Chords for Earliest Rock & Roll songs Part 1
Tempo:
118.3 bpm
Chords used:
A
D
G
F
E
Tuning:Standard Tuning (EADGBE)Capo:+0fret
Start Jamming...
All flavors of rock can trace their roots back to the blues, but blues has a rich history of its own.
From London, this is how blues evolved with your host, Paul Mary.
[Eb] [Eb]
[D]
This is [A] Ike Turner's [Ebm] Rocket 88, a [Gb] 12-bar [G] blues often [C] mistakenly [F] described as the world's first rock and roll [Eb] record.
[N] It's from 1951, five years [G] before Bill Haley's [C] Rock Around the Clock.
Rocket 88 was actually [Ab] released under the [G] name of Jackie Brenston and his [Gb] Delta Cats, a [G] band that never existed.
Jackie Brenston was [C] in fact the singer and sax [Gb] player in Ike Turner's band, Ike [Bb] Turner's Kings of Rhythm.
[D] [B] Ike, just [E] 19, [N] recorded Rocket 88 for Sam Phillips at Sun Records in Memphis, based on earlier jump blues songs, which we'll come to in a moment.
The misconception that Rocket 88 was the first rock and roll [D] record was put [Bb] about by Sam [Ab] the Man Phillips himself, [A] a legendary self-promoter who [D] produced Rocket [A] 88.
The record's [C] success, however, was the catalyst that caused Sam Phillips to say, [D] as Ike Turner [Eb] told it,
Well [Bb] man, if I [F] get me a white boy to sound like a black boy, then I got me a gold mine.
The white boy, of [G] course, would be [D] Elvis Presley.
So if it's not Rocket 88, what was the [A] world's first rock and [Eb] roll record?
[C]
Over the next few weeks, you'll be [E] listening to the rock and roll records that actually preceded the so-called [G] birth of rock and roll in the early [Eb] 1950s.
[Bb] Since the term rock and [F] roll, to describe the rock and blues [E] music newly [D] discovered by white [Ebm] teenagers, [F] wasn't even coined [Eb] until [E] 1952, by the DJ [G] Alan Freed, of course,
these records at the time were [C] released as blues, [Fm] jump blues [G] or boogie woogie.
[Gbm] However, the [B] words rock and [E] roll had been linked together in the blues for [Dm] many years.
[A]
[Dm] For [E] your interest, here's the [Gb] very first record ever to relate rock with roll.
[A] It's from 1922 and it's sung by 27 year old [F] Trixie Smith, [D] a middle class, [Dm] university educated black [F] woman from Atlanta, Georgia.
And yes, [E] such women, together with middle [F] class, [Eb] university educated African [F] American men, did exist in the blues [Gb] music industry in [G] those [F] early days, much more than we [Gb] like to believe.
[D] Indeed, the song's composer, the first composer [Eb] to ever [A] couple rock with roll, one J.
Bernie Barber, was a black double [D] music graduate from Kentucky, born [B] in 1881.
The song's called My Man Rocks Me, [D] brackets, with one [Dm] steady roll.
[A] Take it away, Trixie.
[D] [A]
[Dm]
[D]
[E]
[A] [Dm] I looked at the clock [A] and the clock stopped running.
I said, now Daddy, ain't we got fun?
[Dm] All [A] blues rock to me, with one [Dm] steady roll.
[A] My man rocks to me, [Dm] with one steady roll.
[G] Trixie Smith from 1922 [A] with the first blues ever to mention rock and [F] roll.
But now let's get on to some real [B] rocking blues rock and roll.
[Db] Let me hand you over to the Great Muddy Waters to continue his story.
[A] You [E]
[A] [G] know [D]
[C] the blues [A] got soul.
What is the story?
A story ain't never been told.
[E] Why do the blues got passion?
[A] And they name the band they rock and roll.
In [D] 1976, [E] the Albino Texan, blues guitar [Am] virtuoso, Johnny Winter, persuaded his record company to record [E] 64 year old McKinley Morgan fill [A] Muddy Waters [C] to You and Me.
[A] One of the tracks was this classic.
[Am] The blues had a baby and they named the [Em] baby rock and roll.
