Podcasts about Ella Mae Morse

Benny Carter, alto sax, trumpet - Rambling in C (1937), Plain Dirt (1929), That's How I Feel Today (1929), Six or Seven Times (1929), Keep a Song in Your Soul (1930), Chinatown My Chinatown (1930), Keep a Song in Your Soul (1930), Symphony in Riffs (1933), Waltzing the Blues (1936), When Lights Are Low (1936), Cow Cow Boogie (1942). Featuring: McKinney's Cotton Pickers, The Little Chocolate Dandies, Fletcher Henderson Orchestra, Benny Carter and His Harlem Club Orchestra, Benny Carter and His Swing Quartet, Ella Mae Morse with Freddie Slack and His Orchestra.

durée : 00:59:31 - Destination… out ! - par : Nathalie Piolé - ➡️⬅️⬆️ Où allons-nous ce soir dans Banzzaï ? N'importe où, mais ailleurs !

Sounds Like Radio is back with Volume 179 and today Your Humble Host will be talkin' all about The Great Gildersleeve from July 9, 1952 and his plans to go out on that lake with his new found girlfriend (or so he thinks) Miss McKinley. She's pretty fickle though as she already has plans of her own. Uh oh, trouble in paradise. But if I know Gildy he'll figure a way. To help out our hero we have the wild and wonderful Wanda Jackson (our featured picture this week), Vaughn Monroe,, Kay Starr, Bing Crosby & the Mills Brothers, Ella Mae Morse (she's another spitfire) & Eddy Arnold. But Your Humble Host is never satisfied until he plays you a bonus song and this is from our own record collection of the 1970's, a beautiful song by Tim Moore. You might want to get out your hanky for them tears when listening to this one.

Today's show features music performed by Ella Mae Morse and Paul Butterfield

It's time for Volume 107 of Sounds Like Radio and we're having a lot of fun today. We've got some songs that may not be the most delicate to those of ever so sensitive feelings but what the heck, they're great songs and we are the only place you'll hear them.  Today's Gildersleeve show from October 18, 1950 we find Gildy worried about getting fat.  Well, we're here to help out with our wonderful selection of fat and not so fat songs and even some very nice and kinds songs of encouragement.  Also some kindly words from Your Humble Host on the subject to all those in the battle of the bulge.  (And I include myself.)   Today lending a helpful voice will be Bing Crosby & Peggy Lee in a duet, Eydie Gorme, Arthur Godfrey, Ella Mae Morse (today's featured picture for our show), Jimmy Dean (he just wants a biscuit) & Ted Lewis tells us where we should all be.  I know where I'll be, listening to today's show for a few laughs, some good tunes and a little seltzer down your pants, least it's dietary.

Aunque inicialmente se conocía como «Liberty Records», Ginger, después de oír a su esposo describir su aspiración de crear una compañía discográfica que fuera lo máximo en cuanto a sus canciones, sus artistas y la calidad de sus discos, le dijo que debían cambiar el nombre a «Capitol Records». Capitol se constituyó oficialmente el 8 de abril de 1942. Con José Manuel Corrales.

Si hi ha una cosa que ens uneix a gaireb

Si hi ha una cosa que ens uneix a gaireb

The history of coffee consumption in 20th century America takes hold in the small cafes, truck stops and coffeehouses which became venues and social spaces for the community. Like music, they helped with the congregation of like minds and served as hubs for intellectual exchange, artistic expression and social activism. And it was all because of the caffeine. Instant and decaf coffees were just an aberration; much like disco. This week's Deeper Roots drives the theme of coffee home with tracks that span the century including Emmett Miller, the King Cole Trio, The Bobs, Ella Mae Morse and Merle Travis (among others) to tell us a cuppa tale or two. It's one more Friday show ahead of next week's 420 observation…one more libation to celebrate.

Esse é o AutoRadio Podcast. Under The Covers 83 - The Train Kept A-Rollin Powered by Wisdomtech http://www.wisdomtech.com.br

Celebrating performers born 100 years ago, this year, including, Dinah Washington, Bud Powell, Earl Scruggs, Roger Williams, Ella Mae Morse, Chet Atkins, Sarah Vaughn,Slim Whitman, Max Roach and Henry Mancini. Songs include: Cow Cow Boogie, Autumn Leaves, April In Paris, Baby, Get Back, Foggy Mountain Breakdown and Black Coffee. 

Songs include: No Strings, No Arms Can Ever Hold You, No Moon At All, No Other Love, Time Waits For No One and No Can Do. Performers include: Ella Mae Morse, Perry Como, Fred Astaire, Helen Forrest, Guy Lombardo and Pat Boone. 

Roger Ashby does a deep dive into the artists that shaped the future of music. Listen to the Roger Ashby Oldies Show anytime on the iHeartRadio app.

"Jubilee" is an American treasure. It was the War Dept. Service Division and Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS) program that featured African-American musicians and singers. Broadcast to servicemen and women via shortwave radio from 1942 to 1953. Jubilee was conceived at least in part as a morale-building service for African-American troops overseas. This Oct. 24, 1947 features Count Basie and his Orchestra with their vocalist Jimmy Rushing and guest vocalist Ella Mae Morse. So climb aboard the time machine and go back to the days of Big Band and Jazz with Jubilee! This track will be stored in the "Big Band /Jazz" Playlist on this Soundcloud.com originating podcast. Thank you for listening.

The biggest names in Hollywood and Broadway recorded for AFRS during the war years, The American Forces Network can trace its origins back to May 26, 1942, when the War Department established the Armed Forces Radio Service (AFRS). The U.S. Army began broadcasting from London during World War II, using equipment and studio facilities borrowed from the British Broadcasting Corporation (BBC). The first transmission to U.S. troops began at 5:45 p.m. on July 4, 1943, and included less than five hours of recorded shows, a BBC news and sports broadcast. That day, Corporal Syl Binkin became the first U.S. Military broadcasters heard over the air. The signal was sent from London via telephone lines to five regional transmitters to reach U.S. troops in the United Kingdom as they prepared for the inevitable invasion of Nazi-occupied Europe. Fearing competition for civilian audiences the BBC initially tried to impose restrictions on AFN broadcasts within Britain (transmissions were only allowed from American Bases outside London and were limited to 50 watts of transmission power) and a minimum quota of British produced programming had to be carried. Nevertheless AFN programmes were widely enjoyed by the British civilian listeners who could receive them and once AFN operations transferred to continental Europe (shortly after D-Day) AFN were able to broadcast with little restriction with programmes available to civilian audiences across most of Europe (including Britain) after dark. As D-Day approached, the network joined with the BBC and the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation to develop programs especially for the Allied Expeditionary Forces. Mobile stations, complete with personnel, broadcasting equipment, and a record library were deployed to broadcast music and news to troops in the field. The mobile stations reported on front line activities and fed the news reports back to studio locations in London. --------------------------------------------------------------------------- Entertainment Radio Stations Live 24/7 Sherlock Holmes/CBS Radio Mystery Theater https://live365.com/station/Sherlock-Holmes-Classic-Radio--a91441 https://live365.com/station/CBS-Radio-Mystery-Theater-a57491 ----------------------------------------------------------------------------

It's time for Volume 107 of Sounds Like Radio and we're having a lot of fun today. We've got some songs that may not be the most delicate to those of ever so sensitive feelings but what the heck, they're great songs and we are the only place you'll hear them. Today's Gildersleeve show from October 18, 1950 we find Gildy worried about getting fat. Well, we're here to help out with our wonderful selection of fat and not so fat songs and even some very nice and kinds songs of encouragement. Also some kindly words from Your Humble Host on the subject to all those in the battle of the bulge. (And I include myself.) Today lending a helpful voice will be Bing Crosby & Peggy Lee in a duet, Eydie Gorme, Arthur Godfrey, Ella Mae Morse (today's featured picture for our show), Jimmy Dean (he just wants a biscuit) & Ted Lewis tells us where we should all be. I know where I'll be, listening today's show for a few laughs, some good tunes and a little seltzer down your pants, least it's dietary.

El volumen 2 de la colección “Thirteen roses; singing in a male world” se edita en la señalada fecha del 8 de marzo. Son trece canciones que le cantan al amor, la diversión y al respeto. Canciones de R&B, rockabilly, twist, pop, country o rocknroll, desde ambos lados del Atlántico y todas procedentes de aquellos maravillosos años 50 y 60. Todas ellas interpretadas por mujeres que se tuvieron que ganar a pulso su lugar en un negocio musical que en aquellos días estaba controlado por los hombres. Playlist (todas las canciones del disco “Thirteen Roses”, excepto donde indicado); JO ANN CAMPBELL “I change my mind, Jack” MARGARET LEWIS “Moon dawging” HELEN SHAPIRO “Woe is me” CONCHITA VELASCO “Calor” ROSEMARY CLOONEY “Come on-a my house” APRIL STEVENS “I want a lip” CONNIE FRANCIS “Kiss 'n' twist” JACKIE DEE “I need lovin'” ELLA MAE MORSE “Down in Mexico” DOLLY PARTON “Dumb blonde” JEANI MACK “Dirty dishes” WANDA JACKSON “This gun don't care who it shoots” LYDIA MARCELLE “Everybody dance” THE RHYTHM TREASURES “Do you think that’s right” (2019) LA PERRA BLANCO “Dream” (2021) ROCKIN GINA & THE SENTINELS “The water level goes up” (2020) LITTLE MARTHA and THE TRUCKSTOPPERS “Nothing” (2021) Escuchar audio

For Video Edition, Please Click and Subscribe Here: https://youtu.be/f8DGWUvItk8 Alan Eichler has been a longtime publicist, talent manager and producer, representing plays by Terrence McNally, Tom Eyen, Charles Ludlam, Paul Zindel, and many others, as well as such musicals as "Hello, Dolly!", "George M!", "Barnum," and "Seven Brides For Seven Brothers." His management and publicity clients have included Patti Page, Anita O'Day, Yma Sumac, Johnnie Ray, Maxene Andrews of the Andrews Sisters, Nellie Lutcher, Hadda Brooks, Ruth Brown, LaVern Baker, Monica Lewis, and Ella Mae Morse. He co-produced the original productions of Tom Eyen's "Women Behind Bars" and Geraldine Fitzgerald's "Streetsongs" and is executive producer of the Jeffrey Schwarz documentary, "Swanson on Sunset."  

