Track listing
- A Rocket "88" 2:47
- B Come Back Where You Belong 2:44
- Total length: 5:31
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3 Issues
- Release view [combined information for all issues]
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Rocket "88" / Come Back Where You Belong [p] 78 rpm, Mono
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Rocket "88" / Come Back Where You Belong 45 rpm, Mono
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Rocket "88" / Come Back Where You Belong 45 rpm, Limited Edition
8 Reviews
This song has been accepted as the first rock n'roll song by The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Perhaps a better call would have been Good Rockin' Tonight by Wynonie Harris from 1948 but when the music is good as this, it's a moot point. Rocket '88 is driving, energetic good times music- one of the tracks that created the sound of the 1950's. Fittingly enough, the 'first rock song' is about the relationship between sex and cars. If that isn't rock, what is?
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Even if this really is the First Rock 'n' Roll Record, it's a bit like calling a third-millennium Cycladic figurine the first Greek sculpture. That is to say: it's not quite what we mean, is it? Nick Tosches, in his 1977 book on country music, provides important historical context by tracing the history of the term 'rock and roll' and the ensuing definition and refinement of its rhythm: from the Boswell Sisters' 1934 "Rock and Roll" through literally dozens of jump blues, boogie-woogie, and country songs. Trying to find the first rock and roll record, as Tosches points out, is like trying to find the point 'where blue becomes indigo in the spectrum.'
For what it's worth, I'd say the rhythm of "Rocket '88'" is still a bit too much of a shuffle. But the song definitely ticks most of the required boxes. Loud. Guitar-based. (Seemingly) dumb. Lyrics about both sex and cars. It's a sloppy birth, if it is a birth: the drums feel like they could fall off the beat at any moment; the sax gets squealier and sweatier as it goes on; the fuzz guitar, courtesy of Sam Phillips stuffing newspaper in a broken amp cone, brings the heft; and the piano spews and spatters like beer suds in a loud crowded bar. (The B-side is the even sloppier - and much slower - stumble home.) The instrumental outro always gets me, too: something about the combination of that guitar with these horns brings a twang that reminds me of prime western swing. But much different with that rhythm.
Chess paid each musician $20 for this song, which makes it the Louisiana Purchase of popular music.
For what it's worth, I'd say the rhythm of "Rocket '88'" is still a bit too much of a shuffle. But the song definitely ticks most of the required boxes. Loud. Guitar-based. (Seemingly) dumb. Lyrics about both sex and cars. It's a sloppy birth, if it is a birth: the drums feel like they could fall off the beat at any moment; the sax gets squealier and sweatier as it goes on; the fuzz guitar, courtesy of Sam Phillips stuffing newspaper in a broken amp cone, brings the heft; and the piano spews and spatters like beer suds in a loud crowded bar. (The B-side is the even sloppier - and much slower - stumble home.) The instrumental outro always gets me, too: something about the combination of that guitar with these horns brings a twang that reminds me of prime western swing. But much different with that rhythm.
Chess paid each musician $20 for this song, which makes it the Louisiana Purchase of popular music.
Published
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A
Rocket "88"
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B
Come Back Where You Belong
El estilo de Brenston (por cierto, primo de Ike Turner) se inspira en el rhythm and blues más rápido de la década pasada de artistas como Louis Jordan o Wynonie Harris, e inicia una seguidilla de éxitos que relacionan esta potencia musical con letras sobre chicas y autos veloces, en un camuflado éxtasis sexual.
En esta linea, el sello Chess Records fue uno de los fundamentales, que en esta ocasión contó con la producción del visionario Sam Phillips, quien daría el empujón definitivo al rock and roll.
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The first rock n' roll song ever ...
Recorded on the 3rd of March 1951 and touted by Sam Phillips of Sun Records, the self proclaimed discoverer of rock n’ roll, as the first rock record ever, “Rocket 88” hit the store shelves on April 1st, the month of my birth, where I’m sure that the new vibes circling the globe had me dancing out of the womb.“Rocket 88” was a lively new number recorded by Jackie Brenston & The Delta Cats, who in reality were Ike Turner’s band The Kings of Rhythm, where Brenston was the saxophone player, with the song being being penned by both Brenston and Turner, though Turner was not initially given due credits. The song regarded the Oldsmobile model Rocket 88 and was deeply influenced by the 1947 track “Cadillac Boogie” along with the instrumental “Rocket 88 Boogie.” The song broke new ground, fusing the styles of jump blues and swing, featuring a fuzzed out guitar with biting raw edges, bestowing on listeners a blistering swagger for the times and redefining music forever.