Well the blues had a baby and [D] they named the [C] baby [A] rock and roll.
[Dm]
[E] [Am] Muddy sums it up perfectly, doesn't he?
The blues had a baby and that baby was rock and roll.
The track was on Muddy's comeback [E]
album, Hard [Am] Again.
It's hard to believe now, but Muddy Waters had been out of fashion and [Gbm] hardly heard of for some 20 years.
[E] The Johnny Winter produced Hard [A] Again was a triumphant return to the electric Chicago blues [Am] sound that had made Muddy Waters name back in the 1950s.
Co-writer [Cm] of On The Blues Had [Am] A Baby, incidentally, was Muddy Waters' old blues contemporary, fellow [Em] guitarist, Brownie McGee.
[E] So what were those [A] rock and blues songs, sounding just like rock [D] and roll, that came before Ike Turner's Rocket 88?
[A]
I've got 11 to play you.
We'll start [Bm] the top 10 with the blues and finish [Am] off this time, let's go out with Rock The [F] Joint [A] by Jimmy [Ab] Preston [A] and his Pastoreans.
Recorded in Philadelphia in May [Dm] 1949.
[Bb] [F]
[Gm] [C]
[Dm] Old [D] timers might just recognize this [F] song as covered by Bill Haley and his then band, not The Comets, but The Settlement, [D] three years later in [G] 1952.
The cover version of this record [F] was Haley's follow up to another rock and [G] blues he'd covered in 1951, Would [F] You Believe [A] Ike Turner's Rocket [Fm] 88, which is where we came in.
[G] Here's Jimmy Preston [Gb] with the [C] original Rock The Joint from [G] 1949.
We're gonna honk a bump, we're gonna beat a bump, yeah, [Cm] every gal's gonna [B] cut.
[D] To learn more about the unique [Dm] history of this time-tested music, you can purchase How The [Bb] Blues Evolved by Paul Mary on [G] Amazon.com or check out his website, [C] paulmaryblues [F].blogspot.co .uk.
[Gm] [F]
[G] [F]
[G]
From London, this is how blues evolved with your host, Paul Mary.
[Eb] [Eb]
[D]
This is [A] Ike Turner's [Ebm] Rocket 88, a [Gb] 12-bar [G] blues often [C] mistakenly [F] described as the world's first rock and roll [Eb] record.
[N] It's from 1951, five years [G] before Bill Haley's [C] Rock Around the Clock.
Rocket 88 was actually [Ab] released under the [G] name of Jackie Brenston and his [Gb] Delta Cats, a [G] band that never existed.
Jackie Brenston was [C] in fact the singer and sax [Gb] player in Ike Turner's band, Ike [Bb] Turner's Kings of Rhythm.
[D] [B] Ike, just [E] 19, [N] recorded Rocket 88 for Sam Phillips at Sun Records in Memphis, based on earlier jump blues songs, which we'll come to in a moment.
The misconception that Rocket 88 was the first rock and roll [D] record was put [Bb] about by Sam [Ab] the Man Phillips himself, [A] a legendary self-promoter who [D] produced Rocket [A] 88.
The record's [C] success, however, was the catalyst that caused Sam Phillips to say, [D] as Ike Turner [Eb] told it,
Well [Bb] man, if I [F] get me a white boy to sound like a black boy, then I got me a gold mine.
The white boy, of [G] course, would be [D] Elvis Presley.
So if it's not Rocket 88, what was the [A] world's first rock and [Eb] roll record?
[C]
Over the next few weeks, you'll be [E] listening to the rock and roll records that actually preceded the so-called [G] birth of rock and roll in the early [Eb] 1950s.
[Bb] Since the term rock and [F] roll, to describe the rock and blues [E] music newly [D] discovered by white [Ebm] teenagers, [F] wasn't even coined [Eb] until [E] 1952, by the DJ [G] Alan Freed, of course,
these records at the time were [C] released as blues, [Fm] jump blues [G] or boogie woogie.
[Gbm] However, the [B] words rock and [E] roll had been linked together in the blues for [Dm] many years.
[A]
[Dm] For [E] your interest, here's the [Gb] very first record ever to relate rock with roll.
