Good Morning Little Schoolgirl

Good Morning School Girl was recorded at Sonny Boy Williamson’s first session for Bluebird on May 5^th 1937 at the Leland Hotel in Aurora and on the record he’s accompanied by Big Joe Williams and Robert Lee McCoy on guitars. Confusion surrounding the title of this song, which usually inserts ‘Little’ after ‘Good Morning’, has been compounded by later recorded versions that have credited Sonny Boy Williamson (Rice Miller) as its composer.

It has become a staple for both Chicago Bluesmen and British Blues bands in the 1950s and 1960s; it has even been called “the first rock and roll record”, but then again so have many others. Whatever the case it was another that was around during the gestation period.

John Lee Williamson was from Tennessee and Sonny Boy, was what his grandmother nicknamed him. He hoboed with Sleepy John Estes and Hank Rachel during the late 1920s and as the depression deepened he travelled with Robert Lee McCoy and Big Joe Williams, developing his skills to the point where he was the pre-eminent pre war harp player. Sonny Boy recorded around 90 sides between 1937 and 1942, making him one of the busiest and most successful Bluesmen of the period. In 1948, while still working and recording Sonny Boy was mugged and murdered on his way home from Chicago’s Plantation Club.

A song with the same name actually made the British charts, recorded by the Yardbirds in October 1964. Their version has lyrical similarities to the original but it is in fact melodically different and credited to H.G. Demarias. This was the original line-up of the Yardbirds, featuring Eric Clapton on lead guitar. Rod Stewart recorded the song as the A-side of his first ever Decca single; Rod’s version is a cover of Sonny Boy. 

The Memphis Jug Band – the first artists to record commercially in Tennessee

In early 1927 Victor Records were in Memphis looking for artists to record. They recorded four songs by the Memphis Jug Band; it was the start of long, on and off, recording career for the band, led by guitarist and harmonica player Will ‘Son’ Shade. They had formed in the mid 1920’s and have the honour of being the first artists ever to record commercially in the state of Tennessee; a notable achievement considering what followed in both Memphis and Nashville.

More sessions followed in 1927, including one in June when 10 year old Walter Horton played harmonica – he would go onto become a consummate post war harmonica player, helping to define the Chicago harp sound. At other sessions the band worked with women singers, including both Hattie Hart and Memphis Minnie.

Their sound was indefinable as it included a little of everything from blues, to jazz, novelty songs, ragtime and folk tunes. During their 7-year recording career they recorded in excess of 75 sides and their music is arguably the first footings of rock ‘n’ roll – genuine ensemble playing that was made to dance to, listen to and engender a good time feeling. The songs they sang were 35 years or more ahead of the sex and drugs revolution of the 60’s and besides Cocaine Habit Blues there were frequent references to sex.

The band’s shifting line-up helped them to remain in fashion when other artists had become outmoded. After they stopped recording in 1934 they continued to perform in Memphis well into the 1940s, even recording again in 1956.

The Long Player

On June 21st, 1948 Columbia Records, gave a press conference at the Waldorf Astoria in New York City to launch the 33 1/3 long playing record. While there was great secrecy surrounding the event, Columbia still had over 100 titles ready to release by July 1.  At their Dealer Conference in Atlantic City on June 21 a company executive gave a speech while an LP of Tchaikovsky's Nutcracker Suite was playing, which everyone could see via a large mirror suspended above the turntable.  At the end of the 18-minute side, (more than 4 times longer than an existing 78 rpm record) the crowd gave a standing ovation! Within a year one million American homes would have the equipment to play LPs, the revolutions revolution had begun.

LPs were being sold at $4.95 each and to encourage sales of the necessary turntables to play them a Philco player was sold for $29.25 with three free LPs - a neat piece of marketing. One of those to benefit from all this was Sinatra, in that his LP, The Voice of Frank Sinatra, that became the first Pop LP, Columbia CL6001. The first classical LP was The Beethoven Violin Concerto with Nathan Milstein, Bruno Walter and the Philharmonic Symphony of New York.

