Roy Acuff – The Wabash Cannonball
I was driving through a stretch of Tennessee backroads, the kind where the asphalt is sun-cracked and the only companion…
Charlie Gracie – Butterfly
The air hung thick with possibility in the winter of 1956. Rock and Roll was less a genre then and…
Chuck Berry – You Can’t Catch Me
The sound of Chuck Berry is the sound of an engine turning over in a dark garage, the promise of…
Percy Faith And His Orchestra – Theme From A Summer Place (1959)
The year is 1960. Rock and roll, barely five years old, has already changed everything, yet the airwaves are not…
Jackie Wilson – Reet Petite (1957)
The air in the studio must have been charged with a volatile electricity. It was 1957, and Jack Leroy Wilson…
Link Wray – Rumble (1958)
The air in the diner hung thick and greasy, the fluorescent lights buzzing an off-key accompaniment to the jukebox in…
Buddy Holly – Rave On (1958)
The air in the little diner booth was thick with the smell of stale coffee and fryer grease. Outside, the…
Little Richard – Good Golly Miss Molly (1958)
The air in the room changes when the needle drops on this track. It’s an immediate, visceral response—a sudden infusion…
James Brown & The Famous Flames – Try Me! (1959)
The air in the late 1950s music scene was thick with the sweet, polished sheen of vocal groups and the…
B.B. King – Three O’Clock Blues (Live) (1951)
It is three o’clock in the morning. Not the polished, neon-drenched three o’clock of a late-night talk show, but the…