Today's show features music performed by Ella Mae Morse and Paul Butterfield

From a little while back, we go way back with memories of days gone by. We present a re-broadcast of a Danny Lane radio program that aired on WTMY AM 1280. Once again, Danny Lane lets you remember the past without actually having to go back. This just might be the best part of your day. Enjoy. Comments: dannymemorylane@gmail.com ***** This episode includes: 1) American Patrol by Glenn Miller & His Orchestra 2) Just One Of Those Things by Nat King Cole 3) Dance With Me Henry [The Wallflower] by Georgia Gibbs 4) South America, Take It Away by The Andrews Sisters & Bing Crosby 5) Luna Mezzo Mare [Lazy Mary] by Dean Martin 6) Fly Me To The Moon by Anita O'Day 7) Rosetta by Earl Hines & His Orchestra 8) I'm Having More Fun Since I'm Sixty by Sophie Tucker 9) Begin The Beguine by Artie Shaw 10) The Trolley Song by Judy Garland 11) When The Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob Bobbin' Along by Bob Crosby 12) Who Cares by Benny Goodman & His Orchestra (Fred Astaire, vocal) 13) Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief by Betty Hutton 14) Melody Of Love by The Four Aces 15) Let's Get Away From It All by Gene Krupa (Anita O'Day, vocal) 16) Dream A Little Dream Of Me by Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong 17) The Hut-Sut Song by Freddy Martin & His Orchestra (Eddie Stone, vocal) 18) Moonlight Gambler by Frankie Laine 19) Things Ain't What They Used To Be by Charlie Barnet & His Orchestra 20) Daddy by Julie London 21) Isn't This A Lovely Day by Ginger Rogers 22) No Name Jive by Glen Gray & The Casa Loma Orchestra 23) Big Long Slidin' Thing by Dinah Washington 24) My Wild Irish Rose by The Ink Spots 25) Green Eyes by Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra (Helen O'Connell, vocal) 26) Blow Top by Count Basie 27) Dance of the Blue Devils by Les Brown 28) Stompy Jones by Duke Ellington 29) Mr. Five-By-Five by Freddie Slack & His Orchestra (w/ Ella Mae Morse, vocal) 30) Make Believe Ballroom by Charlie Barnet and His Glen Island Casino Orchestra 31) Sugar Blues by Clyde McCoy & His Orchestra 32) Saturday Night (Is The Loneliest Night In The Week) by Frank Sinatra 33) Thanks For The Memory by Bob Hope & Jane Russell 34) Frenesi by Eydie Gormé 35) When You Come Back to Me Again by Steve Lawrence 36) Remembering You by Roger Kellaway

Laughter is the best medicine so the first Flow of Words show of 2021 is dedicated to humour.  ‘You Cannot be Serious!’ is funny, it is frivolous …..it is anything but serious.  Let Ger Condren , Harry Leahy, Wiltrud Dull and Trish Bennett  lift your spirits with their humour.  With snippets of music by Ella Mae Morse, The Waterboys, John Sheahan and Ruby Murray to compliment.

It's blue January hence this week's theme focusing on songs with the colour blue in the title. This week we talk about 'Blue Suede Shoes' by Elvis, 'Blue' by Joni Mitchell, 'Mister Blue Sky' by Electric Light Orchestra, 'Pale Blue Eyes' by The Velvet Underground, Ella Mae Morse and 'The House of Blue Lights' and last but not least 'Blue (Da Ba Dee)' by Eiffel 65.Our new music hot picks this week come from Moses 'Pawns', Hadda Be 'Another Life' and Tom Lumley and The Brave Liaison 'Better Than This'.If you would like to suggest a story or new music for us to play, please email us at rockpoprambles@gmail.comIf you would also like to donate to the show and join the members club, please head on over to https://www.patreon.com/BugeyeSHOW RESEARCHHadda Be Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/haddabeband/Bandcamp: https://haddabe.bandcamp.comMosesBandcamp: https://moses6.bandcamp.com/album/almost-everything-is-bullshitFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/MosesOfficialPage/Tom Lumley and The Brave LiaisonFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/TomLumleyMusic/Twitter: https://twitter.com/TomLumleyMusicElla Rae Morse - House of Blue Lightshttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_C02APqLBwQhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_House_of_Blue_Lights_(song)https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ella_Mae_Morsehttps://www.bear-family.com/morse-ella-mae/https://www.npr.org/2011/02/21/132051999/ella-may-morse-the-voice-of-capitol-s-first-hitshttps://www.findagrave.com/memorial/6001548/ella-mae-morsehttps://www.theguardian.com/news/1999/nov/01/guardianobituariesThe Velvet Underground Pale Blue Eyes.https://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-velvet-underground/pale-blue-eyeshttps://www.songfacts.com/facts/the-velvet-undergroundhttps://www.idolator.com/7686602/interesting-things-you-may-not-know-about-the-velvet-underground?safari=1https://www.anothermag.com/design-living/8526/ten-things-you-might-not-know-about-the-velvet-undergroundhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Pale_Blue_Eyeshttps://www.rollingstone.com/feature/the-velvet-underground-and-nico-10-things-you-didnt-know-109041/https://www.amazon.co.uk/Velvet-Underground-Michael-Leigh/dp/187159250X/ref=sr_1_6?dchild=1&keywords=the+velvet+underground&qid=1610716096&s=books&sr=1-6Joni Mitchell - Bluehttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_(Joni_Mitchell_album)https://www.biography.com/news/joni-mitchell-blue-album-inspirationhttps://www.jeffreypepperrodgers.com/blog/joni-mitchell-songwriting-interview-bluehttps://www.theatlantic.com/entertainment/archive/2013/02/why-joni-mitchells-blue-is-the-greatest-relationship-album-ever/273147/https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-album-reviews/blue-104415/https://www.messynessychic.com/2015/04/21/the-hippie-caves-of-matala-that-housed-joni-mitchell/https://www.songfacts.com/facts/joni-mitchellEiffel 65 - Blue (Da Ba Dee)https://www.songfacts.com/facts/eiffel-65/blue-da-ba-deehttps://www.songfacts.com/facts/eiffel-65/blue-da-ba-deehttps://www.kissthisguy.com/blue-da-ba-dee-eiffel-65-misheard-song-2028.htmhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=epnsRRPtoeU&t=2s&ab_channel=VICEhttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=68ugkg9RePc&ab_channel=BlissCorporationBlue Suede Shoeshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Suede_Shoes#Other_1956_recordingshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/One_for_the_MoneyElectric Light Orchestra - Mister Blue Skyhttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Mr._Blue_Skyhttps://www.songfacts.com/facts/electric-light-orchestra/mr-blue-skyPreview YouTube video Eiffel 65 - Blue (Da Ba Dee) [Gabry Ponte Ice Pop Mix] (Original Video with subtitles)Eiffel 65 - Blue (Da Ba Dee) [Gabry Ponte Ice Pop Mix] (Original Video with subtitles)Preview YouTube video The Story of "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" by Eiffel 65The Story of "Blue (Da Ba Dee)" by Eiffel 65Support this show http://supporter.acast.com/bugeyes-rock-pop-rambles. See acast.com/privacy for privacy and opt-out information.

On this edition of the MAKE BELIEVE BALLROOM. Is it Eberle or Eberly? Bille Holiday’s tenuous relationship with Artie Shaw. Along the way wonderful music by Perry Como, Freddie Slack and Ella Mae Morse, Jimmie Lunsford, Count Basie with Jimmy Rushing, and a whole lot more!

From a little while back, we go way back with memories of days gone by. We present a re-broadcast of a Danny Lane radio program that aired on WTMY AM 1280 in Sarasota Florida. Once again, Danny Lane lets you remember the past without actually having to go back. This just might be the best part of your day. Enjoy. Comments: dannymemorylane@gmail.com This episode includes: 1) American Patrol by Glenn Miller & His Orchestra 2) Just One Of Those Things by Nat King Cole 3) Dance With Me Henry [The Wallflower] by Georgia Gibbs 4) South America, Take It Away by The Andrews Sisters & Bing Crosby 5) Luna Mezzo Mare [Lazy Mary] by Dean Martin 6) Fly Me To The Moon by Anita O'Day 7) Rosetta by Earl Hines & His Orchestra 8) I'm Having More Fun Since I'm Sixty by Sophie Tucker 9) Begin The Beguine by Artie Shaw 10) The Trolley Song by Judy Garland 11) When The Red, Red Robin Comes Bob, Bob Bobbin' Along by Bob Crosby 12) Who Cares by Benny Goodman & His Orchestra (Fred Astaire, vocal) 13) Doctor, Lawyer, Indian Chief by Betty Hutton 14) Melody Of Love by The Four Aces 15) Let's Get Away From It All by Gene Krupa (Anita O'Day, vocal) 16) Dream A Little Dream Of Me by Ella Fitzgerald & Louis Armstrong 17) The Hut-Sut Song by Freddy Martin & His Orchestra (Eddie Stone, vocal) 18) Moonlight Gambler by Frankie Laine 19) Things Ain't What They Used To Be by Charlie Barnet & His Orchestra 20) Daddy by Julie London 21) Isn't This A Lovely Day by Ginger Rogers 22) No Name Jive by Glen Gray & The Casa Loma Orchestra 23) Big Long Slidin' Thing by Dinah Washington 24) My Wild Irish Rose by The Ink Spots 25) Green Eyes by Jimmy Dorsey Orchestra (Helen O'Connell, vocal) 26) Blow Top by Count Basie 27) Dance of the Blue Devils by Les Brown 28) Stompy Jones by Duke Ellington 29) Mr. Five-By-Five by Freddie Slack & His Orchestra (w/ Ella Mae Morse, vocal) 30) Make Believe Ballroom by Charlie Barnet and His Glen Island Casino Orchestra 31) Sugar Blues by Clyde McCoy & His Orchestra 32) Saturday Night (Is The Loneliest Night In The Week) by Frank Sinatra 33) Thanks For The Memory by Bob Hope & Jane Russell 34) Frenesi by Eydie Gormé 35) When You Come Back to Me Again by Steve Lawrence 36) Remembering You by Roger Kellaway

Sintonía: ""Let´s Mambo" - Betty Reilly with Denny Farnon´s Music Publicada en el 2019 en vinilo (que te regala el CD!) por Juke Box y compilada por El Vidocq, aquí tienes la Banda Sonora para un guateque tan exótico como glamuroso... Buen provecho !!! "Christine" - Miss X; "Night and Day" - Francis Faye; "Daddy, Daddy" - Ella Mae Morse; "He Cha Cha´d in" - Kay Starr; "It´s so Fine" - Lavern Baker; "Hollywood Calypso" - Josephine Premice; "Mambo Baby" - Georgia Gibbs; "Hot Tamale Blues" - Ruby Dandridge; "Love Charms" - Diane Maxwell; "Anything Can Happen - Mambo" - Dolores Hawkins; "My Mama Likes You" - Dolores Gray; "Calypso Parakeet" - Patti Brandon; "New Kind of Mambo" - Big Maybelle; "Calypso Joe" - Anna Valentino; "Otra vez (Pepito)" - Elena Madera Bonus Tracks: "Too Experienced", "You Call My Name", "I´ve Got To Get Back" y "Do You Wanna Dance", extraídas del álbum "Reggae with Soul", del cantante Owen Gray (Trojan Records, 1969) Bonus track 05: "Reggae is Tight" (Booker T & The M.G.´s) - Lloyd Charmers Escuchar audio

