Unlike bopping (see here), jiving (known as jitterbug or swing in the USA) doesn’t seem to be performed atrociously by people, so this article only wants to draw attention to some great examples of the style. A recent example from 2019 by German couple Dietmar and Nellia shows that not all of us lose it […]
Music/Dance/Reads
Randy Richter – doyen of the authentic 50s rockabilly and rock’n’roll guitar sound
I came upon some of Randy Richter’s YT videos in 2017 and was so immediately struck by his evident knowledge of 1950s rock’n’roll guitaring that I added one of his videos with a little background knowledge to the Lone Lamp. Randy has since gone from strength to strength on YouTube with an ever-increasing catalogue of […]
Great French rock’n’roll covers
There was some great rock’n’roll in France in the rock’n’roll era (which I can’t call the 50s since French people always call the early rock’n’roll era les années soixantes ‘the sixties’ because the rock’n’roll only took off in that country in 1960-63 and faded as the Beatles appeared in 1964 and the sixties, as English-speakers understand it, began). Les années yé-yé ‘the […]
Book reviews: Sun records & Sonny Burgess
Around Christmas time I like to treat myself to some books on rock’n’roll and this year was no exception, the two books I bought were: The Next Elvis: Searching for Stardom at Sun Records (2004) by Barbara Barnes Sims who worked there as a publicist between the summer of 1957 and 1960. It’s a nicely wrought […]
Speeded-up rock’n’roll recordings of the 50s
I bought the Carl Perkins and the Jerry Lee Box set and the second volume of a Johnny Fuller collection and imagine my surprise when some of my favourite songs didn’t seem quite as exciting as I remembered them. I have compared those takes with other versions I have heard and come to the conclusion […]