[A] It's from 1922 and it's sung by 27 year old [F] Trixie Smith, [D] a middle class, [Dm] university educated black [F] woman from Atlanta, Georgia.
And yes, [E] such women, together with middle [F] class, [Eb] university educated African [F] American men, did exist in the blues [Gb] music industry in [G] those [F] early days, much more than we [Gb] like to believe.
[D] Indeed, the song's composer, the first composer [Eb] to ever [A] couple rock with roll, one J.
Bernie Barber, was a black double [D] music graduate from Kentucky, born [B] in 1881.
The song's called My Man Rocks Me, [D] brackets, with one [Dm] steady roll.
[A] Take it away, Trixie.
[D] [A]
[Dm]
[D]
[E]
[A] [Dm] I looked at the clock [A] and the clock stopped running.
I said, now Daddy, ain't we got fun?
[Dm] All [A] blues rock to me, with one [Dm] steady roll.
[A] My man rocks to me, [Dm] with one steady roll.
[G] Trixie Smith from 1922 [A] with the first blues ever to mention rock and [F] roll.
But now let's get on to some real [B] rocking blues rock and roll.
[Db] Let me hand you over to the Great Muddy Waters to continue his story.
[A] You [E]
[A] [G] know [D]
[C] the blues [A] got soul.
What is the story?
A story ain't never been told.
[E] Why do the blues got passion?
[A] And they name the band they rock and roll.
In [D] 1976, [E] the Albino Texan, blues guitar [Am] virtuoso, Johnny Winter, persuaded his record company to record [E] 64 year old McKinley Morgan fill [A] Muddy Waters [C] to You and Me.
[A] One of the tracks was this classic.
[Am] The blues had a baby and they named the [Em] baby rock and roll.
Well the blues had a baby and [D] they named the [C] baby [A] rock and roll.
[Dm]
[E] [Am] Muddy sums it up perfectly, doesn't he?
The blues had a baby and that baby was rock and roll.
The track was on Muddy's comeback [E]
album, Hard [Am] Again.
It's hard to believe now, but Muddy Waters had been out of fashion and [Gbm] hardly heard of for some 20 years.
[E] The Johnny Winter produced Hard [A] Again was a triumphant return to the electric Chicago blues [Am] sound that had made Muddy Waters name back in the 1950s.
Co-writer [Cm] of On The Blues Had [Am] A Baby, incidentally, was Muddy Waters' old blues contemporary, fellow [Em] guitarist, Brownie McGee.
[E] So what were those [A] rock and blues songs, sounding just like rock [D] and roll, that came before Ike Turner's Rocket 88?
[A]
I've got 11 to play you.
We'll start [Bm] the top 10 with the blues and finish [Am] off this time, let's go out with Rock The [F] Joint [A] by Jimmy [Ab] Preston [A] and his Pastoreans.
Recorded in Philadelphia in May [Dm] 1949.
[Bb] [F]
[Gm] [C]
[Dm] Old [D] timers might just recognize this [F] song as covered by Bill Haley and his then band, not The Comets, but The Settlement, [D] three years later in [G] 1952.
The cover version of this record [F] was Haley's follow up to another rock and [G] blues he'd covered in 1951, Would [F] You Believe [A] Ike Turner's Rocket [Fm] 88, which is where we came in.
[G] Here's Jimmy Preston [Gb] with the [C] original Rock The Joint from [G] 1949.
We're gonna honk a bump, we're gonna beat a bump, yeah, [Cm] every gal's gonna [B] cut.
[D] To learn more about the unique [Dm] history of this time-tested music, you can purchase How The [Bb] Blues Evolved by Paul Mary on [G] Amazon.com or check out his website, [C] paulmaryblues [F].blogspot.co .uk.
[Gm] [F]
[G] [F]
[G]
Key:
A
D
G
F
E
A
D
G
All flavors of rock can trace their roots back to the blues, but blues has a rich history of its own.
From London, this is how blues evolved with your host, Paul Mary.
_ _ [Eb] _ _ _ [Eb] _
_ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _
This is [A] Ike Turner's [Ebm] Rocket 88, a [Gb] 12-bar [G] blues often [C] mistakenly [F] described as the world's first rock and roll [Eb] record.
