Would Be No Rock & Roll Without The Carter Sisters

[High Lonesome Valley]

The first Rock & Roll riff? The Carter Sisters "I'm Leaving You This Lonesome Song".

Here's a cover on Youtube, really captures the classic lead riff, but the only way to hear THE FIRST EVER Rock & Roll Riff, ripped off by all far and wide, is to pay up for the original tune on Itunes, Amazon, Smithsonian Pathways, etc.

The original song is far slower than the Youtube cover, and if you hear it, you'll be convinced as I was.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U84I2zfFpsc

It took a woman to invent Rock & Roll.

[jaycat]

Not to be overly picky, but I think I would classify this as "boogy" ("boogie?") rather than rock n roll. As in Freight Train Boogie, etc.

Much used in jump blues, New Orleans, etc. I doubt that the Carter Sisters pulled it out of a hat, but I don't have any historical reference to cite.

[Astro]

I wish I had a nickel for every time someone's said to have invented Rock&Roll.

I'd be rich off of Little Richard's alone.

[hank]

Well you just can't hide under a rock that rolls. Speaking to this dynamic we have Rolling Rock beer.

[journeybear]

Cain't be no rock 'n' roll. Thar ain't no banjer in the rock 'n' roll, 'n' they got two of 'em!

[Mike Bunting]

here's a better version.

[ralph johansson]

Nobody invents a genre.

[High Lonesome Valley]

Nobody invents a genre.

Usually somebody just steals it and claims it for their own.

I think this song was one of their earlier 1930's tunes, real early on. I've never heard the Carter's Rock/Boogie riff in any earlier recordings.

[journeybear]

Nobody invents a genre.

I did. It's called Mando Rock. Started back in 1968. Just hasn't caught on. Yet.

[JimRichter]

Bill Monroe created a genre. The 1946 band and the way they played became the archetype of bluegrass.

Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli pretty much created Gypsy Jazz. Django's guitar playing defines that genre.

Grisman would probably argue about Dawg Music. Frankly, there was no one playing the type of music Grisman's early quintet was doing. It wasn't progressive bluegrass/newgrass. Wasn't jazz. It was a synthesis and not derivative.

As far as rock and roll, Rock and Roll is just fine without the Carter Sisters. Many early rock n rollers most likely listened to the Carter Sisters (Elvis and Carl Perkins I'm sure heard them). But to say that the Carters started rock and roll totally ignores the blues and early jazz.

[journeybear]

True enough. Rock 'n' roll, that beloved mongrel mutt of music, is an amalgam, in different proportions as suits its purveyors, of blues, country, pop, R & B (variously named), folk, jazz (chiefly the jump blues of Louis Jordan and others), with a soupçon of other genres, such as swing and cajun. Other genres have been added to the mix along the way. Some cognoscenti have made the case for the first rock 'n' roll song being "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston in 1951 - actually, Ike Turner, Jackie was just the singer on that one. If that's what they want, OK. But there sure were plenty of tunes well before this that sound like rock 'n' roll. "In The Mood" by Glenn Miller, "One O'Clock Jump" by Count Basie, any number of tunes from Louis Jordan, and many others, all fit the bill, despite obvious differences in instrumentation and feel.

I suppose the popularity of small combos featuring electric guitar and drums as the most prominent instruments could be seen as defining the genre, but there are too many exceptions to this "rule" - early rockabilly bands often had acoustic guitars and little or no drums, piano and sax got used a lot, etc., etc., etc. Elvis Presley's "Don't Be Cruel" was #1 on the pop, country, and R & B charts at the same time, which illustrates the music's broad appeal and simultaneous embracing and defiance of categories. Rock musicians have always used elements of various genres as suited them, and riffs from one or another genre fit right into rock 'n' roll just fine. So if a riff from a Carter Sisters song sounds like it would fit into a rock song, it shouldn't be too surprising. It is pretty cool, though.

[Eric Hanson]

I am with Jim,

Also. I do remember that Sam Bush has been recognized by many as the creator of Newgrass.

[LongBlackVeil]

Bill Monroe created a genre. The 1946 band and the way they played became the archetype of bluegrass.

Django Reinhardt and Stephane Grappelli pretty much created Gypsy Jazz. Django's guitar playing defines that genre.

Grisman would probably argue about Dawg Music. Frankly, there was no one playing the type of music Grisman's early quintet was doing. It wasn't progressive bluegrass/newgrass. Wasn't jazz. It was a synthesis and not derivative.

As far as rock and roll, Rock and Roll is just fine without the Carter Sisters. Many early rock n rollers most likely listened to the Carter Sisters (Elvis and Carl Perkins I'm sure heard them). But to say that the Carters started rock and roll totally ignores the blues and early jazz.