  Episode forty-four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Train Kept A-Rollin'” by Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, and how a rockabilly trio from Memphis connect a novelty cowboy song by Ella Fitzgerald to Motorhead and Aerosmith. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Jump, Jive, an’ Wail”, by Louis Prima. —-more—-  Resources   For biographical information on the Burnettes, I’ve mostly used Billy Burnette’s self-published autobiography, Craxy Like Me. It’s a flawed source, but the only other book on Johnny Burnette I’ve been able to find is in Spanish, and while I go to great lengths to make this podcast accurate I do have limits, and learning Spanish for a single lesson is one of them. The details about the Burnettes’ relationship with Elvis Presley come from Last Train To Memphis by Peter Guralnick. Before Elvis by Larry Birnbaum has a chapter on “Train Kept A-Rollin'”, and its antecedents in earlier blues material, that goes into far more detail than I could here, but which was an invaluable reference. And this three-CD set contains almost everything Johnny Burnette released up to 1962.  Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript There are some records that have had such an effect on the history of rock music that the record itself becomes almost divorced from its context. Who made it, and how, doesn’t seem to matter as much as that it did exist, and that it reverberated down the generations. Today, we’re going to look at one of those records, and at how a novelty song about cowboys written for an Abbot and Costello film became a heavy metal anthem performed by every group that ever played a distorted riff.   There’s a tradition in rock and roll music of brothers who fight constantly making great music together, and we’ll see plenty of them as we go through the next few decades — the Everly Brothers, Ray and Dave Davies, the Beach Boys… rock and roll would be very different without sibling rivalry. But few pairs of brothers have fought as violently and as often as Johnny and Dorsey Burnette. The first time Roy Orbison met them, he was standing in a Memphis radio station, chatting with Elvis Presley, and waiting for a lift. When the lift doors opened, inside the lift were the Burnette brothers, in the middle of a fist-fight.   When Dorsey was about eight years old and Johnny six, their mother bought them both guitars. By the end of the day, both guitars had been broken — over each other’s heads.   And their fights were not just the minor fights one might expect from young men, but serious business. Both of them were trained boxers, and in Dorsey Burnette’s case he was a professional who became Golden Gloves champion of the South in 1950, and had once fought Sonny Liston. A fight between the Burnette brothers was a real fight.   They’d grown up around Lauderdale Court, the same apartment block where Elvis Presley spent his teenage years, and they used to hang around together and sing with a gang of teenage boys that included Bill Black’s brother Johnny. Elvis would, as a teenager, hang around on the outskirts of their little group, singing along with them, but not really part of the group — the Burnette brothers were as likely to bully him as they were to encourage him to be part of the gang, and while they became friendly later on, Elvis was always more of a friend-of-friends than he was an actual friend of theirs, even when he was a colleague of Dorsey’s at Crown Electric. He was a little bit younger than them, and not the most sociable of people, and more importantly he didn’t like their aggression – Elvis would jokingly refer to them as the Daltons, after the outlaw gang, Another colleague at Crown Electric was a man named Paul Burlison, who also boxed, and had been introduced to Dorsey by Lee Denson, who had taught both Dorsey and Elvis their first guitar chords. Burlison also played the guitar, and had played in many small bands over the late forties and early fifties. In particular, one of the bands he was in had had its own regular fifteen-minute show on a local radio station, and their show was on next to a show presented by the blues singer Howlin’ Wolf. Burlison’s guitar playing would later show many signs of being influenced by Wolf’s electric blues, just as much as by the country and western music his early groups were playing. Some sources even say that Burlison played on some of Wolf’s early recordings at the Sun studios, though most of the sessionographies I’ve seen for Wolf say otherwise.   The three of them formed a group in 1952, the Rhythm Rangers, with Burlison on lead guitar, Dorsey Burnette on double bass, and Johnny Burnette on rhythm guitar and lead vocals. A year later, they changed their name to the Rock & Roll Trio.   While they were called the Rock & Roll Trio, they were still basically a country band, and their early setlists included songs like Hank Snow’s “I’m Moving On”:   [Excerpt: Hank Snow, “I’m Moving On”]   That one got dropped from their setlist after an ill-fated trip to Nashville. They wanted to get on the Grand Ole Opry, and so they drove up, found Snow, who was going to be on that night’s show, and asked him if he could get them on to the show. Snow explained to them that it had taken him twenty years in the business to work his way up to being on the Grand Ole Opry, and he couldn’t just get three random people he’d never met before on to the show.   Johnny Burnette replied with two words, the first of which would get this podcast bumped into the adult section in Apple Podcasts, and the second of which was “you”, and then they turned round and drove back to Memphis. They never played a Hank Snow song live again.   It wasn’t long after that, in 1953, that they recorded their first single, “You’re Undecided”, for a tiny label called Von Records in Boonville, Mississippi;   [Excerpt: The Rock and Roll Trio, “You’re Undecided”, Von Records version]   Around this time they also wrote a song called “Rockabilly Boogie”, which they didn’t get to record until 1957: [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio, “Rockabilly Boogie”]   That has been claimed as the first use of the word “rockabilly”, and Billy Burnette, Dorsey’s son, says they coined the word based on his name and that of Johnny’s son Rocky.   Now, it seems much more likely to me that the origin of the word is the obvious one — that it’s a portmanteau of the words “rock” and “hillbilly”, to describe rocking hillbilly music — but those were the names of their kids, so I suppose it’s just about possible.   Their 1953 single was not a success, and they spent the next few years playing in honky-tonks. They also regularly played the Saturday Night Jamboree at the Goodwyn Institute Auditorium, a regular country music show that was occasionally broadcast on the same station that Burlison’s old bands had performed on, KWEM. Most of the musicians in Memphis who went on to make important early rockabilly records would play at the Jamboree, but more important than the show itself was the backstage area, where musicians would jam, show each other new riffs they’d come up with, and pass ideas back and forth. Those backstage jam sessions were the making of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, as they were for many of the other rockabilly acts in the area.   Their big break came in early 1956, when they appeared on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour and won three times in a row. The Ted Mack Amateur Hour was a TV series that was in many ways the X Factor or American Idol of the 1950s. The show launched the careers of Pat Boone, Ann-Margret, and Gladys Knight among others, and when the Rock and Roll Trio won for the third time (at the same time their old neighbour Elvis was on the Ed Sullivan show on another channel) they got signed to Coral Records, a subsidiary of Decca Records, one of the biggest major labels in the USA at the time.   Their first attempt at recording didn’t go particularly well. Their initial session for Coral was in New York, and when they got there they were surprised to find a thirty-two piece orchestra waiting for them, none of whom had any more clue about playing rock and roll music than the Rock And Roll Trio had about playing orchestral pieces.   They did record one track with the orchestra, “Shattered Dreams”, although that song didn’t get released until many years later:   [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette, “Shattered Dreams”]   But after recording that song they sent all the musicians home except the drummer, who played on the rest of the session. They’d simply not got the rock and roll sound they wanted when working with all those musicians. They didn’t need them.   They didn’t have quite enough songs for the session, and needed another uptempo number, and so Dorsey went out into the hallway and quickly wrote a song called “Tear It Up”, which became the A-side of their first Coral single, with the B-side being a new version of “You’re Undecided”:   [Excerpt: The Rock and Roll Trio, “Tear It Up”]   While Dorsey wrote that song, he decided to split the credit, as they always did, four ways between the three members of the band and their manager. This kind of credit-splitting is normal in a band-as-gang, and right then that’s what they were — a gang, all on the same side. That was soon going to change, and credit was going to be one of the main reasons.   But that was all to come. For now, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio weren’t happy at all about their recordings. They didn’t want to make any more records in New York with a bunch of orchestral musicians who didn’t know anything about their music. They wanted to make records in Nashville, and so they were booked into Owen Bradley’s studio, the same one where Gene Vincent made his first records, and where Wanda Jackson recorded when she was in Nashville rather than LA. Bradley knew how to get a good rockabilly sound, and they were sure they were going to get the sound they’d been getting live when they recorded there.   In fact, they got something altogether different, and better than that sound, and it happened entirely by accident. On their way down to Nashville from New York they played a few shows, and one of the first they played was in Philadelphia. At that show, Paul Burlison dropped his amplifier, loosening one of the vacuum tubes inside. The distorted sound it gave was like nothing he’d ever heard, and while he replaced the tube, he started loosening it every time he wanted to get that sound.   So when they got to Nashville, they went into Owen Bradley’s studio and, for possibly the first time ever, deliberately recorded a distorted guitar.   I say possibly because, as so often happens with these things, a lot of people seem to have had the same idea around the same time, but the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio’s recordings do seem to be the first ones where the distortion was deliberately chosen. Obviously we’ve already looked at “Rocket 88”, which did have a distorted guitar, and again that was caused by an accident, but the difference there was that the accident happened on the day of the recording with no time to fix it. This was Burlison choosing to use the result of the accident at a point where he could have easily had the amplifier in perfect working order, had he wanted to.   At these sessions, the trio were augmented by a few studio musicians from the Nashville “A-Team”, the musicians who made most of the country hits of the time. While Dorsey Burnette played bass live, he preferred playing guitar, so in the studio he was on an additional rhythm guitar while Bob Moore played the bass. Buddy Harmon was on drums, while session guitarist Grady Martin added another electric guitar to complement Burlison’s.   The presence of these musicians has led some to assume that they played everything on the records, and that the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio only added their voices, but that seems to be very far from the case. Certainly Burlison’s guitar style is absolutely distinctive, and the effect he puts on his guitar is absolutely unlike anything else that you hear from Grady Martin at this point. Martin did, later, introduce the fuzztone to country music, with his playing on records like Marty Robbins’ “Don’t Worry”:   [Excerpt: Marty Robbins, “Don’t Worry”]   But that was a good five years after the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio sessions, and the most likely explanation is that Martin was inspired to add fuzz to his guitar by Paul Burlison, rather than deciding to add it on one session and then not using it again for several years.   The single they recorded at that Nashville session was one that would echo down the decades, influencing everyone from the Beatles to Aerosmith to Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages.   The A-side, “Honey Hush”, was originally written and recorded by Big Joe Turner three years earlier:   [Excerpt: Big Joe Turner, “Honey Hush”]   It’s not one of Turner’s best, to be honest — leaning too heavily on the misogyny that characterised too much of his work — but over the years it has been covered by everyone from Chuck Berry to Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello to Jerry Lee Lewis. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio’s cover version is probably the best of these, and certainly the most exciting:   [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, “Honey Hush”]   This is the version of the song that inspired most of those covers, but the song that really mattered to people was the B-side, a track called “Train Kept A-Rollin'”.   “Train Kept A-Rollin'”, like many R&B songs, has a long history, and is made up of elements that one can trace back to the 1920s, or earlier in some cases. But the biggest inspiration for the track is a song called “Cow Cow Boogie”, which was originally recorded by Ella Mae Morse in 1942, but which was written for Ella Fitzgerald to sing in an Abbot and Costello film, but cut from her appearance.   Fitzgerald eventually recorded her own hit version of the song in 1943, backed by the Ink Spots, with the pianist Bill Doggett accompanying them:   [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots, “Cow Cow Boogie”]   That was in turn adapted by the jump band singer Tiny Bradshaw, under the title “Train Kept A-Rollin'”:   [Excerpt: Tiny Bradshaw, “The Train Kept A-Rollin'”]    And that in turn was the basis for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio’s version of the song, which they radically rearranged to feature an octave-doubled guitar riff, apparently invented by Dorsey Burnette, but played simultaneously by Burlison and Martin, with Burlison’s guitar fuzzed up and distorted. This version of the song would become a classic:   [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”]   The single wasn’t a success, but its B-side got picked up by the generation of British guitar players that came after, and from then it became a standard of rock music. It was covered by Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages:   [Excerpt: Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”]   The Yardbirds:   [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”]   Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets:   [Excerpt: Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”]    Aerosmith:   [Excerpt: Aerosmith, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”]    Motorhead:   [Excerpt: Motorhead: “Train Kept A-Rollin'”]   You get the idea. By adding a distorted guitar riff, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio had performed a kind of alchemy, which turned a simple novelty cowboy song into something that would make the repertoire of every band that ever wanted to play as loud as possible and to scream at the top of their voices the words “the train kept rolling all night long”.   Sadly, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio didn’t last much longer. While they had always performed as the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, Coral Records decided to release their recordings as by “Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio”, and the other two members were understandably furious. They were a band, not just Johnny Burnette’s backing musicians.   Dorsey was the first to quit — he left the band a few days before they were due to appear in Rock! Rock! Rock!, a cheap exploitation film starring Alan Freed. They got Johnny Black in to replace him for the film shoot, and Dorsey rejoined shortly afterwards, but the cracks had already appeared.   They recorded one further session, but the tracks from that weren’t even released as by Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, just by Johnny Burnette, and that was the final straw. The group split up, and went their separate ways.   Johnny remained signed to Coral Records as a solo artist, but when he and Dorsey both moved, separately, to LA, they ended up working together as songwriters.   Dorsey was contracted as a solo artist to Imperial Records, who had a new teen idol star who needed material — Ricky Nelson had had an unexpected hit after singing on his parents’ TV show, and as a result he was suddenly being promoted as a rock and roll star. Dorsey and Johnny wrote a whole string of top ten hits for Nelson, songs like “Believe What You Say”, “Waiting In School”, “It’s Late”, and “Just A Little Too Much”:   [Excerpt: Ricky Nelson, “Just a Little Too Much”]   They also started recording for Imperial as a duo, under the name “the Burnette Brothers”:   [Excerpt: The Burnette Brothers, “Warm Love”]   But that was soon stopped by Coral, who wanted to continue marketing Johnny as a solo artist, and they both started pursuing separate solo careers. Dorsey eventually had a minor hit of his own, “There Was a Tall Oak Tree”, which made the top thirty in 1960. He made a few more solo records in the early sixties, and after becoming a born-again Christian in the early seventies he started a new, successful, career as a country singer, eventually receiving a “most promising newcomer” award from the Academy of Country Music in 1973, twenty years after his career started. He died in 1979 of a heart attack.   Johnny Burnette eventually signed to Liberty Records, and had a string of hits that, like Dorsey’s, were in a very different style from the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio records. His biggest hit, and the one that most people associate with him to this day, was “You’re Sixteen, You’re Beautiful, And You’re Mine”:   [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette, “You’re Sixteen”]   That song is, of course, a perennial hit that most people still know almost sixty years later, but none of Johnny’s solo records had anything like the power and passion of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio recordings. And sadly we’ll never know if he would regain that passion, as in 1964 he died in a boating accident.   Paul Burlison, the last member of the trio, gave up music once the trio split up, and became an electrician again. He briefly joined Johnny on one tour in 1963, but otherwise stayed out of the music business until the 1980s. He then got back into performing, and started a new lineup of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, featuring Johnny Black, who had briefly replaced Dorsey in the group, and Tony Austin, the drummer who had joined with them on many tour dates after they got a recording contract.   He later joined “the Sun Rhythm Section”, a band made up of many of the musicians who had played on classic rockabilly records, including Stan Kessler, Jimmy Van Eaton, Sonny Burgess, and DJ Fontana. Burlison released his only solo album in 1997. That album was called Train Kept A-Rollin’, and featured a remake of that classic song, with Rocky and Billy Burnette — Johnny and Dorsey’s sons — on vocals:   [Excerpt: Paul Burlison, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”]    He kept playing rockabilly until he died in 2003, aged seventy-four.

