RtBE loves listening to new music and prides itself on keeping tabs on up and coming artists but in 2019 we are also going to have a monthly spotlight on legendary artists who we really love. We are calling this series
The Masters. It will focus on the best albums, live records, transcendent shows and other odd ways we appreciate the artists and their contribution to music, culture and our formation.
For November
The Masters Series focuses on Early Rock and Roll
Like we did back in
March with The Blues, when
RtBE dives into the foundations of rock and roll it is impossible to pick just one legend to focus on, so we are going to try to give thoughts on the whole era this month.
The truth is more than any other era of music,
RtBE has been digging this time period over recent years and continues to be amazed at the sheer number of artists who crafted cool tunes which we never heard of. Artists like
Hank Ballard and The Midnighters,
The Flamingos and
H-Bomb Ferguson were unknown to
RtBE until 2019 and we are sure to find many more artists in the upcoming years from this golden era of sound.
That fine line between rhythm and blues songs and rock and roll numbers has never truly been defined. "Rocket 88" is a good starting point, and while a lot of these songs stuck to a formula that was selling, it is amazing how small nuances create great listening. The intersection of commercialism and art was at the beginning as artists would try to recreate hits with basically the same song, but then once in a while magic broke out. Sure
The Beatles and
Stones, took these artists influences and formed something new through their British ears...but it is time to pay respect to the forefathers of the genre.
Unlike other top studio albums lists in
this series, all of these will be greatest hits or some sort of deviation of, as these artists did not make full length albums at one sitting when they were at their peak. Instead they shot off 45's to appease the fan base, cranking them out to make as much money as their shitty contracts allowed. There are so many racial, financial, exploitative dynamics at play with these artists, but we will try to keep those at bay as much as possible when just trying to discuss their output.
If we limited to just individual albums, a few like
Wanda Jackson's Rockin' With Wanda and
Solomon Burke's Rock 'n Soul might have come close...but even those were compilations (although it took looking them up to know that). I may be wrong, but I feel like full albums really came into vogue with or
February Masters focus The Beatles, but maybe someone else knows better. Feel free to comment below...
This list is not definitive, but it is just what we think are the best of an era...one that somehow doesn't get the love it truly deserves for inspiring, racial desegregation, a British invasion and a generation of change in popular music. Also we kept country and soul artists mostly out of here even though all of these artists were clearly influenced by both...So in the spirit of starting discussions as opposed to ending them, here are the top five studio collections from early rock and roll...
