#41 'Rocket 88' by Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats (1951)

SONG

"Now this is more like it! A bit of old fashioned rock 'n' roll. I will admit though that a lot of music from this time sounds much the same to me. This could be any classic rock 'n' roll song." - LC

Written by: Jackie Brenston.
Producer: Sam Phillips and Ike Turner.
Label: Chess.

FACTS

• This is often cited as the first rock 'n' roll record (so I suppose, in actual fact, the songs that sounds like must have copied this one but as I was born over three decades after its release, I know a lot of songs that sound like this).
• The pianist on the track is none other than Izear Luster Turner Jr., better known as Ike Turner of 'Ike & Tina Turner' fame.
• In March 1951, Turner and his band The Kings of Rhythm traveled to cut a session at Sam Phillips's Memphis Recording Service, which later became Sun Studio, in Memphis, Tennessee. The band's vocalist/saxophonist Jackie Brenston, who also happened to be Ike's cousin, sang lead on Rocket 88. Phillips leased the master to Chicago's Chess record label.
• Chess records were impressed with song and released it but they renamed the artist as Jackie Brenston & His Delta Cats. This angered Turner, who watched the song soar to number 1 on the Billboard R&B chart.  Turner also disputed that Brenston is the sole author of the song.
• The fuzzy noise that can be heard in the background of the track is the result of guitarist Willie Kizart's amp falling from the roof of the band's car on the way to the studio, puncturing the speaker's cone, which Phillips then tried to fix by stuffing it with paper.
• If you recognised the riff but hadn't heard this song before then you may know it from Little Richard's Good Golly, Miss Molly (1958), which stole the riff from this song, or from Cadillac Boogie (1947) by Jimmy Liggins, which this song pinched it from.
• The song was covered by a country group called Bill Haley and the Saddlemen. Haley later went on to form rock 'n' roll group Bill Haley and the Comets (you might have heard of 'em, haha).