Papa Charlie Jackson

Little is known of William Henry Jackson’s early life, it is not even certain that he was born in New Orleans, sometime around 1885. He probably toured the south as part of various minstrel and medicine shows in the early 1900’s. Sometime around the end of the First World War Jackson settled in Chicago and began playing street corners for small change. He was soon a regular site at the Maxwell Street Market where he sang and played his often bawdy blues tunes that were later known as ‘Hokum Blues’. Jackson did not only sing the blues, he sang novelty songs and ragtime too.

Jackson was one of the first country blues artists to record, in August 1924 Paramount took him into the studio in Chicago to cut 'Papa's Lawdy Lawdy Blues' & 'Airy Man Blues'. These were the first of over 70 sides that Jackson was to record, all for Paramount except for his last four sides that were recorded for Okeh in 1934.  It was at Jackson’s fifth recording session in May 1925 that he recorded his most enduring number, the dance song, ‘Shake That Thing’. In mid 1926 Paramount got Jackson to provide vocals on a recording of ‘Salty Dog’ by Freddie Keppard's Jazz Cardinals. His 10 year recording career created opportunities for other blues artists to record. He also made records with a number of other artists including, Blind Blake, Hattie McDaniels, Ida Cox and Lucille Bogan. At the end of 1928 Jackson recorded two sides with Ma Rainey, which were destined to become the last recordings of her career.

While details of Jackson’s life are sparse the supposition that he was born in New Orleans is supported by the facts of his playing.  He was a sophisticated player, with a talent for chord sequences that was well beyond contemporary country blues players. He played a 6-string banjo, not in conventional style; he picked, strummed and tuned it like a guitar. He inspired Big Bill Broonzy, they recorded together in 1935 but none of the three sides were released. The man who was described as ‘a sophisticated all round entertainer’ died in 1938, the circumstances of his death, like most of his life, are shrouded in mystery.

The Monterey Pop Festival

On 18 June 1967 at the County Fairgrounds, the Monterey Pop Festival attracted around 200,000 people, although not all at the same time, to what was the first major rock festival in America. It was organised by Lou Adler, John Phillips of The Mamas and The Papas and Derek Taylor, the former Beatles publicist and their ambition was to create an event that was multi-cultural, multi-national and multi-styled in the music that was performed. It was truly a ‘first’ and it can be considered the premier event of the Summer of Love’; one at which everything seemed to work and about which nothing bad has ever been written.

In particular Monterey helped launch the careers of many performers, catapulting them from local, or relative obscurity, into the forefront of American and worldwide awareness. Today it’s easy to forget that before Monterey Jimi Hendrix had not had a hit record in America. Neither had The Who managed to get a record into the Billboard Top 20 and only one of their four minor hits had got higher than No.51; nor was Otis Redding very well known among white audiences. Rolling Stone, Brian Jones was there according to one report he was, "In a mind shattering gold lame coat festooned with beads, crystal swastika & lace, looked like a kind of unofficial King of the Festival" Brian Jones was the king of Hippie-chic.

“ This is really a great scene here. All the kids are so nice. The people are so polite and just come up and talk to me and say they like the way I'm dressed" – Brian Jones

Press attention from around the world, and particularly the music press alerted fans to what was happening, but it wasn’t until the end of 1968 that people were able to see the documentary made by D.A Pennebaker – for most people this was the first time that they actually saw Jimi Hendrix set fire to his Stratocaster. It has not had the effect of the Woodstock movie, which could be put down to the fact that the commercial precepts were less well developed at this point. Big business had not cottoned onto the money making potential of a ‘bunch of hippies.’

