#2571 The Maddox Brothers and Rose - From Dancefloor to Devotion

One night a bunch of us got to talking about some hipster hypothetical about what artist's oeuvre would be send to aliens to explain rock and roll. And someone throws out something along the lines of "Elvis, cause he did it first". And I knew I didn't agree, but I couldn't place why, and thereby I cede all high ground on the subject -- if he was wrong, I was as wrong. But I knew we were wrong, even then.

Recently, I read some bit by Nick Tosches, and he makes the point convincingly: Rock and roll had already come and gone, and Elvis was just the first of its 9 resurrections. It died the first time by Haley's Rock Around the Clock, a bit of  populist schlock, months before Elvis even broke.

And fucking, Elvis broke on a string of covers that I won't deign to recount, and Thomas Kinkade-ing rock and roll only earns him so much credit. And if you need further proof, look at The Maddox Bros' song: Death of Rock and Roll, a cover itself of I Got a Woman. And just look at how the snake of rock and roll had started eating itself, and generally getting lame as shit, before Elvis cut one note.

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The hot numbers on this album are a who's who of shit that was already played out by the 50's, and a testament to what a slopped reheat rock was before Elvis, sure, jolted it back to life, a lightning bolt of a performer with a magic touch.

But don't call him the first.

This album's a microcosm of the "first rock and roll record" project. And I don't mean to shortchange the brothers and Rose their shot at a review. But their stuff, esp on the first proper hot half (Dancefloor) is just in the sweetspot of people getting hot on this stuff before it sat out -- and off it takes me on this jag.

It's good stuff, a great history lesson, if nothing else. A fireball at best, to the willing.

I'm cooler on the latter "Devotional" half.

But a damned listenable, essential signpost none the less, for anyone with the barest interest i rock history. You can't do a lot better than this for a snapshot 4/5