A strange "schlock-umentary" picked up at Radio Shack many years ago. The package consists of a narrator describing the beginnings of Rock 'N' Roll with the assistance of TV show clips, radio narration excerpts, and records played in whole or in part.
The tape opens with Ricky Nelson playing Willie Mae Thornton's Hound Dog on his phonograph, while David, in another room, is listening to something considerably softer and more "pop" on his phonograph - clipped right out of an old Ozzie and Harriet episode. This was long before Ricky got his own "Rock 'N' Roll" ambitions, and, fortuitously, we are spared his vocalizing attempts.
Several early Rock 'N' Roll performers are featured, including, but not limited to, Bill Haley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly. These appearances are TV clips - and bring back some memories. Vocal groups do not appear to get adequate coverage, though they are mentioned and several group record excerpts are played.
News coverage of "the Rock 'N' Roll Phenomenon" - even to the extent of "white citizens council" types deriding the "nigger music" - are included. One of the more interesting parts covers postwar segregated Memphis - a shot of the front window of a caf� on Beale Street with a sign reading "Colored Only" - and we move on to a discourse on Sam Phillips recording black music in the early 1950s while an unidentified black blues combo does some real blues with a lyric that would never make the radio. Of course, the Jerry Lee Lewis "child bride" episode gets more than its share of coverage.
Our narrator's ignorance is obvious, he refers to Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers as sounding "white," having no feel for what the music was, and is, all about. Nonetheless, it's an interesting way to spend three-quarters of an hour. Buy it if you find it cheap.
