After Elvis went into the Army and before the British Invasion, the years 1958-63 were rock's forgotten years. But they were the years that shaped the musical tastes of baby boomers and of acts from the Beatles and Rolling Stones to Bruce Springsteen and the Ramones. Hear the dance sensations, the one-hit-wonders, the girl groups and doo-wop singers, surfers and rockabilly twangers, the birth of Motown, the evolution of R&B into soul and so much… more »
It used to be easier to pretend that an album was its own perfectly self-contained artifact. The great records certainly feel that way. But albums are more permeable than solid, their motivations, executions and inspirations informed by, and often stolen from, their peers and forbearers. It all sounds awfully formal, but it's not. It's the very nature of music — of art, even. The Six Degrees features examine the relationships between classic records and five… more »
Postwar, electric blues guitar in Texas all derives from T-Bone Walker, says conventional wisdom, and when you hear a great stylist like Pee Wee Crayton soloing in that jazzy, single-string tradition, it seems like an immutable law. But there were Texas guitarists who weren't influenced by Walker, and most who were brought enough of their own thing to T-Bone's to keep it interesting. Even today, the tradition not only lives on, but continues to evolve.… more »
Golden Hits is a collection of Chuck Berry’s greatest hits, re-recorded in the late ’60s for his new label, Mercury. Berry’s performances are utterly without inspiration — it’s clear he is only in it for the money at this point. He adds one new song, the flat “Club Nitty Gritty,” but the real embarrassment is the pedestrian, listless quality of his new interpretations of his classics. – Stephen Thomas Erlewine
![Here's Little Richard [Remastered & Expanded] album cover](http://images.emusic.com/music/images/album/132/787/13278721/300x300.jpg)
