Entertainment For Lively Minds
The First Of Their Kind ?
It is generally acknowledged that the first Bebop record was Woody 'n' You by Coleman Hawkins, the first Rock and Roll record was Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenston(Ike Turner) and his Delta Cats, and Miles Davis Birth Of The Cool was indeed what it proclaimed.
However, was Bob Dylan's Like A Rolling Stone the first Rock single ?
Was The Byrds version of Mr. Tambourine Man the first Folk/Rock recording ? Did Prog really have it's roots In Sgt. Pepper, and can the beginning of punk be sourced to the first Stooges album ? The consensus is usually in the affirmative, but what I find interesting is what were the precursors of these musical ground shifts, and how styles morph, sometimes symbiotically, sometimes in drastic reaction etc. Are there any new musical directions left, or has it all been done ? Was Bob Dylan the first Rap Artist ?
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One problem...
...with this kind of theorising is that it's never as neat as we want it to be. For example, if one credits Subterranean Homesick Blues as the first rap record, the theory immediately fails because if you credit that you have to credit Chuck Berry's Too Much Monkey Business. And you can probably go further back.
And, while we're on Dylan, there is much of what was later called punk in the sneering, provocative attitude he played out on stage for most of May 1966.
I mean, no one would obviously credit Elvis Presley with the birth of 'country soul', and yet look at the deliberation with which he and Sam Phillips married R'n'B and Bluegrass on his first single.
Country rock? Jerry Lee Lewis was putting Hank Williams covers on the B sides of his singles from pretty much day one. And, talking of Hank Williams, ever heard Move It On Over? It's not a million miles from Rock Around The Clock. And so on and so on.
I'm not trying to be difficult; just acknowledging the complications.
That is exactly
my point, Lucas. It is the very complications that you mention that I am interesetd in - doing a Pete Frame, so to speak. For example, I don't think that Sgt pepper would classify as the first Prog rock album. Some people would say Family's Music In Doll's House, where I would opt for the more obvious choice of King Crimson's ITCOTKC.
Punk may well have started with MC5. Gil Scott heron could be the first real Rap Artist etc.