call the Rising Sun
And it's been the ruin of many a poor boy
And God I know I'm one
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
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| Ten Thousand Motels |
>Oh mother tell your children
Not to do what I have done
Spend your lives in sin and misery
In the House of the Rising Sun<
I have to take issue with that verse. It makes it sound like a bad thing. Which is not necessarily so. I say tell you children to do it. No apologies. No apologies at all. Rock n Roll is the best thing that ever happened to me. I wouldn't have it any other way.
[Edited by Ten Thousand Motels] |
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| oldkr |
Is Gloucester City on the west coast of Africa?
OLDKR |
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