  Episode forty-four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at "Train Kept A-Rollin'" by Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, and how a rockabilly trio from Memphis connect a novelty cowboy song by Ella Fitzgerald to Motorhead and Aerosmith. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on "Jump, Jive, an' Wail", by Louis Prima. ----more----  Resources   For biographical information on the Burnettes, I've mostly used Billy Burnette's self-published autobiography, Craxy Like Me. It's a flawed source, but the only other book on Johnny Burnette I've been able to find is in Spanish, and while I go to great lengths to make this podcast accurate I do have limits, and learning Spanish for a single lesson is one of them. The details about the Burnettes' relationship with Elvis Presley come from Last Train To Memphis by Peter Guralnick. Before Elvis by Larry Birnbaum has a chapter on "Train Kept A-Rollin'", and its antecedents in earlier blues material, that goes into far more detail than I could here, but which was an invaluable reference. And this three-CD set contains almost everything Johnny Burnette released up to 1962.  Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript There are some records that have had such an effect on the history of rock music that the record itself becomes almost divorced from its context. Who made it, and how, doesn't seem to matter as much as that it did exist, and that it reverberated down the generations. Today, we're going to look at one of those records, and at how a novelty song about cowboys written for an Abbot and Costello film became a heavy metal anthem performed by every group that ever played a distorted riff.   There's a tradition in rock and roll music of brothers who fight constantly making great music together, and we'll see plenty of them as we go through the next few decades -- the Everly Brothers, Ray and Dave Davies, the Beach Boys... rock and roll would be very different without sibling rivalry. But few pairs of brothers have fought as violently and as often as Johnny and Dorsey Burnette. The first time Roy Orbison met them, he was standing in a Memphis radio station, chatting with Elvis Presley, and waiting for a lift. When the lift doors opened, inside the lift were the Burnette brothers, in the middle of a fist-fight.   When Dorsey was about eight years old and Johnny six, their mother bought them both guitars. By the end of the day, both guitars had been broken -- over each other's heads.   And their fights were not just the minor fights one might expect from young men, but serious business. Both of them were trained boxers, and in Dorsey Burnette's case he was a professional who became Golden Gloves champion of the South in 1950, and had once fought Sonny Liston. A fight between the Burnette brothers was a real fight.   They'd grown up around Lauderdale Court, the same apartment block where Elvis Presley spent his teenage years, and they used to hang around together and sing with a gang of teenage boys that included Bill Black's brother Johnny. Elvis would, as a teenager, hang around on the outskirts of their little group, singing along with them, but not really part of the group -- the Burnette brothers were as likely to bully him as they were to encourage him to be part of the gang, and while they became friendly later on, Elvis was always more of a friend-of-friends than he was an actual friend of theirs, even when he was a colleague of Dorsey's at Crown Electric. He was a little bit younger than them, and not the most sociable of people, and more importantly he didn't like their aggression – Elvis would jokingly refer to them as the Daltons, after the outlaw gang, Another colleague at Crown Electric was a man named Paul Burlison, who also boxed, and had been introduced to Dorsey by Lee Denson, who had taught both Dorsey and Elvis their first guitar chords. Burlison also played the guitar, and had played in many small bands over the late forties and early fifties. In particular, one of the bands he was in had had its own regular fifteen-minute show on a local radio station, and their show was on next to a show presented by the blues singer Howlin' Wolf. Burlison's guitar playing would later show many signs of being influenced by Wolf's electric blues, just as much as by the country and western music his early groups were playing. Some sources even say that Burlison played on some of Wolf's early recordings at the Sun studios, though most of the sessionographies I've seen for Wolf say otherwise.   The three of them formed a group in 1952, the Rhythm Rangers, with Burlison on lead guitar, Dorsey Burnette on double bass, and Johnny Burnette on rhythm guitar and lead vocals. A year later, they changed their name to the Rock & Roll Trio.   While they were called the Rock & Roll Trio, they were still basically a country band, and their early setlists included songs like Hank Snow's "I'm Moving On":   [Excerpt: Hank Snow, "I'm Moving On"]   That one got dropped from their setlist after an ill-fated trip to Nashville. They wanted to get on the Grand Ole Opry, and so they drove up, found Snow, who was going to be on that night's show, and asked him if he could get them on to the show. Snow explained to them that it had taken him twenty years in the business to work his way up to being on the Grand Ole Opry, and he couldn't just get three random people he'd never met before on to the show.   Johnny Burnette replied with two words, the first of which would get this podcast bumped into the adult section in Apple Podcasts, and the second of which was "you", and then they turned round and drove back to Memphis. They never played a Hank Snow song live again.   It wasn't long after that, in 1953, that they recorded their first single, "You're Undecided", for a tiny label called Von Records in Boonville, Mississippi;   [Excerpt: The Rock and Roll Trio, "You're Undecided", Von Records version]   Around this time they also wrote a song called "Rockabilly Boogie", which they didn't get to record until 1957: [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio, "Rockabilly Boogie"]   That has been claimed as the first use of the word "rockabilly", and Billy Burnette, Dorsey's son, says they coined the word based on his name and that of Johnny's son Rocky.   Now, it seems much more likely to me that the origin of the word is the obvious one -- that it's a portmanteau of the words "rock" and "hillbilly", to describe rocking hillbilly music -- but those were the names of their kids, so I suppose it's just about possible.   Their 1953 single was not a success, and they spent the next few years playing in honky-tonks. They also regularly played the Saturday Night Jamboree at the Goodwyn Institute Auditorium, a regular country music show that was occasionally broadcast on the same station that Burlison's old bands had performed on, KWEM. Most of the musicians in Memphis who went on to make important early rockabilly records would play at the Jamboree, but more important than the show itself was the backstage area, where musicians would jam, show each other new riffs they'd come up with, and pass ideas back and forth. Those backstage jam sessions were the making of the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, as they were for many of the other rockabilly acts in the area.   Their big break came in early 1956, when they appeared on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour and won three times in a row. The Ted Mack Amateur Hour was a TV series that was in many ways the X Factor or American Idol of the 1950s. The show launched the careers of Pat Boone, Ann-Margret, and Gladys Knight among others, and when the Rock and Roll Trio won for the third time (at the same time their old neighbour Elvis was on the Ed Sullivan show on another channel) they got signed to Coral Records, a subsidiary of Decca Records, one of the biggest major labels in the USA at the time.   Their first attempt at recording didn't go particularly well. Their initial session for Coral was in New York, and when they got there they were surprised to find a thirty-two piece orchestra waiting for them, none of whom had any more clue about playing rock and roll music than the Rock And Roll Trio had about playing orchestral pieces.   They did record one track with the orchestra, "Shattered Dreams", although that song didn't get released until many years later:   [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette, "Shattered Dreams"]   But after recording that song they sent all the musicians home except the drummer, who played on the rest of the session. They'd simply not got the rock and roll sound they wanted when working with all those musicians. They didn't need them.   They didn't have quite enough songs for the session, and needed another uptempo number, and so Dorsey went out into the hallway and quickly wrote a song called "Tear It Up", which became the A-side of their first Coral single, with the B-side being a new version of "You're Undecided":   [Excerpt: The Rock and Roll Trio, "Tear It Up"]   While Dorsey wrote that song, he decided to split the credit, as they always did, four ways between the three members of the band and their manager. This kind of credit-splitting is normal in a band-as-gang, and right then that's what they were -- a gang, all on the same side. That was soon going to change, and credit was going to be one of the main reasons.   But that was all to come. For now, the Rock 'n' Roll Trio weren't happy at all about their recordings. They didn't want to make any more records in New York with a bunch of orchestral musicians who didn't know anything about their music. They wanted to make records in Nashville, and so they were booked into Owen Bradley's studio, the same one where Gene Vincent made his first records, and where Wanda Jackson recorded when she was in Nashville rather than LA. Bradley knew how to get a good rockabilly sound, and they were sure they were going to get the sound they'd been getting live when they recorded there.   In fact, they got something altogether different, and better than that sound, and it happened entirely by accident. On their way down to Nashville from New York they played a few shows, and one of the first they played was in Philadelphia. At that show, Paul Burlison dropped his amplifier, loosening one of the vacuum tubes inside. The distorted sound it gave was like nothing he'd ever heard, and while he replaced the tube, he started loosening it every time he wanted to get that sound.   So when they got to Nashville, they went into Owen Bradley's studio and, for possibly the first time ever, deliberately recorded a distorted guitar.   I say possibly because, as so often happens with these things, a lot of people seem to have had the same idea around the same time, but the Rock 'n' Roll Trio's recordings do seem to be the first ones where the distortion was deliberately chosen. Obviously we've already looked at "Rocket 88", which did have a distorted guitar, and again that was caused by an accident, but the difference there was that the accident happened on the day of the recording with no time to fix it. This was Burlison choosing to use the result of the accident at a point where he could have easily had the amplifier in perfect working order, had he wanted to.   At these sessions, the trio were augmented by a few studio musicians from the Nashville "A-Team", the musicians who made most of the country hits of the time. While Dorsey Burnette played bass live, he preferred playing guitar, so in the studio he was on an additional rhythm guitar while Bob Moore played the bass. Buddy Harmon was on drums, while session guitarist Grady Martin added another electric guitar to complement Burlison's.   The presence of these musicians has led some to assume that they played everything on the records, and that the Rock 'n' Roll Trio only added their voices, but that seems to be very far from the case. Certainly Burlison's guitar style is absolutely distinctive, and the effect he puts on his guitar is absolutely unlike anything else that you hear from Grady Martin at this point. Martin did, later, introduce the fuzztone to country music, with his playing on records like Marty Robbins' "Don't Worry":   [Excerpt: Marty Robbins, "Don't Worry"]   But that was a good five years after the Rock 'n' Roll Trio sessions, and the most likely explanation is that Martin was inspired to add fuzz to his guitar by Paul Burlison, rather than deciding to add it on one session and then not using it again for several years.   The single they recorded at that Nashville session was one that would echo down the decades, influencing everyone from the Beatles to Aerosmith to Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages.   The A-side, "Honey Hush", was originally written and recorded by Big Joe Turner three years earlier:   [Excerpt: Big Joe Turner, "Honey Hush"]   It's not one of Turner's best, to be honest -- leaning too heavily on the misogyny that characterised too much of his work -- but over the years it has been covered by everyone from Chuck Berry to Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello to Jerry Lee Lewis. The Rock 'n' Roll Trio's cover version is probably the best of these, and certainly the most exciting:   [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, "Honey Hush"]   This is the version of the song that inspired most of those covers, but the song that really mattered to people was the B-side, a track called "Train Kept A-Rollin'".   "Train Kept A-Rollin'", like many R&B songs, has a long history, and is made up of elements that one can trace back to the 1920s, or earlier in some cases. But the biggest inspiration for the track is a song called "Cow Cow Boogie", which was originally recorded by Ella Mae Morse in 1942, but which was written for Ella Fitzgerald to sing in an Abbot and Costello film, but cut from her appearance.   Fitzgerald eventually recorded her own hit version of the song in 1943, backed by the Ink Spots, with the pianist Bill Doggett accompanying them:   [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots, "Cow Cow Boogie"]   That was in turn adapted by the jump band singer Tiny Bradshaw, under the title "Train Kept A-Rollin'":   [Excerpt: Tiny Bradshaw, "The Train Kept A-Rollin'"]    And that in turn was the basis for the Rock 'n' Roll Trio's version of the song, which they radically rearranged to feature an octave-doubled guitar riff, apparently invented by Dorsey Burnette, but played simultaneously by Burlison and Martin, with Burlison's guitar fuzzed up and distorted. This version of the song would become a classic:   [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, "Train Kept A-Rollin'"]   The single wasn't a success, but its B-side got picked up by the generation of British guitar players that came after, and from then it became a standard of rock music. It was covered by Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages:   [Excerpt: Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, "Train Kept A-Rollin'"]   The Yardbirds:   [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, "Train Kept A-Rollin'"]   Shakin' Stevens and the Sunsets:   [Excerpt: Shakin' Stevens and the Sunsets, "Train Kept A-Rollin'"]    Aerosmith:   [Excerpt: Aerosmith, "Train Kept A-Rollin'"]    Motorhead:   [Excerpt: Motorhead: "Train Kept A-Rollin'"]   You get the idea. By adding a distorted guitar riff, the Rock 'n' Roll Trio had performed a kind of alchemy, which turned a simple novelty cowboy song into something that would make the repertoire of every band that ever wanted to play as loud as possible and to scream at the top of their voices the words "the train kept rolling all night long".   Sadly, the Rock 'n' Roll Trio didn't last much longer. While they had always performed as the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, Coral Records decided to release their recordings as by "Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio", and the other two members were understandably furious. They were a band, not just Johnny Burnette's backing musicians.   Dorsey was the first to quit -- he left the band a few days before they were due to appear in Rock! Rock! Rock!, a cheap exploitation film starring Alan Freed. They got Johnny Black in to replace him for the film shoot, and Dorsey rejoined shortly afterwards, but the cracks had already appeared.   They recorded one further session, but the tracks from that weren't even released as by Johnny Burnette and the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, just by Johnny Burnette, and that was the final straw. The group split up, and went their separate ways.   Johnny remained signed to Coral Records as a solo artist, but when he and Dorsey both moved, separately, to LA, they ended up working together as songwriters.   Dorsey was contracted as a solo artist to Imperial Records, who had a new teen idol star who needed material -- Ricky Nelson had had an unexpected hit after singing on his parents' TV show, and as a result he was suddenly being promoted as a rock and roll star. Dorsey and Johnny wrote a whole string of top ten hits for Nelson, songs like "Believe What You Say", "Waiting In School", "It's Late", and "Just A Little Too Much":   [Excerpt: Ricky Nelson, "Just a Little Too Much"]   They also started recording for Imperial as a duo, under the name "the Burnette Brothers":   [Excerpt: The Burnette Brothers, "Warm Love"]   But that was soon stopped by Coral, who wanted to continue marketing Johnny as a solo artist, and they both started pursuing separate solo careers. Dorsey eventually had a minor hit of his own, "There Was a Tall Oak Tree", which made the top thirty in 1960. He made a few more solo records in the early sixties, and after becoming a born-again Christian in the early seventies he started a new, successful, career as a country singer, eventually receiving a "most promising newcomer" award from the Academy of Country Music in 1973, twenty years after his career started. He died in 1979 of a heart attack.   Johnny Burnette eventually signed to Liberty Records, and had a string of hits that, like Dorsey's, were in a very different style from the Rock 'n' Roll Trio records. His biggest hit, and the one that most people associate with him to this day, was "You're Sixteen, You're Beautiful, And You're Mine":   [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette, "You're Sixteen"]   That song is, of course, a perennial hit that most people still know almost sixty years later, but none of Johnny's solo records had anything like the power and passion of the Rock 'n' Roll Trio recordings. And sadly we'll never know if he would regain that passion, as in 1964 he died in a boating accident.   Paul Burlison, the last member of the trio, gave up music once the trio split up, and became an electrician again. He briefly joined Johnny on one tour in 1963, but otherwise stayed out of the music business until the 1980s. He then got back into performing, and started a new lineup of the Rock 'n' Roll Trio, featuring Johnny Black, who had briefly replaced Dorsey in the group, and Tony Austin, the drummer who had joined with them on many tour dates after they got a recording contract.   He later joined "the Sun Rhythm Section", a band made up of many of the musicians who had played on classic rockabilly records, including Stan Kessler, Jimmy Van Eaton, Sonny Burgess, and DJ Fontana. Burlison released his only solo album in 1997. That album was called Train Kept A-Rollin', and featured a remake of that classic song, with Rocky and Billy Burnette -- Johnny and Dorsey's sons -- on vocals:   [Excerpt: Paul Burlison, "Train Kept A-Rollin'"]    He kept playing rockabilly until he died in 2003, aged seventy-four.