"I was with Brian for the Monterey Pop Festival & we took acid in a tepee" – Dennis Hopper

The Birth of Rock ‘n’ Roll

“My man rocks me with one steady roll.” – Trixie Smith, 1922

Rock and roll is as old as mankind and the first rock ‘n’ roll record was Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats’ ‘Rocket 88’ recorded at Sam Phillips’ Sun Studios in Memphis Tennessee. One of these two things is untrue, and it’s not that rock and roll is as old as mankind. Rock ‘n’ roll was little more than a euphemism among the Black

population in early 20^th Century America. There are some that think it was also a dance, but for some the difference between sex and dancing is as thin as the line between love and hate. Nor is it true that Alan Freed, the Cleveland DJ invented the term. . .but more of that later.

Nearly 90 years ago in September 1922 in New York City 27 year old Trixie Smith along with the Jazz Masters went into the studio to cut a couple of sides. Who made up the Jazz Masters have been lost down the crack in the shellac, all except one – Fletcher Henderson a name ubiquitous within jazz circles and whose band Louis Armstrong joined in 1924. One of the sides Trixie and the boys cut was ‘My Daddy Rocks Me (with one steady roll); as clear evidence as you can get for the link between rock and roll, and sex.

My daddy rocks me with one steady roll.

There's no slippin' when he once takes hold.

I looked at the clock and the clock struck one.

I said "Now Daddy, ain't we got fun."

He kept rockin' with one steady roll.

Now hold those lyrics in your head because we’ll return to them soon enough. Four years after Trixie was rockin’ and rollin’ a man got around to it too; Blind Blake, whose Christian name may or may not have been Arthur, was the first to use the word ‘rock’ in a song. His earliest record for the Paramount label in August 1926 had ‘West Coast Blues’ on one side of it. It opens with the lines

Now we gonna do the old country rock.

First thing we do, swing your partners.

It’s a lot less sexy than Trixie and certainly seems to relate to some kind of dance, which is possibly evidence for the whole thing being a mix of both sex and dancing. Later in the song he even does a little advertising, “Good to the last drop. Just like Maxwell House Coffee, yes.” When President Theodore Roosevelt visited the manufacturer of Maxwell House in 1907, had a cup of their coffee, saying “It’s good to the last drop”; probably the only time a US President has been an advertising copy writer. There again it may also take us back towards the sex angle!

Three years later, in 1929, a twenty-five year old by the name of Tampa Red, who seems to have hailed from Florida, but grew up in Georgia and was a bit of a whizz on the kazoo, as well as piano and guitar decided to do a little rocking of his own. Tampa recorded such risqué songs as ‘It’s Tight Like That’ and ‘Jelly Whippin’ Blues’ but he also fronted the Hokum Jug Band. One weekend in April 1929 Tampa and his band recorded several tunes including ‘She is Hot’ which sounds like the perfect rock ‘n’ roll title and they also covered Trixie’s ‘’My Daddy Rocks Me (with one steady roll)’. Now, Tampa being a man doing a song about his Daddy rocking him with one steady roll obviously poses some questions, but on this occasion it wasn’t Tampa singing – it was instead the cross-dressing Frankie ‘Half-Pint’ Jaxon. Frankie put his own slant on Trixie’s lyrics

My Man rocks me with one steady roll

It makes no difference if he’s hot or cold

When I looked at the clock, clock struck one.

I said honey oh let’s have some fun

But you rock me with one steady roll

Frankie also goes in for some no holds barred, nor blushes spared, heavy breathing just in case anyone was in any doubt about what his song was all about. While the content, the words and the feel may all have some of the feel of rock ‘n’ roll about them the music for all this and the songs that went before did not. They were all very much in the blues idiom.

Rolling forward through the jazz age, the big bands, and generally the fuller sounds that became popular with black musicians and their audiences we get to 1945 and a man named Wynonie Harris.  Harris had sung with Lucky Millinder’s Orchestra, one of the swingiest, rockiest of the black big bands. In 1941, before Harris had joined them Millinder, who was a regular at the Apollo and the Savoy in Harlem, released ‘Big Fat Mama’ (“with meat shaking on her bones”) which was one of a number of his songs that pointed the way towards rock ‘n’ roll.