While reaching number one on the R&B charts, “Rocket 88” cast a long shadow across the world of music, where it was instantly picked up on by white musicians and fans such as Bill Haley & The Saddlemen (who was still living in the cowboy age), and would change their name to Bill Haley & The Comets, reflecting the coming of the age of space, based solely on this song, where he would go on to do a white man’s cover before springing “Rock Around The Clock” on the radio airwaves.
Sadly Brenston achieved no further musical accomplishments, would go onto become an alcoholic and die at the age of 49. Ike Turner on the other hand would go on to take the world by storm at Woodstock eighteen years later, and like Brenston, would soon face and be destroyed by his own demons.
Now … there are others who claim that it was Roy Brown with his single “Good Rocking Tonight,” and the first song to incorporate the word rocking, was the genesis of rock n’ roll, where he followed up the hit with “Rocking About Midnight,” again infusing the song with the word rocking a few years earlier in 1947. Believe me, I searched and questioned, and I’ve never seen an image of it, though it’s claimed by many that Elvis Presley came face to face with Roy Brown backstage, whom he’d shamelessly stolen from, immediately wrote Brown a sizable check on the only thing handy, a brown paper bag.
The style and space-age references weren’t the only things up and coming musicians would copy from Brenston, who also had a hit in 1950 with the number “Cadillac Baby,” as it was thought that merely writing a song about a particular car model, or driving in general, would make for an instant hit. Regardless of whom one thinks first broke the ice … it’s Brenston who’s given the credit.
*** The Fun Facts: Band names are always interesting, with The Delta Cats notably considered to be a group of jive cats (men) from the Delta region of Mississippi. Though in a an obscure article in Downbeat Magazine, Brenston implies that the band took their name from the stray cats prowling along the delta banks, visible from the windows of the Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale, Mississippi where the band rehearsed.
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The drummer is awful but I guess everything's gotta start somewhere
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"Rocket "88"" was cut in Memphis, Tennessee on 5 March 1951 by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats comprising Jackie Brenston (tenor saxophone and vocal), Raymond Hill and Eugene Foster (tenor saxophone), Ike Turner (piano), Willie Kizart (guitar), Jesse Knight (bass) and Willie Sims (drums). The record was produced by Sam Phillips.
The Delta Cats were actually Ike Turner's Rhythm Kings, but as Brenston, Turner's cousin, wrote the song and sang the vocal, his name appeared on the record label. Ike was so angered at not being credited on the record label that he decamped his band from Chess to the Bihari brothers' Modern Records subsidiary RPM Records, meaning Sam Phillips and Brenston had to hire new musicians for Jackie's subsequent recordings.
"Rocket "88" has a direct antecedent in "Cadillac Boogie" [1948] by Jimmy Liggins and His Drops of Joy, which has the same melody, rhythm and vocal feel and similar lyrics as the subsequent "Rocket "88"".
The Brenston record is a paean to the 1949 Hydra-Matic Drive V-8 Oldsmobile 88, which was marketed as "the lowest priced car with the "Rocket" engine".
The intensely rocking performance has a fiercely swinging score with Ike's hard pumping boogie piano, rocking riffing tenor saxophones, and two very fine honking tenor saxophone breaks by 17 year old Raymond Hill which drives the momentum along, but the real highlight is Kizart's fuzztone guitar, of which "Rocket "88"" is the first recorded example.
The fuzztone sound arose because Kizart's amplifier had fallen from the band's van on the way to the studio [or been damaged by rain leaking into the car's trunk, stories vary], and Sam Phillips had repaired the broken speaker cone by filling it with paper, which generated the distorted fuzz tone by accident.
Above all this awesome musical mayhem, Jackie vivaciously describes the joy of his Oldsmobile 88:-
You women have heard of jalopies
You've heard the noise they make
But let me introduce my new Rocket "88"
Yes, it's great, just won't wait
Everybody likes my Rocket "88"
Baby, we'll ride in style, movin' all along
V-8 motor and this modern design
Black convertible top and the gals don't mind
Sportin' with me, ridin' all 'round town for joy
[Spoken:- Blow your horn, Raymond, blow your horn!]