  Episode forty-four of A History of Rock Music in Five Hundred Songs looks at “Train Kept A-Rollin'” by Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, and how a rockabilly trio from Memphis connect a novelty cowboy song by Ella Fitzgerald to Motorhead and Aerosmith. Click the full post to read liner notes, links to more information, and a transcript of the episode. Patreon backers also have a ten-minute bonus episode available, on “Jump, Jive, an’ Wail”, by Louis Prima. —-more—-  Resources   For biographical information on the Burnettes, I’ve mostly used Billy Burnette’s self-published autobiography, Craxy Like Me. It’s a flawed source, but the only other book on Johnny Burnette I’ve been able to find is in Spanish, and while I go to great lengths to make this podcast accurate I do have limits, and learning Spanish for a single lesson is one of them. The details about the Burnettes’ relationship with Elvis Presley come from Last Train To Memphis by Peter Guralnick. Before Elvis by Larry Birnbaum has a chapter on “Train Kept A-Rollin'”, and its antecedents in earlier blues material, that goes into far more detail than I could here, but which was an invaluable reference. And this three-CD set contains almost everything Johnny Burnette released up to 1962.  Patreon This podcast is brought to you by the generosity of my backers on Patreon. Why not join them? Transcript There are some records that have had such an effect on the history of rock music that the record itself becomes almost divorced from its context. Who made it, and how, doesn’t seem to matter as much as that it did exist, and that it reverberated down the generations. Today, we’re going to look at one of those records, and at how a novelty song about cowboys written for an Abbot and Costello film became a heavy metal anthem performed by every group that ever played a distorted riff.   There’s a tradition in rock and roll music of brothers who fight constantly making great music together, and we’ll see plenty of them as we go through the next few decades — the Everly Brothers, Ray and Dave Davies, the Beach Boys… rock and roll would be very different without sibling rivalry. But few pairs of brothers have fought as violently and as often as Johnny and Dorsey Burnette. The first time Roy Orbison met them, he was standing in a Memphis radio station, chatting with Elvis Presley, and waiting for a lift. When the lift doors opened, inside the lift were the Burnette brothers, in the middle of a fist-fight.   When Dorsey was about eight years old and Johnny six, their mother bought them both guitars. By the end of the day, both guitars had been broken — over each other’s heads.   And their fights were not just the minor fights one might expect from young men, but serious business. Both of them were trained boxers, and in Dorsey Burnette’s case he was a professional who became Golden Gloves champion of the South in 1950, and had once fought Sonny Liston. A fight between the Burnette brothers was a real fight.   They’d grown up around Lauderdale Court, the same apartment block where Elvis Presley spent his teenage years, and they used to hang around together and sing with a gang of teenage boys that included Bill Black’s brother Johnny. Elvis would, as a teenager, hang around on the outskirts of their little group, singing along with them, but not really part of the group — the Burnette brothers were as likely to bully him as they were to encourage him to be part of the gang, and while they became friendly later on, Elvis was always more of a friend-of-friends than he was an actual friend of theirs, even when he was a colleague of Dorsey’s at Crown Electric. He was a little bit younger than them, and not the most sociable of people, and more importantly he didn’t like their aggression – Elvis would jokingly refer to them as the Daltons, after the outlaw gang, Another colleague at Crown Electric was a man named Paul Burlison, who also boxed, and had been introduced to Dorsey by Lee Denson, who had taught both Dorsey and Elvis their first guitar chords. Burlison also played the guitar, and had played in many small bands over the late forties and early fifties. In particular, one of the bands he was in had had its own regular fifteen-minute show on a local radio station, and their show was on next to a show presented by the blues singer Howlin’ Wolf. Burlison’s guitar playing would later show many signs of being influenced by Wolf’s electric blues, just as much as by the country and western music his early groups were playing. Some sources even say that Burlison played on some of Wolf’s early recordings at the Sun studios, though most of the sessionographies I’ve seen for Wolf say otherwise.   The three of them formed a group in 1952, the Rhythm Rangers, with Burlison on lead guitar, Dorsey Burnette on double bass, and Johnny Burnette on rhythm guitar and lead vocals. A year later, they changed their name to the Rock & Roll Trio.   While they were called the Rock & Roll Trio, they were still basically a country band, and their early setlists included songs like Hank Snow’s “I’m Moving On”:   [Excerpt: Hank Snow, “I’m Moving On”]   That one got dropped from their setlist after an ill-fated trip to Nashville. They wanted to get on the Grand Ole Opry, and so they drove up, found Snow, who was going to be on that night’s show, and asked him if he could get them on to the show. Snow explained to them that it had taken him twenty years in the business to work his way up to being on the Grand Ole Opry, and he couldn’t just get three random people he’d never met before on to the show.   Johnny Burnette replied with two words, the first of which would get this podcast bumped into the adult section in Apple Podcasts, and the second of which was “you”, and then they turned round and drove back to Memphis. They never played a Hank Snow song live again.   It wasn’t long after that, in 1953, that they recorded their first single, “You’re Undecided”, for a tiny label called Von Records in Boonville, Mississippi;   [Excerpt: The Rock and Roll Trio, “You’re Undecided”, Von Records version]   Around this time they also wrote a song called “Rockabilly Boogie”, which they didn’t get to record until 1957: [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock and Roll Trio, “Rockabilly Boogie”]   That has been claimed as the first use of the word “rockabilly”, and Billy Burnette, Dorsey’s son, says they coined the word based on his name and that of Johnny’s son Rocky.   Now, it seems much more likely to me that the origin of the word is the obvious one — that it’s a portmanteau of the words “rock” and “hillbilly”, to describe rocking hillbilly music — but those were the names of their kids, so I suppose it’s just about possible.   Their 1953 single was not a success, and they spent the next few years playing in honky-tonks. They also regularly played the Saturday Night Jamboree at the Goodwyn Institute Auditorium, a regular country music show that was occasionally broadcast on the same station that Burlison’s old bands had performed on, KWEM. Most of the musicians in Memphis who went on to make important early rockabilly records would play at the Jamboree, but more important than the show itself was the backstage area, where musicians would jam, show each other new riffs they’d come up with, and pass ideas back and forth. Those backstage jam sessions were the making of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, as they were for many of the other rockabilly acts in the area.   Their big break came in early 1956, when they appeared on the Ted Mack Amateur Hour and won three times in a row. The Ted Mack Amateur Hour was a TV series that was in many ways the X Factor or American Idol of the 1950s. The show launched the careers of Pat Boone, Ann-Margret, and Gladys Knight among others, and when the Rock and Roll Trio won for the third time (at the same time their old neighbour Elvis was on the Ed Sullivan show on another channel) they got signed to Coral Records, a subsidiary of Decca Records, one of the biggest major labels in the USA at the time.   Their first attempt at recording didn’t go particularly well. Their initial session for Coral was in New York, and when they got there they were surprised to find a thirty-two piece orchestra waiting for them, none of whom had any more clue about playing rock and roll music than the Rock And Roll Trio had about playing orchestral pieces.   They did record one track with the orchestra, “Shattered Dreams”, although that song didn’t get released until many years later:   [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette, “Shattered Dreams”]   But after recording that song they sent all the musicians home except the drummer, who played on the rest of the session. They’d simply not got the rock and roll sound they wanted when working with all those musicians. They didn’t need them.   They didn’t have quite enough songs for the session, and needed another uptempo number, and so Dorsey went out into the hallway and quickly wrote a song called “Tear It Up”, which became the A-side of their first Coral single, with the B-side being a new version of “You’re Undecided”:   [Excerpt: The Rock and Roll Trio, “Tear It Up”]   While Dorsey wrote that song, he decided to split the credit, as they always did, four ways between the three members of the band and their manager. This kind of credit-splitting is normal in a band-as-gang, and right then that’s what they were — a gang, all on the same side. That was soon going to change, and credit was going to be one of the main reasons.   But that was all to come. For now, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio weren’t happy at all about their recordings. They didn’t want to make any more records in New York with a bunch of orchestral musicians who didn’t know anything about their music. They wanted to make records in Nashville, and so they were booked into Owen Bradley’s studio, the same one where Gene Vincent made his first records, and where Wanda Jackson recorded when she was in Nashville rather than LA. Bradley knew how to get a good rockabilly sound, and they were sure they were going to get the sound they’d been getting live when they recorded there.   