_ [N] It's from 1951, five years [G] before Bill Haley's [C] Rock Around the Clock. _
Rocket 88 was actually [Ab] released under the [G] name of Jackie Brenston and his [Gb] Delta Cats, a [G] band that never existed.
_ Jackie Brenston was [C] in fact the singer and sax [Gb] player in Ike Turner's band, Ike [Bb] Turner's Kings of Rhythm.
_ [D] [B] Ike, just [E] 19, _ [N] recorded Rocket 88 for Sam Phillips at Sun Records in Memphis, based on earlier jump blues songs, which we'll come to in a moment.
_ The misconception that Rocket 88 was the first rock and roll [D] record was put [Bb] about by Sam [Ab] the Man Phillips himself, [A] a legendary self-promoter who [D] produced Rocket [A] 88.
The record's [C] success, however, was the catalyst that caused Sam Phillips to say, [D] as Ike Turner [Eb] told it,
Well [Bb] man, if I [F] get me a white boy to sound like a black boy, then I got me a gold mine.
The white boy, of [G] course, would be [D] Elvis Presley.
_ So if it's not Rocket 88, what was the [A] world's first rock and [Eb] roll record?
_ [C]
Over the next few weeks, you'll be [E] listening to the rock and roll records that actually preceded the so-called [G] birth of rock and roll in the early [Eb] 1950s.
_ [Bb] Since the term rock and [F] roll, to describe the rock and blues [E] music newly [D] discovered by white [Ebm] teenagers, [F] wasn't even coined [Eb] until _ [E] 1952, by the DJ [G] Alan Freed, of course,
these records at the time were [C] released as blues, [Fm] jump blues [G] or boogie woogie.
_ [Gbm] However, the [B] words rock and [E] roll had been linked together in the blues for [Dm] many years.
_ [A] _ _
_ _ _ [Dm] _ For [E] your interest, here's the [Gb] very first record ever to relate rock with roll.
[A] It's from 1922 and it's sung by 27 year old [F] Trixie Smith, [D] a middle class, [Dm] university educated black [F] woman from Atlanta, Georgia.
And yes, [E] such women, together with middle [F] class, [Eb] university educated African [F] American men, did exist in the blues [Gb] music industry in [G] those [F] early days, much more than we [Gb] like to believe.
_ [D] Indeed, the song's composer, the first composer [Eb] to ever [A] couple rock with roll, one J.
Bernie Barber, was a black double [D] music graduate from Kentucky, born [B] in 1881.
The song's called My Man Rocks Me, [D] brackets, with one [Dm] steady roll.
[A] Take it away, Trixie.
[D] _ _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [A] _ _ [Dm] I looked at the clock [A] and the clock stopped running.
I said, now Daddy, ain't we got fun?
[Dm] All [A] blues rock to me, with one [Dm] steady roll. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [A] My man rocks to me, [Dm] with one steady roll. _
_ _ _ [G] Trixie Smith from 1922 [A] with the first blues ever to mention rock and [F] roll.
But now let's get on to some real [B] rocking blues rock and roll.
[Db] Let me hand you over to the Great Muddy Waters to continue his story.
[A] You _ _ _ [E] _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ [G] _ know [D] _
[C] the blues [A] got soul. _ _ _
_ What is the story? _ _
A story ain't never been told. _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] Why do the blues got passion? _
[A] And they name the band they rock and roll.
In [D] 1976, [E] the Albino Texan, blues guitar [Am] virtuoso, Johnny Winter, _ persuaded his record company to record [E] 64 year old McKinley Morgan fill [A] Muddy Waters [C] to You and Me.
[A] One of the tracks was this classic.
[Am] The blues had a baby and they named the [Em] baby rock and roll.
Well the blues had a baby and [D] they named the [C] baby [A] rock and roll.
[Dm] _
_ _ [E] _ _ [Am] _ _ Muddy sums it up perfectly, doesn't he?
The blues had a baby and that baby was rock and roll.
_ The track was on Muddy's comeback [E]
album, Hard [Am] Again.
