#613 VA - The First Rock and Roll Record

Just go get it.

If you have any interest in the history of rock and roll, in where it came from and how it inched into being rock and roll, this is the best crash course there is. Get this triple album compilation epic, like rightnow. Unless you are a one-in-a-million obsessive who has heard ever album ever, with massive Ghost-World level tendrils through old rock vinyl, you'll learn a lot and have a lot of fun doing it.

This collection starts off in the 20's and winds its way forward towards the 50's, playing songs from folk, blues, country, jazz, R&B and countless subslices in between in chronological order, spiraling closer and closer to its core of "Rock and Roll", whipping past its various spokes in turn, pieces sliding into place.

It serves to exemplify how knotty that question of "what was the first rock and roll record?" really is, and its an interesting activity in its own right, asking as each song comes on whether that's "rock and roll", and why and why not, the why slowly becoming easier to answer as time moves forward, the why not getting harder and harder to justify. Heck, there's even some interesting bits of hip hop history hidden in there, as you hear elements that rap songs call back to (Kanye's sampling I've Got a Woman, Outkast's references to 60 Minute Man) and elements that would define the style (Ella Mae Morse And Freddie Slack's House Of Blue Lights practically raps its delivery, and even drops a "homey" in there).

The sounds are too diverse do describe in much more detail, spanning 3 packed discs and 3+ decades as they do, but bears repeating that this is no dry aural textbook but a damn fun listen. The songs hop and swoon and swing and croon and bop and even rock, most sounding dusty and classy and timeless for good measure. One of the best, most interesting finds of this whole project, one I'll return to again and again 5/5