In fact, they got something altogether different, and better than that sound, and it happened entirely by accident. On their way down to Nashville from New York they played a few shows, and one of the first they played was in Philadelphia. At that show, Paul Burlison dropped his amplifier, loosening one of the vacuum tubes inside. The distorted sound it gave was like nothing he’d ever heard, and while he replaced the tube, he started loosening it every time he wanted to get that sound.   So when they got to Nashville, they went into Owen Bradley’s studio and, for possibly the first time ever, deliberately recorded a distorted guitar.   I say possibly because, as so often happens with these things, a lot of people seem to have had the same idea around the same time, but the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio’s recordings do seem to be the first ones where the distortion was deliberately chosen. Obviously we’ve already looked at “Rocket 88”, which did have a distorted guitar, and again that was caused by an accident, but the difference there was that the accident happened on the day of the recording with no time to fix it. This was Burlison choosing to use the result of the accident at a point where he could have easily had the amplifier in perfect working order, had he wanted to.   At these sessions, the trio were augmented by a few studio musicians from the Nashville “A-Team”, the musicians who made most of the country hits of the time. While Dorsey Burnette played bass live, he preferred playing guitar, so in the studio he was on an additional rhythm guitar while Bob Moore played the bass. Buddy Harmon was on drums, while session guitarist Grady Martin added another electric guitar to complement Burlison’s.   The presence of these musicians has led some to assume that they played everything on the records, and that the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio only added their voices, but that seems to be very far from the case. Certainly Burlison’s guitar style is absolutely distinctive, and the effect he puts on his guitar is absolutely unlike anything else that you hear from Grady Martin at this point. Martin did, later, introduce the fuzztone to country music, with his playing on records like Marty Robbins’ “Don’t Worry”:   [Excerpt: Marty Robbins, “Don’t Worry”]   But that was a good five years after the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio sessions, and the most likely explanation is that Martin was inspired to add fuzz to his guitar by Paul Burlison, rather than deciding to add it on one session and then not using it again for several years.   The single they recorded at that Nashville session was one that would echo down the decades, influencing everyone from the Beatles to Aerosmith to Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages.   The A-side, “Honey Hush”, was originally written and recorded by Big Joe Turner three years earlier:   [Excerpt: Big Joe Turner, “Honey Hush”]   It’s not one of Turner’s best, to be honest — leaning too heavily on the misogyny that characterised too much of his work — but over the years it has been covered by everyone from Chuck Berry to Paul McCartney, Elvis Costello to Jerry Lee Lewis. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio’s cover version is probably the best of these, and certainly the most exciting:   [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, “Honey Hush”]   This is the version of the song that inspired most of those covers, but the song that really mattered to people was the B-side, a track called “Train Kept A-Rollin'”.   “Train Kept A-Rollin'”, like many R&B songs, has a long history, and is made up of elements that one can trace back to the 1920s, or earlier in some cases. But the biggest inspiration for the track is a song called “Cow Cow Boogie”, which was originally recorded by Ella Mae Morse in 1942, but which was written for Ella Fitzgerald to sing in an Abbot and Costello film, but cut from her appearance.   Fitzgerald eventually recorded her own hit version of the song in 1943, backed by the Ink Spots, with the pianist Bill Doggett accompanying them:   [Excerpt: Ella Fitzgerald and the Ink Spots, “Cow Cow Boogie”]   That was in turn adapted by the jump band singer Tiny Bradshaw, under the title “Train Kept A-Rollin'”:   [Excerpt: Tiny Bradshaw, “The Train Kept A-Rollin'”]    And that in turn was the basis for the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio’s version of the song, which they radically rearranged to feature an octave-doubled guitar riff, apparently invented by Dorsey Burnette, but played simultaneously by Burlison and Martin, with Burlison’s guitar fuzzed up and distorted. This version of the song would become a classic:   [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”]   The single wasn’t a success, but its B-side got picked up by the generation of British guitar players that came after, and from then it became a standard of rock music. It was covered by Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages:   [Excerpt: Screaming Lord Sutch and the Savages, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”]   The Yardbirds:   [Excerpt: The Yardbirds, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”]   Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets:   [Excerpt: Shakin’ Stevens and the Sunsets, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”]    Aerosmith:   [Excerpt: Aerosmith, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”]    Motorhead:   [Excerpt: Motorhead: “Train Kept A-Rollin'”]   You get the idea. By adding a distorted guitar riff, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio had performed a kind of alchemy, which turned a simple novelty cowboy song into something that would make the repertoire of every band that ever wanted to play as loud as possible and to scream at the top of their voices the words “the train kept rolling all night long”.   Sadly, the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio didn’t last much longer. While they had always performed as the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, Coral Records decided to release their recordings as by “Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio”, and the other two members were understandably furious. They were a band, not just Johnny Burnette’s backing musicians.   Dorsey was the first to quit — he left the band a few days before they were due to appear in Rock! Rock! Rock!, a cheap exploitation film starring Alan Freed. They got Johnny Black in to replace him for the film shoot, and Dorsey rejoined shortly afterwards, but the cracks had already appeared.   They recorded one further session, but the tracks from that weren’t even released as by Johnny Burnette and the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, just by Johnny Burnette, and that was the final straw. The group split up, and went their separate ways.   Johnny remained signed to Coral Records as a solo artist, but when he and Dorsey both moved, separately, to LA, they ended up working together as songwriters.   Dorsey was contracted as a solo artist to Imperial Records, who had a new teen idol star who needed material — Ricky Nelson had had an unexpected hit after singing on his parents’ TV show, and as a result he was suddenly being promoted as a rock and roll star. Dorsey and Johnny wrote a whole string of top ten hits for Nelson, songs like “Believe What You Say”, “Waiting In School”, “It’s Late”, and “Just A Little Too Much”:   [Excerpt: Ricky Nelson, “Just a Little Too Much”]   They also started recording for Imperial as a duo, under the name “the Burnette Brothers”:   [Excerpt: The Burnette Brothers, “Warm Love”]   But that was soon stopped by Coral, who wanted to continue marketing Johnny as a solo artist, and they both started pursuing separate solo careers. Dorsey eventually had a minor hit of his own, “There Was a Tall Oak Tree”, which made the top thirty in 1960. He made a few more solo records in the early sixties, and after becoming a born-again Christian in the early seventies he started a new, successful, career as a country singer, eventually receiving a “most promising newcomer” award from the Academy of Country Music in 1973, twenty years after his career started. He died in 1979 of a heart attack.   Johnny Burnette eventually signed to Liberty Records, and had a string of hits that, like Dorsey’s, were in a very different style from the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio records. His biggest hit, and the one that most people associate with him to this day, was “You’re Sixteen, You’re Beautiful, And You’re Mine”:   [Excerpt: Johnny Burnette, “You’re Sixteen”]   That song is, of course, a perennial hit that most people still know almost sixty years later, but none of Johnny’s solo records had anything like the power and passion of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio recordings. And sadly we’ll never know if he would regain that passion, as in 1964 he died in a boating accident.   Paul Burlison, the last member of the trio, gave up music once the trio split up, and became an electrician again. He briefly joined Johnny on one tour in 1963, but otherwise stayed out of the music business until the 1980s. He then got back into performing, and started a new lineup of the Rock ‘n’ Roll Trio, featuring Johnny Black, who had briefly replaced Dorsey in the group, and Tony Austin, the drummer who had joined with them on many tour dates after they got a recording contract.   He later joined “the Sun Rhythm Section”, a band made up of many of the musicians who had played on classic rockabilly records, including Stan Kessler, Jimmy Van Eaton, Sonny Burgess, and DJ Fontana. Burlison released his only solo album in 1997. That album was called Train Kept A-Rollin’, and featured a remake of that classic song, with Rocky and Billy Burnette — Johnny and Dorsey’s sons — on vocals:   [Excerpt: Paul Burlison, “Train Kept A-Rollin'”]    He kept playing rockabilly until he died in 2003, aged seventy-four.