_ It's hard to believe now, but Muddy Waters had been out of fashion and [Gbm] hardly heard of for some 20 years.
[E] _ The Johnny Winter produced Hard [A] Again was a triumphant return to the electric Chicago blues [Am] sound that had made Muddy Waters name back in the 1950s.
_ Co-writer [Cm] of On The Blues Had [Am] A Baby, incidentally, was Muddy Waters' old blues contemporary, fellow [Em] guitarist, Brownie McGee.
[E] So what were those [A] rock and blues songs, sounding just like rock [D] and roll, that came before Ike Turner's Rocket 88?
[A] _
I've got 11 to play you.
_ We'll start [Bm] the top 10 with the blues and finish [Am] off this time, let's go out with Rock The [F] Joint [A] by Jimmy [Ab] Preston [A] and his Pastoreans.
_ Recorded in Philadelphia in May [Dm] 1949.
_ [Bb] _ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Gm] _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ _ [Dm] _ Old [D] timers might just recognize this [F] song as covered by Bill Haley and his then band, not The Comets, but The Settlement, [D] three years later in [G] 1952.
_ The cover version of this record [F] was Haley's follow up to another rock and [G] blues he'd covered in _ 1951, Would [F] You Believe [A] Ike Turner's Rocket [Fm] 88, which is where we came in.
[G] Here's Jimmy Preston [Gb] with the [C] original Rock The Joint from _ [G] 1949.
We're gonna _ _ _ _ honk a bump, we're gonna beat a bump, yeah, [Cm] every gal's gonna [B] cut. _
[D] To learn more about the unique [Dm] history of this time-tested music, you can purchase How The [Bb] Blues Evolved by Paul Mary on [G] Amazon.com or check out his website, _ [C] paulmaryblues _ [F].blogspot.co _ .uk.
[Gm] _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ [F] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
From London, this is how blues evolved with your host, Paul Mary.
_ _ [Eb] _ _ _ [Eb] _
_ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _
This is [A] Ike Turner's [Ebm] Rocket 88, a [Gb] 12-bar [G] blues often [C] mistakenly [F] described as the world's first rock and roll [Eb] record.
_ [N] It's from 1951, five years [G] before Bill Haley's [C] Rock Around the Clock. _
Rocket 88 was actually [Ab] released under the [G] name of Jackie Brenston and his [Gb] Delta Cats, a [G] band that never existed.
_ Jackie Brenston was [C] in fact the singer and sax [Gb] player in Ike Turner's band, Ike [Bb] Turner's Kings of Rhythm.
_ [D] [B] Ike, just [E] 19, _ [N] recorded Rocket 88 for Sam Phillips at Sun Records in Memphis, based on earlier jump blues songs, which we'll come to in a moment.
_ The misconception that Rocket 88 was the first rock and roll [D] record was put [Bb] about by Sam [Ab] the Man Phillips himself, [A] a legendary self-promoter who [D] produced Rocket [A] 88.
The record's [C] success, however, was the catalyst that caused Sam Phillips to say, [D] as Ike Turner [Eb] told it,
Well [Bb] man, if I [F] get me a white boy to sound like a black boy, then I got me a gold mine.
The white boy, of [G] course, would be [D] Elvis Presley.
_ So if it's not Rocket 88, what was the [A] world's first rock and [Eb] roll record?
_ [C]
Over the next few weeks, you'll be [E] listening to the rock and roll records that actually preceded the so-called [G] birth of rock and roll in the early [Eb] 1950s.
_ [Bb] Since the term rock and [F] roll, to describe the rock and blues [E] music newly [D] discovered by white [Ebm] teenagers, [F] wasn't even coined [Eb] until _ [E] 1952, by the DJ [G] Alan Freed, of course,
these records at the time were [C] released as blues, [Fm] jump blues [G] or boogie woogie.
_ [Gbm] However, the [B] words rock and [E] roll had been linked together in the blues for [Dm] many years.
_ [A] _ _
_ _ _ [Dm] _ For [E] your interest, here's the [Gb] very first record ever to relate rock with roll.
[A] It's from 1922 and it's sung by 27 year old [F] Trixie Smith, [D] a middle class, [Dm] university educated black [F] woman from Atlanta, Georgia.
