Mostly Music Covers

I Write the Songs, Part 2 Here are the next batch of songwriters. Many are paired with their most frequent collaborators. As I said I am limiting my list to the people known primarily as songwriters but many were capable performers as well. Felice Bryant (August 7, 1925 – April 22, 2003) and Boudleaux Bryant (February 13, 1920 – June 25, 1987). This couple were both talented in many ways as Boudleaux (Diadorius Boudleaux) was a classic violinist and Felice (Matilda Genevieve) played piano, sang and directed shows for the American Troops with the USO. When they met in 1945 they eloped after two days together and remained married until Boudleaux's death in 1987. While they would both write independently, together they produced hits songs for The Everly Brothers; " Bye Bye Love ", " Wake Up Little Susie ", " Take a Message to Mary " and " Poor Jenny " to name a few. Also; " Raining in My Heart " Buddy Holly, the song " Hol

Beginnings of Rock and Roll (Part four) As you may gather from parts 1 to 3, one can seesaw on the debate of the beginning of R&R. What I am attempting to demonstrate is that R&R was perhaps a spontaneous eruption of interest but not of a type of music. There are other artists and songs I could identify as forming the roots of R&R, but as I’ve discovered, much was borrowed from the past. Chuck Berry responded when asked about his music and his ‘original’ sound and I am paraphrasing here; he mentions many influences, that he used guitar riffs, lyrical hooks and performing tricks from other people. “If you can, call it my music, but there's nothing new under the sun.” Even his quote was borrowed from the Bible. By 1954 Rhythm and Blues music was on fire, and that little station in Memphis had increased its wattage to cover the entire mid-southern U.S.  R&B listeners could tune in to nearly 600 hundred stations, almost nationwide in the USA. So you see

Beginnings of Rock and Roll (Part three) " Rocket 88 " by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats, released April 1951 There has been much attention paid to the song " Rocket 88 " as being the 'first' R&R song. A huge amount of writing has been done on this song and there's also very diverse opinions about it. Here is my take. First we need to acknowledge it's a great song. As of 2018 the Rock and Roll Music Hall of Fame added a category of single songs, "Rocket 88" was among the first group recognized.  These are some facts: When it came out in 1951 there were two charts published by Billboard Magazine for R&B that only tracked the top ten songs each week. The first was "Best selling retail Rhythm and Blues Singles" and it entered for the week of May 19, it hit #1 on June 9 and stayed there for three weeks. It spent a total of 17 weeks on the chart and was the 5th best record for chart performance that year. Compared