We review the Motley Crue movie, The Dirt, and rank our Big 5 musical artists we'd like to see movies made about. The Spice Girls were hooking up with each other, and we can't deal. Plus tons of Nerd Stuff with news about SHAZAM, Avengers: End Game, Bill & Ted's new adventure, The Walking Dead and much more. Pork is our musical theme with songs by Atmosphere, Ella Mae Morse, and Taildragger. 

VE 131 Prehistoric Rock: Roll 'Em Pete Big Joe Turner 1938 House of Blue Lights Freddie Slack (co-writer with Don Ray) and Ella Mae Morse 1946 Down the Road Apiece: Will Bradley Trio 1940 Good Rockin' Tonight: Wynonie Harris: 1948 Joe Liggins: The Honeydripper Bull Moose Jackson: Big Ten Inch Amos Milburn: One Bourbon, One Scotch One Beer Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Rock Daniel 1941 The Fat Man: Fats Domino: Louis Jordan & His Tympany 5 : Ain't That Just Like a Woman Julia Lee and her Boyfriends Gotta Gimme Whatcha Got We're Gonna Rock Wild Bill Moore 1947 Rock t he Joint: Jimmy Preston 1949 Move It On Over Hank Williams 1947 Jack Guthrie: Oakie Boogie Woody Guthrie: Jesus Christ Robert Wilkins; That's No Way To Get Along Rolling Stones: Not Fade Away Van Morrison : In The Days Before Rock And Roll. VE 131 Prehistoric Rock Today on the VE---rock, before it rolled. A rumage through the pre-historic rock vaults for songs that foreshadowed rock and roll, compiled by guest programmer Dan Miele. These are vintage recordings but their vitality will surprise you. I'm PC and this is the VE Roll 'Em Pete Big Joe Turner 1938 Prehistoric rock on the VE. From the year 1938 AD that's the blues shouting daddy of em all, Big Joe Turner with "Roll Em Pete." One of the first R&B recordings to make use of what was to become the rock and roll back beat - as opposed to the more common shuffle rhythm. This song was later recorded by Count Basie, and Joe recorded with the Basie band in later years. Joe Turner was the frist to record Shake, Rattle and Roll, which later became a hit for Bill Haley and His Comets. Things are really rockin at the House Of Blue Lights....Freddie Slack and Ella May Morse... House of Blue Lights Freddie Slack (co-writer with Don Ray) and Ella Mae Morse 1946 Down the Road Apiece: Will Bradley Trio 1940 Dinosaurs roam the earth again--it's prehistoric rock on the VE. A couple there that were echoed in 60s rock. Mitch Ryder refefrenced "house Of Blue Lights" by Freddie Slack and Ella Mae Morse, and The Rolling Stones covered Will Bradley's "Down The Road Apiece." Robert Plant recorded this one by Wynonie Mr Blues Harris with his group The Honeydrippers...and I'll follow it up with the song that gave th eband their name......... Good Rockin' Tonight: Wynonie Harris: 1948 Joe Liggins: The Honeydripper The Honeydripper was Joe Liggins, who along with Wynonie Harris, was an inspiration to Robert Plant. It's prehistoric rock on the VE. Here are a couple you'll know from their rock covers by Aerosmith and George Thorogood.... Bull Moose Jackson: Big Ten Inch ***pull from YOutube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VJpO4ObZSdg Amos Milburn: One Bourbon, One Scotch One Beer *** pull from youtubehttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5TqglR7YG1Y The VE with prehistoric rock from Amos Milburn and Bull Moose Jackson...with the original versions of songs you know well from seventies rock. Here's someon ewho held the title "queen of rock and roll" when the competition iin thie category was pretty slim....but Sister Rosetta Tharpe had it all goin gon...gospel chops and sex appeal.... Sister Rosetta Tharpe: Rock Daniel 1941 The Fat Man: Fats Domino: The VE with PreHistoric Rock....but it begins inprope with thhe fat man, Antione Domino, from 1950....the tune is a variation on the traditional New Orleans tune Junker's Blues, which also provided the melody for Lloyd Price's Lawdy Miss Clawdy. Now, the guy known as the King of the Jukebox. Louis Jordan and His Tympany Five tore it up with hilarious story-songs. His guitarist Carl Hogan guitar has been cited by Chuck Berry as one of his main influences Louis Jordan & His Tympany 5 : Ain't That Just Like a Woman 1946 http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YEqiWTb-UWA Julia Lee and her Boyfriends Gotta Gimme Whatcha Got 1946http://www.youtube.com/watch? v=Pq98BQ7E7Bk The VE with Prehistoric rock.. THAT girfriend could sing! Julia Lee And Her Boyfriends..who just happened to be two legendary names of jazz-- Benny Carter and Red Norvo. No small wonder that she commanded such prime session men--Julia sang and played piano in her brother George Lee's band, which for a time also included Charlie Parker. So where did 'rock" really begin? 1947--Wild Bill Moore We're Gonna Rock Wild Bill Moore 1947 Rock the Joint: Jimmy Preston 1949 The VE with Prehistoric Rock, and the name itself, attributed to Clevland DJ Alan Freed, was taken from tenor sax man Will Bill Moore's "We're Gonna Rock" which showed up on his Moondog Show radio programs...also Jimmy Preston and Rock The Joint. Let's rock out today's VE with one more that George Thorogood latched on to, by a legend of country music who died before rock was born... Move It On Over Hank Williams 1947 Jack Guthrie: Oakie Boogie The Year was 1947. And like the legendary flying saucer that crash landed in Roswell, New Mexico, the alien music life form of rock and roll was taking shape with some help from country cousin Hank Williams, and right there Jack Guthrie and the western swing jam "Oakie Boogie, which Bill Haley's Rock Around The Clock owes a debt to. Jack was the cousin of the seminal American music figure who would have been 100 years old this week. Woody introduced one element of what would become rock that we haven't touched on yet...the political and intellectual...soomething that was rare in popular music of his day...but as a folk singer, Woody could speak his mind, and he makes an obvious political statement in this song from 1940: Woody Guthrie: Jesus Christ Robert Wilkins; That's No Way To Get Along Pre Historic Rock on The VE....Woody Guthrie, Jesus Christ, and Revered Robert Wilkins, "That's No Way To Get Along..." rock rooted in bible stories....and that last one brings us to the half century mark this week of the British rock band that brought all the early influences together in an entirely new, original sound. Rolling Stones: Not Fade Away 50 years ago, the Rolling Stones played their first gig at The Marquee Club in London. This week, they posed outside thevenue and strongly hinted at a fiftieth anniversary tour. Not Fade Away. 20 years ago, let alone 50, who would have thought that would be The Rolling Stones legacy. To top off this VE exploration of Prehistoric rock, here is an evocative and epic song by another great interperter of the rock roots. From his 1990 album "Enlightenment," Van Morrsion sings of "The Days Before Rock And Roll, " and how those distant radio signals in the deepest night brought a brilliant new light into his young world. Van Morrison : In The Days Before Rock And Roll. And that's the VE. A true mystic poet, Van Morrsion always finds a way to say it for all of us. Find past VE shows archived at PRN.FM and on demand aty RDTS.CA. Please share the VE Radio Show with a Facebook friend, and follow me on Twitter. I'm PC

Enjoying the show? Please support BFF.FM with a donation. Playlist 0′00″ The Petite Waltz by Billy Cotton & His Band on I've Got a Lovely Bunch of Coconuts (Ideal Music) 5′32″ How High The Moon by Les Paul,Mary Ford on The Hit Makers (Capitol Records) 7′26″ Cold, Cold Heart by Hank Williams on The Best Of Hank Williams 20th Century Masters The Millennium Collection Volume 2 (Universal Strategic Marketing) 10′06″ On Top Of Old Smoky by The Weavers,Terry Gilkyson & Chorus & Orchestra,Vic Schoen & His Orchestra on The Best Of The Decca Years (Geffen* Records) 15′32″ T-99 Blues by Jimmy "T99" Nelson on Cry Hard Luck (ACE) 18′26″ I'm In The Mood by John Lee Hooker on His Best Chess Sides (Geffen* Records) 21′08″ How Many More Years by Howlin' Wolf on Bluesmaster (Universal Special Markets) 25′37″ The Blacksmith Blues by Ella Mae Morse,Freddie Slack And His Orchestra on Capitol Collectors Series (Capitol Records) 28′31″ Sweet violets by Dinah Shore on Fifty #1 Hits Of The '50s (Legacy Recordings) 31′19″ Belle, Belle, My Liberty Belle by Guy Mitchell on The Very Best of Guy Mitchell (Simply Media TV Ltd) 35′51″ Because Of You by Les Baxter on Baxter's Best (Capitol Records) 38′18″ You're Just In Love (I Wonder Why) by Perry Como on Perry Como with the Fontane Sisters (RCA Records Label) 41′14″ Try a little tenderness by Frank Sinatra on Romance: Songs From The Heart (Capitol Records) 44′38″ Too Young by Nat King Cole on Nat King Cole (Capitol Records) 50′53″ Why Don't You Eat Where You Slept Last Night? by Zuzu Bollin on Texas Bluesman (New West Records) 52′50″ My Baby's Just Like Money by Lefty Frizzell on The Right Lane with Lefty Frizzell (Shami Media Group 3) 54′49″ Chica boo by Lloyd Glenn on Old King Gold Volume 4 (King Records) 59′19″ A kiss to build a dream on by Louis Armstrong on Louis - The Best Of Louis Armstrong (Universal Music Group) Check out the full archives on the website.