Bluegrass is a genre but dawg music was just a synthesis?

I'd make the argument that bluegrass is just as much a synthesis as dawg music is. The reason dawg music didn't catch on the way bluegrass did was because its a hell of a lot more complex. It's difficult to get together with a group of strangers and play it like a bluegrass jam.

I might say that A lot of the stuff Andy statman does is very dawg-ish

Bluegrass basically just mixed old time country and blues. Dawg mixed bluegrass and jazz. I don't know much about gypsy jazz, but i imagine it's a mix of some sort of traditional Romani music mixed with jazz.

[High Lonesome Valley]

I suppose the popularity of small combos featuring electric guitar and drums as the most prominent instruments could be seen as defining the genre, but there are too many exceptions to this "rule" - early rockabilly bands often had acoustic guitars and little or no drums, piano and sax got used a lot, etc., etc., etc.

Amazing that the Rockabilly-ists were playing speed metal on acoustic guitars.

[journeybear]

Bluegrass is a genre but dawg music was just a synthesis?

I think he's saying that it is still original ( not derivative), even though it is a synthesis. All of his examples are mixtures of different elements, the result becoming a new genre that, while owing something to its forebears, stands on its own. "The blues had a baby and they called it rock and roll."

[Mandoplumb]

The roots of all music is made up of other music. There is nothing new under the sun. I don't know what or when " music" first started but since then it has all built on what came before.I am amused by blue grassers knocking rock and roll when they came from a common source. Early rock was almost bluegrass with electric instruments. Same harmony same format same beat usually different subjects(no cabins in rock). The two just developed differently.

[High Lonesome Valley]

The roots of all music is made up of other music. There is nothing new under the sun. I don't know what or when " music" first started but since then it has all built on what came before.I am amused by blue grassers knocking rock and roll when they came from a common source. Early rock was almost bluegrass with electric instruments. Same harmony same format same beat usually different subjects(no cabins in rock). The two just developed differently.

But then there's Yoko Ono with Stupid-Rock, with apologies from my generation to yours for such degradation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-wSiMplfJQ

And, of course, Yoko's primal screaming, a whole new level of a genre whose time has yet to come.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qm7bCtBCgI

[jaycat]

But then there's Yoko Ono with Stupid-Rock, with apologies from my generation to yours for such degradation.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a-wSiMplfJQ

And, of course, Yoko's primal screaming, a whole new level of a genre whose time has yet to come.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2qm7bCtBCgI

I would think you would be a Yoko fan, High Lonesome. As in, you gotta be high to listen to it, and if you're a fan, you sure are lonesome.

[Jon Hall]

IMOP Maybelle and the girls were in the middle of the birth of r&r but it's a real stretch to think they were the originators. The new Carter Family, of Maybelle and the girls, toured with and opened for Elvis when none of the country music establishment wanted anything to do with him. Maybelle didn't mind Elvis being the star. She was a professional and knew a good opportunity when she saw one. Elvis didn't mind touring with three pretty girls either.

[Markus]

If I was to put the start of Rock and Roll in female hands, it would be Rosetta Tharpe.

It aint rock and roll without an electric guitar and attitude, two things she did amazingly.

[Londy]

If you think about it...Zeppelin did this. Their music is a little blues, rock, Celtic, funk all put in a blender....and poof! Zep was born.

[journeybear]

If I was to put the start of Rock and Roll in female hands, it would be Rosetta Tharpe.

It aint rock and roll without an electric guitar and attitude, two things she did amazingly.

Yessir!

If you think about it...Zeppelin did this. Their music is a little blues, rock, Celtic, funk all put in a blender....and poof! Zep was born.

Well, yeah ... decades later ...

[jaycat]

If you think about it...Zeppelin did this. Their music is a little blues, rock, Celtic, funk all put in a blender....and poof! Zep was born.

There's a difference between "building on what came before" and copyright infringement.

Hey check this out -- collect 'em all:

http://radio.com/2014/06/27/led-zepp...ngement-cards/

[Mike Bunting]

There's a difference between "building on what came before" and copyright infringement.

Hey check this out -- collect 'em all:

http://radio.com/2014/06/27/led-zepp...ngement-cards/

YES! I've held that against them since he beginning.
We had Jake Holmes at the club in Montreal, pre zeppelin, and remember Dazed and Confused from that.

[High Lonesome Valley]

There's a difference between "building on what came before" and copyright infringement.

Zep STOLE this, the most famous of opening musical lines in rock history...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w9TGj2jrJk8

from Johnny Rivers

http://www.bing.com/videos/search?q=...E657E33758528E