Harris took what he had learned with Millinder and distilled it into something all together more rock ‘n’ roll in the way it sounded. In July 1945, along with a band put together by Johnny Otis, Wynonie recorded ‘Around the Clock parts one and two’; compare their lyrics with Tampa’s.

Sometimes I think I will, sometimes I think I won’t

Sometimes I believe I do, and then again I believe I won’t

Well I looked at the clock, the clock struck one

She said come on Daddy let’s have some fun

Yes we were rolling, yes we rolled a long time.

Musically there was little rock ‘n’ roll about ‘Around The Clock’ but come 1957 and the great Chuck Berry recorded ‘Reelin’ and Rockin’. As we all know he, “looked at his watch and it was 9.21”. The fact is that what had gone before all led to that moment. So much music, black or white, was all about influences, acknowledged and otherwise, and the development of rock ‘n’ roll, as a concept, goes way back. As a sound it definitely had it’s origins in the jump music and R & B of the 1940s.

There are also those that think Alan Freed ‘invented’ rock ‘n’ roll.  There’s no question that Freed was a key player in the development of the music. On 11 July 1951, Freed started broadcasting on Cleveland’s WJW, calling his show The Moondog House. He played jump and R & B records and began calling it rock ‘n’ roll music; he also started promoting live shows featuring the artists he played like Tiny Grimes and Paul ‘Hucklebuck’ Williams.  Given the reach that his radio show gave him, even more so when he switched to WINS in New York City, it’s unsurprising that Freed has been so closely associated with the music, and its naming. But mentions of rocking and rolling were not the sole preserve of the black blues singers or the DJs that played the music. In 1934 the Boswell Sisters, a middle class, close harmony group from New Orleans released ‘Rock and Roll’, but theirs is a song of the high seas – “the rolling rocking rhythm of the sea".

"So won't you satisfy my soul with the rock and roll" – Teddy Grace, August 1937

In 1939 Western Swing star Buddy Jones released ‘Rockin’ Rollin’ Mama’. Two years earlier Teddy Grace recorded ‘Rock it For Me’, a couple of months later Chick Webb’s Orchestra with their singer Ella Fitzgerald did it too, like others they used the term in their own way, "So won't you satisfy my soul with the rock and roll" Even Hollywood got in on the act when Betty Grable’s film, Wabash Avenue was promoted by calling her, ‘The First lady of rock and roll’. The point of it al? It was very much in the zeitgeist; it just needed Freed to bring it altogether.

So, how come many think that Jackie Brenston made the first rock ‘n’ roll record? Well for a start, Sam Phillips was fond of telling people that it was. But it’s just another record from hundreds, thousands even, which came out in the post war years that had the feel of proto rock about them. Interestingly Wynonie Harris’ ‘Around the Clock’ while having the lyrical heritage does not sound much like a rock ‘n’ roll record – there are many others of his that definitely do. ‘Good Rocking Tonight’ from 1946 and so did ‘Lollipop Mama’ from 1948, with its fast walking bass line. There are hundreds of records that a case could be made for naming them as ‘The First Rock ‘n’ Roll record’. Here’s a list of ten records that could claim the title. . .in no particular order, other than the date they were recorded!

Rock, Daniel – Lucky Millinder and his Orchestra with Rosetta Tharpe (June 1941)

Be-Babba Leba – Helen Humes (August 1945)

My Gals A Jockey – Big Joe Turner (January 1946)

Choo Choo Ch’Boogie – Louis Jordan (July 1946)

The House of Blue lights – Ella Me Morse with Freddie Slack and his Orchestra (February 1946)

Gotta Gimme Whatcha Got – Julia Lee and her Boyfriends (September 1946)

He’s A Real Gone guy – Nellie Lutcher (July 1947)

Drinkin' Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee – Sticks McGhee and his Buddies (February 1949)

Rock the Joint –Jimmy Preston & His Prestonians (May 1949)

Teardrops From My Eyes – Ruth Brown (October 1950)