#257 I Hate Valentine!1.Rose Mitchell -Baby please don't go-19542.Sugar Pie DeSanto-Can't Let You Go-19613.Holly Golightly-Tell Me Now So I Know-20034.Timi Yuro-Ain't Gonna Cry No More-19625.Ernestine Anderson-Keep an eye on love-19636.Bobbie Smith & The Dream Girls-Don't Break My Heart-19607.Rev-Lons-I Can't Forget About You-19638.2 Of Clubs-My first heartbreak-19669.Ike & Tina Turner -Am I A Fool In Love-196410.Carl Smith & June Carter -Time's A Wastin'-195311.Sammi Smith -Why Do You Do Me Like You Do-196812.Dolly Parton-It's Sure Gonna Hurt -196213.The Stereos-I Really Love You -198914.Brook Benton -Hurtin' Inside-195915.The Blenders-Don't fuck around with love-196016.Lucille Bogan aka Bessie Jackson-Shave 'em dry -193517.Mary Wells-Bye Bye Baby-196118.Mitty Collier-Pain-196319.Mamie Perry-Lament-195920.Frances Burr-I say no, no more-196421.Jimmy Norman-I Don't Love You No More (I Don't Care About You)-196222.Gloria Jones-Tainted Love-196423.Bobby Nelson Quartet-There Ain't Nothin' True About You-195824.Dennis Smith -This Little Heart-196525.Wanda Jackson-Whirlpool-196026.Ella Mae Morse & Tennessee Ernie Ford -False Hearted Girl-195227.Brigitte and the Fire Strings -Waarom vertrouw je mij niet meer-196428.The Booby Traps-Shoulda Known Better-200629.The Routes-Tell Me Ain't So-200630.The Sonics-Psycho-196531.The Fabulous Wailers-I Idolize You-196132.The Donnas-Get Rid Of That Girl-199733.Gravy Train!!!!-I Wanna Wanna Wanna Wanna Get Rid of You- 200534.The Mummies-I'm Gonna Kill My Baby Tonight-200435.The Reatards-Sick When I See-1999DOWNLOAD | SUBSCRIBE TO RAMPAGE | SUBSCRIBE TO RADIOMUTATION | FACEBOOK | ITUNES | TWITTER| MIXCLOUD

Records left off earlier podcasts, and a tribute to musicians who passed away in 2016 . Songs include: Red Sails In the Sunset, Dizzy Fingers, Pig Foot Pete, Steel Guitar Blues, Caprice #24, Drummin' Man and Stomping At the Savoy. Performers include: Ella Mae Morse, Roy Acuff, Zez Confrey, Monette More, George Shearing and Glenn Miller.

Here it is!! The second part of the Valentine special!! Episode #250 'I Hate Valentine Even More'!!! (This episode is also without any comment, so you can drown some more in pain!!)Playlist:1. Wayne Walker - All I Can Do Is Cry - 19562. Shirley Jean - I'll Get Even With You - 19613. Dorie Sudduth - You're No Good For Me - 19594. Connie Carroll - No Way Out - 20015. Timi Yuro - Ain't Gonna Cry No More - 19626. Mitty Collier - Pain - 19637. Holly Golightly - Tell Me Now So I Know - 20038. Betty Lavette - Let Me Down Easy - 19659. Jerry Arnold - When you said goodbye10. Bobby Nelson Quartet - There Ain't Nothin' True About You - 195811. Dolly Parton - It's Sure Gonna Hurt - 196212. Denny Ezba - Dirty, Dirty Feelin' - 196213. Ella Mae Morse & Tennessee Ernie Ford - False Hearted Girl - 195214. The Booby Traps - Shoulda Known Better - 200615. The Donnas - Get Rid Of That Girl - 199716. The Okmoniks - You Took What I Ain't Got - 200517. The Barracudas - Baby Get Lost - 196418. Mamie Perry - Lament - 195919. Merle Spears - I want to know - 196420. Jimmy Norman - I Don't Love You No More (I Don't Care About You) - 196221. Gloria Jones - Tainted Love - 196422. LaVern Baker - Bumble Bee - 195523. Pete Cooke & The Baby Dolls - (This is your last kiss) Take it and git - 196324. Dusty Wilson - Can't Do Without You25. The Ikettes - I'm Blue (the gong-gong song - 196126. Sugar Pie DeSanto - Can't Let You Go - 196127. The Blenders - Don't fuck around with love - 1960DOWNLOAD | SUBSCRIBE | SUBSCRIBE TO ALL | FACEBOOK | ITUNES | TWITTER| MIXCLOUD

Records featuring the potato & the sweet potato.  Songs include: Potato Head Blues, Solid Potato Salad, The Yam, Sweet Potato Piper, All That Meat and No Potatoes, Sweet Potato Swing & Hot Potato. Performers include: Louis Armstrong, Ella Mae Morse, Glenn Miller, The Foursome, Johnny Dodds and Thomas "Fats" Waller.

Peppy Angel Baby and somnolent Doctor Nod come on with jazz babies, runaways, weepers, proto-goths and substance heads before going out on a cool r&b cover. Won't You Listen To Me Baby – Ella Mae Morse with Big Dave – Capitol / Lil's Baby – Bill P. Howell & The Jazz Warriors – Colt / Baby Lou – Jimmy Drew – Decca / Runaway Daughters – Ted Rambo and The Shades – Peak / Rovin' Girl – Gloria Henson – Capitol / Runaway – Don Berry And The New Dimensions – Pinto / I'm Just A Cry Baby – Robert And Gladys Luter and The KY Pals – Jaxon / Sniff, Sniff, Boo Hoo Hoo Hoo – Mary Blevins – Rich-R-Tone / My Tears – Jerry Sparks – Fidelity / The Girl With The Raven Hair – Jody Reynolds – Demon / You Picked Up A Stranger – Sterling Blythe – Sand / It's A Dark, Dark Place – The Maddox Brothers And Rose – Columbia / “I.D.'s Please” – Mark And The Marcons – Impalla / Breathalyser – The Cocktail Cabinet – Page One / Marijuana Weed – Aundis Davis – Vetco / Jambalaya – Titus Turner – OKeh

Highlights from the World War II era radio show, Jubilee. Jubilee was an Armed Forces Radio request show targeting African-American servicemen and women.  Songs include: Paper Doll, Straighten Up and Fly Right, Buzz Me, One O'Clock Jump and Please Don't Cry.  Performers include: Lena Horne, Duke Ellington, Ella Mae Morse, Count Basie, The Golden Gate Quartet, Andy Kirk  and Dinah Washington.

Listen[audio:http://media.rvanews.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/03/The-Bopst-Show-Easy-Relaxing-Enjoyable-Episode-229.mp3|titles=The Bopst Show -- Easy, Relaxing & Enjoyable -- Episode 229]SubscribeiTunes: The Bopst show podcastEverything else: The Bopst show podcastDownloadThe Bopst Show -- Easy, Relaxing & Enjoyable -- Episode 229— ∮∮∮ —Title: The Bopst Show: "Easy, Relaxing & Enjoyable (Episode 229)"Rating: PG-13 (Adult Situations & Language)Intent: To eliminate cigarette hangover…Random Richmond Diversion: The number becomes more staggering, less defensible and perhaps more immoralRandom USA Diversion: I'm happy to blame the mediaRandom World Diversion: Shrinking Otto PenisRandom Image: Easy Relaxing EnjoyableRandom Music Blog:

A mystery and private eye special with guest star Humphrey Bogart! And featuring a surf-tastic band from Brighton called The Space Agency. Plus lots more music and radio fun from Ella Mae Morse, Louis Jordan, Rita Hayworth and Stan Freberg as well as your song requests. Happy listening, Dusty x

Comenzamos con Ella Mae Morse cantando 'The blacksmith blues' (El blues del herrero), de 1951. Luego pasamos a otro yunque, el que se oye en el 'Coro de los gitanos' de la ópera 'Il trovatore', de Verdi, que escuchamos en un arreglo swing, por la orquesta de Glenn Miller, en una grabación de 1944. En la película de los Hermanos Marx 'Una noche en la ópera', rodada en 1935, se oía un dúo titulado 'Alone', cantado por Kitty Carlisle y Allan Jones. En otra película de la MGM, 'Thousands cheer', de 1942, Judy Garland y el pianista español José Iturbi interpretaban el dinámico número 'The joint is really jumpin' down in Carnegie Hall' (El local está que arde en el Carnegie Hall) y empieza con Iturbi tocando una pieza cásica. Iturbi intervino también en 'Anchors aweigh' (Levando anclas), en una simpática escena con Frank Sinatra sobre el 'Concierto para piano nº 1' de Chaikovski. Otras piezas clásicas tocadas con swing en este programa son: la 'Habanera' de la ópera 'Carmen', de Bizet, convertida en 1941 por la orquesta de Charlie Barnet en 'Spanish kick'; la 'Polonesa en La bemol Mayor' de Chopin, que Raúl Abril grabó en español en 1947 con el título de 'Pobre corazón'; el tango 'Violeta', basado en un aria de 'La traviata', de Verdi, en versión instrumental por Manolo Bel y sus Muchachos; 'I'm afraid the masquerade is over' (Me temo que se acabó la mascarada), grabada por Helen Merrill en 1955, que menciona al protagonista de la ópera 'Pagliacci', de Leoncavallo; y 'Hurricane Anthony', versión swing de la 'Quinta sinfonía', de Beethoven, grabada en 1953 por Ray Anthony. Terminamos con un clásico del rock and roll: 'Roll over, Beethoven', grabado en 1956 por Chuck Berry, que el 18 de octubre cumple 85 años, y que todavía sigue cantando, tocando su guitarra y deleitando al público con sus ingeniosas canciones. Escuchar audio

Million-selling records from the World War 2 era. Songs include: Pistol Packin Mama, Paper Doll, Praise the Lord and Pass the Ammunition and Cow Cow Boogie. Performers include: Glen Miller, Bing Crosby, The Mills Brothers, Ella Mae Morse and Spike Jones.