Rock Awhile

"Rock Awhile"
A-side
Single by Goree Carter & His Hepcats
B-side"Back Home Blues"
Released1949
RecordedApril 1949
StudioACA Studios
Genre
Length2:38
LabelFreedom Recording Company
Songwriter(s)Goree Carter
Goree Carter & His Hepcats singles chronology
"Rock Awhile"
(1949) 		"I'll Send You"
(1949)

"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,[1][2][3][4] and has been called a better candidate than the more commonly cited "Rocket 88", which was released two years later.[1][2][5] The song features an over-driven electric guitar style similar to that of Chuck Berry years later.[1][2][3]

The former New York Times pop critic, Robert Palmer,[6] 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."[7] 

Personnel

  • 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)

References

  1. ^ a b c Robert Palmer, "Church of the Sonic Guitar", pp. 13-38 in Anthony DeCurtis, Present Tense, Duke University Press, 1992, p. 19. ISBN 0-8223-1265-4.
  2. ^ a b c John Nova Lomax (December 2014), Roll Over, Ike Turner, Texas Monthly
  3. ^ a b Roger Wood (2003), Down in Houston: Bayou City Blues, pages 46-47, University of Texas Press
  4. ^ "Uncovering Houston's lost music history". Houston Chronicle. Retrieved May 22, 2018.
  5. ^ Palmer, Robert; et al. (1992). The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll:The Definitive History of the Most Important Artists and Their Music. Random House. p. 12. ISBN 0-679-73728-6. Retrieved August 13, 2013.
  6. ^ "Roll Over, Ike Turner". Texas Monthly. December 1, 2014. Retrieved 19 December 2022. Citing its unmistakable resemblance to Chuck Berry's later work, its lyrical instruction to "rock awhile," and the way the guitar crackled through an overdriven amp
  7. ^ Lomax, John Nova. "Racket". Houston Press.


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