I Was A Punk Before You Were A Punk: Pt. Two
Published May 24, 2005
Picking up where we left off, the 1950's.
Let's first dispel with a few stereotypes: Happy Days the 50's was not. It wasn't all about poodle skirts and pony tails, D.A.s and leather jackets and hanging around the malt shop doing the jitterbug until it was time to go home and watch Howdy Doody. The 50's was also an era of bomb shelters, civil defense drills, cold war paranoia & witch hunts. Joseph McCarthy and his band of merry makers were on a quest to rid the U.S.A of evil commie bastards while the country was slowly and surely headed into another depression as the post WW2 prosperity faded and the baby boom tapered off.
The pop charts were largely dominated by inoffensive pablum such as Perry Como and Rosemary Clooney, remnants of the big band era & Broadway show tunes. Juvenile delinquency was on the rise and the kids were just plain bored. And a strange new sound was cutting through the nighttime air. From the exotic locale of Ciudad Acuna, Mexico just across the border from Del Rio, TX., a radio station by the call letters of XERF had a 50,000 Watt transmitter that was playing a strange new sound. Obviously with the power that 50,000 watts provides this sound was heard from Texas to Alaska & across the better part of the U.S.
From the less exotic locale of Nashville,Tenn. we had station WLAC blasting this new sound as well, covering just about anywhere and everywhere that XERF didn't reach. These stations gave many people what was to be their first taste of a burgeoning new sound called rock 'n' roll. A youth movement was growing and had found its soundtrack.
This was the first generation of youth brought up in relative comfort with a bit of disposable income in their pockets and not much to dispose it on. They had found icons in Brando and Dean, who echoed their boredom and restlessness but were looking for something new to call their own. That this generation should glom on to those bastard sounds emanating from the tinny sounds of static filled old A/M radios is of no great surprise. It was a lifestyle within itself with its own code of dress, rules of conduct, dances and slang. Above and beyond whatever else it may have been, it was their's solely. The fact that parents and the establishment didn't like it or understand it was all that much to the better.
- I Was A Punk Before You Were A Punk: Pt. Two
- Published: May 24, 2005
- Type: Opinion
- Section: Music
- Filed Under: Music: Punk Rock, Music: Roots Rock
- Writer: HW Saxton
- HW Saxton's BC Writer page
- HW Saxton's personal site
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Great post and followup to part one. May I pick a nit, though?
The earliest rock'n'rollers weren't baby boomers, but the generation born in the opening days of WWII. As you note, Cochran was born in '38. The first rock'n'roll youth of the mid and late Fifties were kids during WWII. If you were 16 in '57, you were born in '41.
The baby boom wasn't "tapering off" in the Fifties either, but well underway. The so-called "baby boom generation" includes folks born as late as '64. (I was born in '57 and can just barely remember Elvis and the Beatles on the Ed Sullivan show.)
Sorry to be so pedantic, but common wisdom tends to smear and confuse the issues here and it bothers me.
Great stuff, Saxman. Might be valuable to turn some new fans onto Cochran.
re: minor quibbles, etc.
-- While the baby boom years can vary in designation, there seems to be a slight consensus for 1949 through 1964. (...and I believe it was some 49 million of us born in that time frame?)
The "earliest rock music" in my experience can be found as early as 1936 with "Jangled Nerves" by the great Fletcher Henderson. Admittedly, it's not a guitar-based thingy, but the chords, the frenzy, the testosterone, and the rhythm are there. Check it out.
PS: It COULD be argued that American Punk officially began in 1953, when the following dialogue was uttered onscreen during the Marlon Brando film "The Wild One"
Girl: What're you rebelling against, Johnny?
Johnny: Whaddya got?
YES!
another rockin' post HW, thanks!
Re the baby boom issue: HW didn't call Eddie a baby boomer, he said the baby boom was tapering off through the '50s, which since the term "boom" implies an original impetus -- which was in this case the end of WW2, the euphoria and relief of victory, the G.I. Bill, booming economy, etc -- I don't think it incorrect, but certainly open to debate, that the boom tapered off through the '50s.
The Baby Boom is '45 to '64, by the way: all those happy and horny military people returning home is what kicked it off.
YA thats a great song.
Better versions by blue cheer and, more recently, Rush, though.
