Rock 'n' Roll dance

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Rock 'n' Roll dance
Cover
Lloyd Price and his band
publication 1956
length 2:15
Genre (s) Rock and roll
text John Marascalco
music Lloyd Price
Bumps Blackwell
Publisher (s) Venice Music
Label Specialty Records

The Rock 'n' Roll Dance is a rock 'n' roll - Song of Lloyd Price in 1956. Robert Blackwell had for the text of the Songwriters John Marascalco written a melody that Price at Specialty Records brought for recording. The song arrested in Jump Blues is based on the 12-bar blues, whose blues schemes alternately serve as verses and choruses. The title could neither convince other interpreters to cover versions nor reach a chart position.

Creation and publication

Lloyd Price had already celebrated his breakthrough with Specialty Records in 1952 with the hit Lawdy Miss Clawdy before serving in the Korean War between 1954 and February 1956 . On his advice, the young Little Richard applied to Specialty with a demo tape and was finally invited by label owner Art Rupe to record under producer Bumps Blackwell . His first two specialty singles, Tutti Frutti and Long Tall Sally, were hits that attracted the attention of young Italian songwriter John Marascalco in his hometown of Grenada , Mississippi. Marascalco drove to the Specialty Hollywood branch in March 1956 and gave Bumps Blackwell his two compositions, Ready Teddy and Rip It Up for Little Richard. Since Blackwell had asked for more material, Marascalco also left a draft text at Specialty with the title Rock 'n' Roll Dance . Lloyd Price had just been discharged from the army and was returning to his old label for a few recording sessions. Marascalco recalled, “I had the lyrics with me when I first came to Specialty and left a copy with all the other stuff. I didn't want to sell the lyrics to anyone because I didn't really like them, but Bumps got on it, wrote a melody and Lloyd recorded the song. ”After researching Billy Veras , the recording found in Cosimo Matassa's J&M studio in New Orleans with his studio Band under the direction of Art Rupe with Edgar Blanchard on guitar, Frank Fields on bass, Earl Palmer on drums, Edward Frank on piano and Lee Allen and Red Tyler on saxophones. The entry of the copyright at the Library of Congress took place on May 5, 1956 on Marascalco as lyricist and Price as composer. Blackwell did not receive any author credits.

Rock n Roll Dance was released together with Country Boy Rock in May 1956 as Specialty SP-578. An exact assignment of the A and B sides is not possible with Specialty, but Billboard magazine preferred to discuss Country Boy Rock . In 1991 the piece appeared again on the Lloyd Price compilation Lawdy! from the series Legends of Specialty under the number SPCD-7010-2, in 2007 the British re-issue label Ace Records took the title into its compilation Specialty Rock 'n' Roll , CDCH 291.

Musical structure and content

Rock 'n' Roll Dance is a pure twelve-bar blues in A major with a change to the dominant E major for the last bar. The blues scheme is repeated eight times in an up-tempo and includes the following song components: The piano intro is followed by the first verse and a refrain , then the second verse and refrain. A saxophone solo is followed by the third stanza and the final chorus with a common instrumental final chord. The main instrument is the piano with R & B-typical patterns . The saxophones contribute polyphonic riffs . The drums play a distinctive backbeat , referring to the rock 'n' roll of the song title.

The stanzas are performed by the singer in a shouting style . Three verses of four bars are distributed over the twelve bars of a blues scheme. As is typical in the blues, the singer makes a statement in the first verse, which he repeats intensively in the second and thus gains time to bring the train of thought to an end with a suitable rhyme. The ending rhyme of the first verse is “line” - “dime”, the second “tight” - “dynamite” and the third “roll” - “soul”. The rhyme of the third stanza is also used by the refrain, in which every verse calls for rock 'n' roll, which is conducive to salvation. The entire title "Rock 'n' Roll Dance" does not appear in the text. In addition to the rock-'n'-roll music genre of the chorus, which was still young in 1956, the “dance” is emerging via the verses: In the first, the singer tries to make an appointment with his loved one by phone in the second describes the tender dance pleasure, the third the effect of the special rock 'n' roll dance. The text also plays with the ambiguity of the rock 'n' roll vocabulary, which also assigns sexual connotations to the verbs “to rock” and “to roll” used in dance and which can be heard as a cipher for the sexual act.

Importance, Criticism, and Success

Rock 'n' Roll Dance is the first published work by the songwriter John Marascalco, whose repertoire in the BMI database comprises at least 150 entries. On May 26, 1956, Billboard magazine advertised the song as a “driving blues, in which the blues shouter gets very strong instrumental support.” Dik de Heer considers rock n roll dance to be a “good rocker”. Neither the other side of the single Country Boy Rock nor rock 'n' roll dance made it into the charts. After the unsuccessfulness of his late specialty singles and a dispute with label boss Rupe, Lloyd Price left the label and founded KRC Records, his own, independent record company, the success of which ABC Paramount noticed and gave Lloyd Price's career new impetus. Of Rock 'n' Roll Dance are no cover versions known.

Individual evidence

  1. ↑ a b Public Catalog. In: Library of Congress, accessed April 18, 2015.
  2. ↑ a b c Stuart Colman: The Killer Quillers. John Marascalco In: Trevor Cajiao (Ed.): Now Dig This, Issue 362. Bensham, Gateshead, Tyne & Wear, 2013, pp. 13-16.
  3. ↑ Billy Vera: Lawdy! , Liner Notes from Specialty SPCD-7010-2, 1991.
  4. ↑ a b Review of New R & B Records. In: The Billboard, May 26, 1956, p. 56.
  5. ↑ David Edwards, Mike Callahan, Randy Watts: Specialty Album Discography, Part 2: SP-5000, SPS-4000, SPCD-7000, and SPCD-7200 Series. In: BothSidesNow, accessed April 17, 2015.
  6. ↑ Specialty rock 'n' roll. Various artists (Specialty Records). In: Ace Records, accessed April 21, 2015.
  7. ↑ Songwriter / Composer: Marascalco John S. In: BMI Repertoire, accessed on February 15, 2020.
  8. ^ A b Dik de Heer: Lloyd Price. In: Black Cat Rockabilly, July 2012, accessed April 18, 2015.