Willie Simpson

Tag: 50s rock

  • Paul McCartney And Carl Perkins, My Old Friend (Documentary)

    Every once in a while I stumble across something really beautiful and rare. This is one of those finds. Zod bless YouTube users for cataloging practically everything in filmed existence that would otherwise be lost or inaccessible to mass audiences. This 45 minute documentary features guitar legend Carl Perkins and Beatle legend Paul McCartney just hanging out, strumming, picking…

  • Big Mama Thorton, Budddy Guy, Hound Dog

    “Hound Dog” is one of the greatest blues rock songs of all time, so it should come as no surprise that this is the third instance of me posting a version of it. The other two occasions involved the King Elvis Presley, but for this time, I have the superior version. Its Big Mama Thorton…

  • 56th Anniversary of Elvis Presley's Immortal Apperance on the Milton Berle Show

    On June 5th 1956, a 21 year old Elvis Presley strutted onto the set of the Milton Berle show.  When Milty introduced Elvis, the future King of Rock and Roll exploded into “Hound Dog.”  Its a performance that changed America.  It helped usher in the sexual revolution, the rock and roll revolution, and launched Elvis…

  • The Three Worst Beatle Songs (According to Me)

    There are a lot of “Worst Beatle Songs” lists out there, and they all have the same formula.  The writer lists 2-3 songs that are absolute duds, and then sprinkles in a few that are actually classics just to fuck with people’s long held opinions.  In preparing for this piece, I read those articles, many…

  • Chuck Berry, Run, Run, Rudolph

    “All I Want for Christmas is a Rock and Roll Electric Guitar…” I wonder how many Fenders and Gibsons this line sold.  1958’s “Run, Run, Rudolph,” is basically Chuck Berry’s “Little Queenie” rewritten as a Christmas song, but when you’ve written the 4 greatest possible rock and roll songs or so, what does it matter…

  • Chet Atkins, Mr. Sandman, Mrs. Robinson

    So one day, on a crummy radio in the 1940s, Chet Atkins was listening to Merle Travis play guitar.  He thought for sure that what Merle was doing was picking with his thumb and two fingers, because if he was just using his thumb and index finger, it would have been impossible.  It turned out…

  • Les Paul and Mary Ford, The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise

    I thought it appropriate to segue from one guitar god to another, this time to Les Paul.  For those who don’t know, old Les was one of the pioneers of electric guitar rock, inventing his own solid body guitar in 1940, arguably the first ever.  He tried selling the design to Gibson, but they rejected…

  • Jimi Hendrix, Johnny B. Goode

    And here it is, the ultimate rock and roll guitar song played by the ultimate guitar rock god.  We have Jimi Hendrix, taking the Chuck Berry classic “Johnny B. Goode,” to a place no one thought imaginable.  His guitar sounds like a galloping steed from Hell, riding headlong into a firestorm, conquering everything in its…

  • Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers, Why Do Fools Fall in Love, Little Bitty Pretty One

    Before Michael Jackson, before Justin Bieber, there was Frankie Lymon.  Well, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers to be exact.  Frankie is the original rock and roll prodigy, a 13 year old backup singer from Harlem who by a stroke of fate stepped in to sing lead for his vocal group the Teenagers when original lead…

  • Greatest Rock Vocalists #1, Little Richard, Good Golly Miss Molly

    Little Richard is the greatest vocalist in rock and roll history.  He is the man that was James Brown’s #1 influence, the man Paul McCartney copied, the man who first employed Jimi Hendrix, and the man that arguably started rock and roll with the second he let out his primal rock and roll roar for…