I vote Eddie, then the Who
Good one HW. You left out one thing -- some of us were smoking pot back then in the day.That's when the drug thing actually began.
That's only the best known Eddie Cochran song, but not the best in my opinion.
HEY!Thanks to all of you who responded.
It's much appreciated. Shark I've never
heard the Fletcher Henderson piece.I'll
investigate for sure. As some examples
of music hitting on the Rock N Roll tip
in the 30's/early 40's I'd throw these
up for consideration: "Ding Dong Daddy
From Dumas" by Benny Goodman.It swings
like mad and it has a Gene Krupa drum
break that would make Keith Moon envious
as hell. Also Slim Galliard along w/bass
player Slam Stewart did a song called:
"Slim Slam Boogie"in 1939 that has Slim
playing licks that sound just like Chuck
Berry in spots or at least the T Bone
Walker riffs the CB was so enamored of.
But the earliest best cut I can think of
that rocks like muthaf****r is called:
"Guitar Boogie" by The Mississippi Jook
Band.This band is essentially the Graves
Brothers (Roosevelt and Uaroy)with the
addition of the Delta piano king Cooney
Vaughn on a few cuts. It is raucous and
fully formed stomp down party music full
of Rockin' N Rollin' riffs & hi-energy,
as can be noted by some of their song
titles:"Bar B-Q Bust","Hittin The Bottle
Stomp","Alligator Crawl" and "Dangerous
Woman". Truly rockin'! It's easily the
earliest most prototypical Rockinroll I
have ever heard.
I could also add Milton Brown, Bob Wills
Shelly Alley,Adolph Hofner and host of
other Western Swing cats as examples of
proto rock n Roll but that's another
post. Again thanks to all who read this.
PS: I neglected to mention that the MJB
cuts were recorded back in 1936.It's for
sure the earliest rock n roll recordings
I know of.
Comment #1: "the country was slowly and surely headed into another depression"? That can't be right.
Comment #2: I was deeply disappointed the first time I looked into the promise of a "Free Punk" in the Red Devil ads.
Comment #3: If my name were HW Saxton, I would have gone Hessian all the way.
FREE PUNK
We have laid the common punk beside our fat punk to give you some idea of why we like our fat punk so much better. It has a bigger head on it that when you light it will make it much easier to ignite your item.
Saxman, thanks yet again: you're a wealth of obsure musical info! I'll have to check out those I've never heard of!
And mentioning: "...Milton Brown, Bob Wills, Shelly Alley, Adolph Hofner and host of other Western Swing cats as examples of proto rock n Roll..."
---gets you a mention in my will! That's some of the greatest music EVER made, imho.
PS: I'm such a fan, I made a pilgrimage to Milton Brown's grave. (check out the Texas background -- out in the middle of a beautiful nowhere).
Mr Shark, Yer a gentleman and a scholar.
Thanks for the pic of Milton's gravesite
it's an excellent shot.Is that anywhere
near where the wreck happened?
I love the desolation and emptiness of
Texas.Especially out in West Texas. It's
so vast and the sky is huge.I like the
minimalist aspect of the beauty of wide
open spaces.Hard to explain in words but
I think you understand what I'm trying
to say.
I love Western Swing as well.It's a very
overlooked/underappreciated link in the
history of R'n'R music.Moon Mullican was
hammering out R'n'R (for all practical
purposes)in the late 1940's and banging
out something real damn close to it with
Cliff Bruner's band in the late 1930's.
On a closing note:Is there anything left
of the Crystal Springs Ballroom?. I made
a pilgrimage to the Longhorn Ballroom on
a trip to Dallas once. I didn't dig the
Big 'D'. Too many yuppies,strip malls,
East Coast types trying to be Texans etc
etc. But Ft. Worth was really cool. Much
more laid back & funky, the overall vibe
was just much cooler. Thanks again for
the pic man.
Best Regards,
Harold
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Can anyone give me the chrods to EDDIE COCHRAN Somethin-Else
Thanks
For HW Saxton...
I too am looking for remnants of the old Crystal Springs Ballroom. I live in FW and could go by if i just had the address...I know it was around Roberts Cutoff and White Settlement...
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Excellnt little history lesson, and Eddie Cochran is one of my favorites.