Here’s The Beatles singing about Rock and Roll. They were extremely popular when I was in my late teens.
“You get ‘A’ in biology……..but when you’re out with me baby, you get ‘D’ in love.” Someone lent my brother an LP of Mickie Most, and some of those songs were so good. Johnny B. Goode. It made me want to be a famous rock and roll guitar player. We all have our dreams. “His mama said one day you’re gonna be a man, and you will be the leader of a big old band, people comin’ round from miles around, to listen to your music when the sun goes down. Someday your name is gonna be in lights saying: Johnny B. Goode tonight.” We were thrilled one day to actually meet Mickie Most on the street in Margate, Natal, and he invited us to go to his show that night. “I love Corina, far across the sea.” I think he must have sung “That’ll be the day” because I heard it when I was young, and it wasn’t by Buddy Holly and the Crickets.
Here is Chuck Berry singing his song.
Ray Peterson does it on the go go show.
“Marie is only 6 years old, information please, try to get me through to her in Memphis, Tennessee.” When I heard Johnny Rivers sing that song, it felt so fantastic to me. That guitar playing, the beat, the ‘live’ recording, the tune, everything was so good. Unfortunately it is a bit of a sad song about a guy trying to get in touch with his daughter, but it has such a happy beat that it feels like a happy song. Many years later when I came to North America, I heard about Chuck Berry, and found he wrote Memphis and Johnny B. Goode. Many of the rock and roll singers and song writers I never heard of in Africa. I guess we only heard certain singers.
I found my thrill. It brings back so many memories of childhood. I also associate this song with Happy Days and inspiration point. I think this song was originally sung by Gene Autry, and I have seen it on an Elvis record, but Fats Domino was the one that really had the appeal with this song.
The guy who inspired me to learn to play guitar used to sing this song and another Eddie Cochran song called: “Cut across Shorty.”
This was a very big hit for Bill Haley and the Comets when I was a kid. Cliff Ricard said on his show that this was the biggest selling Rock and Roll record of all time. When I was little it seemed so exciting to be grown up and stay up all night. Then when I was 20, I was forced to do military training in the Rhodesian Air Force, where they forced me to do security duty all night, and I didn’t like it at all. I just wanted to sleep!
Little Richard was one of the pioneers of Rock and Roll, and had many hit songs when I was young.
This was the very first Rock and roll song I ever heard, and I had never heard drums and guitar like that before. It caught me hook, line and sinker.
Cliff Richard was a massive hit when Elvis went to the army. This clip is cut short, but it helps to give the feel I had as a young teenager.
One time in Bulawayo I saw the Rolling Stones ‘live’ at a concert with all the thousands of teenage girls screaming, and it was electric. Many parents complained. I wish I could get the same movie for this website, but I can’t find it.
UNFORTUNATELY, MANY OF THE SONGS I HAD LISTED HAVE BEEN TAKEN OFF THE INTERNET.