Step in my Rocket and don't be late
Baby, we're pullin' out about half past eight
Goin' on the corner and get a fill
Everybody in my car's gonna take a little nip
Move on out, oozin' and cruisin' along
A big commercial success, "Rocket "88"" became Jackie Brenston's only hit when it entered The Billboard Best Selling Retail Rhythm & Blues Records chart on 12 May 1951, climbing to #1 on 9 June 1951 and residing at the summit for 3 weeks, eventually securing a run of 18 weeks on a list in total. It did even better on The Billboard Most Played Juke Box Rhythm & Blues Records, spending 5 weeks at the apex of #1 which it first scaled on 23 June 1951.
"Rocket "88"" is certainly not the first rock 'n' roll record as is frequently claimed, being any number of years too late for that accolade depending on your perspective, but it is unquestionably a rock 'n' roll masterpiece.
The Delta Cats were actually Ike Turner's Rhythm Kings, but as Brenston, Turner's cousin, wrote the song and sang the vocal, his name appeared on the record label. Ike was so angered at not being credited on the record label that he decamped his band from Chess to the Bihari brothers' Modern Records subsidiary RPM Records, meaning Sam Phillips and Brenston had to hire new musicians for Jackie's subsequent recordings.
"Rocket "88" has a direct antecedent in "Cadillac Boogie" [1948] by Jimmy Liggins and His Drops of Joy, which has the same melody, rhythm and vocal feel and similar lyrics as the subsequent "Rocket "88"".
The Brenston record is a paean to the 1949 Hydra-Matic Drive V-8 Oldsmobile 88, which was marketed as "the lowest priced car with the "Rocket" engine".
The intensely rocking performance has a fiercely swinging score with Ike's hard pumping boogie piano, rocking riffing tenor saxophones, and two very fine honking tenor saxophone breaks by 17 year old Raymond Hill which drives the momentum along, but the real highlight is Kizart's fuzztone guitar, of which "Rocket "88"" is the first recorded example.
The fuzztone sound arose because Kizart's amplifier had fallen from the band's van on the way to the studio [or been damaged by rain leaking into the car's trunk, stories vary], and Sam Phillips had repaired the broken speaker cone by filling it with paper, which generated the distorted fuzz tone by accident.
Above all this awesome musical mayhem, Jackie vivaciously describes the joy of his Oldsmobile 88:-
You women have heard of jalopies
You've heard the noise they make
But let me introduce my new Rocket "88"
Yes, it's great, just won't wait
Everybody likes my Rocket "88"
Baby, we'll ride in style, movin' all along
V-8 motor and this modern design
Black convertible top and the gals don't mind
Sportin' with me, ridin' all 'round town for joy
[Spoken:- Blow your horn, Raymond, blow your horn!]
Step in my Rocket and don't be late
Baby, we're pullin' out about half past eight
Goin' on the corner and get a fill
Everybody in my car's gonna take a little nip
Move on out, oozin' and cruisin' along
A big commercial success, "Rocket "88"" became Jackie Brenston's only hit when it entered The Billboard Best Selling Retail Rhythm & Blues Records chart on 12 May 1951, climbing to #1 on 9 June 1951 and residing at the summit for 3 weeks, eventually securing a run of 18 weeks on a list in total. It did even better on The Billboard Most Played Juke Box Rhythm & Blues Records, spending 5 weeks at the apex of #1 which it first scaled on 23 June 1951.
"Rocket "88"" is certainly not the first rock 'n' roll record as is frequently claimed, being any number of years too late for that accolade depending on your perspective, but it is unquestionably a rock 'n' roll masterpiece.
Published
Love this song. I've had a long fascination with the "key change" that occurs about 3 seconds into the song. It sounds like the recording speed was changed hastily upon the onset of the final take. This adds an idiosyncrasy that makes me like the song more. Does anyone know anything about this?
Published
Branded by many as the first Rock 'n' Roll record, this was actually performed by Ike Turner and his Kings of Rythm plus Ike's younger cousin Jackie Brenston singing lead. The session was produced by Sam Phillips in the Sun Studios, Memphis, and the output was leased to Chess (Sun Records didn't exist yet).
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