It is now the beginning of a 4 day weekend for me and I've spent quite a bit of this evening doing some good ol' surfin' of the Net. It isn't too often that I sit down and surf like I used to back in the late 1990's when I would spend hours and hours just following thousands of sites just for the hell of it. Ah, the good ol' days of the Internet when the world was young...
One site I visited today which I hadn't dropped in on in a while is none other than a site which I link to - The 2 Blowhards. In today's entry entitled "The Birth of Rock and Roll?", Michael Von Blowhard pays tribute to various artists like Chuck Berry, Roy Brown, Sister Rosetta Thrape, and Ruth Brown.
So what does The Mighty Wizard have to say about this topic? Well, the birth of Rock and Roll should be something that should interest all Americans as it really is an enormously important part of our cultural history. I did do a little digging on the subject a number of years ago (don't you ever forget that yours truly is an extraordinarily learned fellow), and found a true gem of an artist in Big Joe Turner. Don't forget to visit this site on Big Joe, which includes a You Tube link showing Big Joe playing his original bluesy version of Shake Rattle and Roll.
When you listen to Big Joe sing "Roll 'em Hawk", "Corrine Corrina" and "Shoo Shoo Boogie Boo", you can hear a die hard bluesman struggling to lead us to Rock and Roll Nirvana. All I can say is that Big Joe richly deserves his honored place in The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame. If you need to be turned onto some good stuff, then take a tip from The Wizard himself and spend a few nickels on some juke joint stuff from Big Joe. You won't regret it.
Posted by The Mighty Wizard at November 29, 2006 10:51 PM