And yes, [E] such women, together with middle [F] class, [Eb] university educated African [F] American men, did exist in the blues [Gb] music industry in [G] those [F] early days, much more than we [Gb] like to believe.
_ [D] Indeed, the song's composer, the first composer [Eb] to ever [A] couple rock with roll, one J.
Bernie Barber, was a black double [D] music graduate from Kentucky, born [B] in 1881.
The song's called My Man Rocks Me, [D] brackets, with one [Dm] steady roll.
[A] Take it away, Trixie.
[D] _ _ [A] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ [Dm] _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [D] _ _ _
[E] _ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ [A] _ _ [Dm] I looked at the clock [A] and the clock stopped running.
I said, now Daddy, ain't we got fun?
[Dm] All [A] blues rock to me, with one [Dm] steady roll. _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [A] My man rocks to me, [Dm] with one steady roll. _
_ _ _ [G] Trixie Smith from 1922 [A] with the first blues ever to mention rock and [F] roll.
But now let's get on to some real [B] rocking blues rock and roll.
[Db] Let me hand you over to the Great Muddy Waters to continue his story.
[A] You _ _ _ [E] _ _
_ _ [A] _ _ [G] _ know [D] _
[C] the blues [A] got soul. _ _ _
_ What is the story? _ _
A story ain't never been told. _ _ _ _
_ _ [E] Why do the blues got passion? _
[A] And they name the band they rock and roll.
In [D] 1976, [E] the Albino Texan, blues guitar [Am] virtuoso, Johnny Winter, _ persuaded his record company to record [E] 64 year old McKinley Morgan fill [A] Muddy Waters [C] to You and Me.
[A] One of the tracks was this classic.
[Am] The blues had a baby and they named the [Em] baby rock and roll.
Well the blues had a baby and [D] they named the [C] baby [A] rock and roll.
[Dm] _
_ _ [E] _ _ [Am] _ _ Muddy sums it up perfectly, doesn't he?
The blues had a baby and that baby was rock and roll.
_ The track was on Muddy's comeback [E]
album, Hard [Am] Again.
_ It's hard to believe now, but Muddy Waters had been out of fashion and [Gbm] hardly heard of for some 20 years.
[E] _ The Johnny Winter produced Hard [A] Again was a triumphant return to the electric Chicago blues [Am] sound that had made Muddy Waters name back in the 1950s.
_ Co-writer [Cm] of On The Blues Had [Am] A Baby, incidentally, was Muddy Waters' old blues contemporary, fellow [Em] guitarist, Brownie McGee.
[E] So what were those [A] rock and blues songs, sounding just like rock [D] and roll, that came before Ike Turner's Rocket 88?
[A] _
I've got 11 to play you.
_ We'll start [Bm] the top 10 with the blues and finish [Am] off this time, let's go out with Rock The [F] Joint [A] by Jimmy [Ab] Preston [A] and his Pastoreans.
_ Recorded in Philadelphia in May [Dm] 1949.
_ [Bb] _ _ [F] _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ [Gm] _ _ _ [C] _ _
_ _ _ [Dm] _ Old [D] timers might just recognize this [F] song as covered by Bill Haley and his then band, not The Comets, but The Settlement, [D] three years later in [G] 1952.
_ The cover version of this record [F] was Haley's follow up to another rock and [G] blues he'd covered in _ 1951, Would [F] You Believe [A] Ike Turner's Rocket [Fm] 88, which is where we came in.
[G] Here's Jimmy Preston [Gb] with the [C] original Rock The Joint from _ [G] 1949.
We're gonna _ _ _ _ honk a bump, we're gonna beat a bump, yeah, [Cm] every gal's gonna [B] cut. _
[D] To learn more about the unique [Dm] history of this time-tested music, you can purchase How The [Bb] Blues Evolved by Paul Mary on [G] Amazon.com or check out his website, _ [C] paulmaryblues _ [F].blogspot.co _ .uk.
[Gm] _ _ _ _ [F] _ _ _ _
_ _ [G] _ _ _ _ _ [F] _
_ _ _ _ _ _ _ _
_ _ _ _ _ [G] _ _ _
Facts about this song