The Lone Lamp

Music/Dance/Reads

2015 ‘Rockabilly lovers’ cartoon clip

Here’s a students’ animation project from 2015 (LISAA, Paris). For those who don’t understand French this is the story : two guys at an American diner discuss how to atract girls, the answer is a rock’n’roll guitar …  

Gene Vincent tribute performances

Elvis’s singing style has been cloned to death countless times even during the 1950s, but not so Gene Vincent who also had a distinct style (Gene Rambo and the Flames ‘my little mama’ in 1957). Gene’s heyday was 1956-64, mostly with the Bluecaps in the States then in England and France in the early 1960s. […]

When others get it wrong – bopping

While not being too restrictive in our views and in the process snuffing individuality, we’ve got to highlight when something concerning our lifestyle, attire, music and dance is misrepresented, and not too put too fine a word on it debased. Today it’s the turn of the bop and specifically the teddy-boy bop of the 1960s, […]

Hepsters

The Hepsters – not to be confused with modern Hipsters – were associated with jazz, both musicians and fans. It is worth noting, too, that Gillespie had already gained a measure of stardom at a time when Parker’s following was limited to musicians and other insiders; Parker was not even mentioned in a silly 1948 […]

Babs Gonzales, the hepster from ‘Oo-poo-pa-doo’

Babs Gonzales (1919-80) Bab’s Three Bips and a Bop (1946-49) recorded the earliest version of ‘oop-pop-a-da’ for Blue Note in 1947 (made famous later by Dizzy Gillespie). ‘Professor Bop’ 1949 & ‘be-bop Santa Claus’ 1954 (by Lloyd Williams) Babs Gonzales was a featured artist in Alan Freed’s ‘Rock’n’roll Ball’ held at the Saint Nicholas Arena, […]