Guess whose father-in-law was the original King of the Blues Guitar?

Guess whose father-in-law was the original King of the Blues Guitar?

Updated July 28 2019. Blues Muse 14. Two pioneers of the exhilarating new form of blues that, during the 1930s and 1940s, became the precursor to rhythm & blues, included Louisiana’s Saunders King and Aaron T- Bone Walker from Texas. By the early 1940s, both were working out of California. Saunders King, back then, was billed as the King…

World’s 2nd rock & roll record: Roll ‘Em Pete by Big Joe Turner with Pete Johnson in 1938

World’s 2nd rock & roll record: Roll ‘Em Pete by Big Joe Turner with Pete Johnson in 1938

A young Big Joe Turner BluesMuse 12  If  Albert Ammon’s ‘Boogie Woogie Stomp’ was the world’s first rock & roll record in 1936, what was the second? Allow me to put forward ‘Roll ‘Em Pete’, another rollicking piano-based boogie woogie, this one released in 1938. The Pete doing the rolling was 34-year old Pete Johnson,…

Was ‘Boogie Woogie Stomp’ the world’s first rock & roll record in 1936?

Was ‘Boogie Woogie Stomp’ the world’s first rock & roll record in 1936?

BluesMuse10 Fifty eight years ago this May, Bill Hayley’s 12-bar blues, ‘Rock Around The Clock’, turned the world onto rock & roll. While many people claim Ike Turner’s ‘Rocket 88’ was the first rock & roll record in 1951, I’d like to put forward an innovative black pianist from Chicago called Albert Ammons who first…