Searching For The First Rock And Roll Song

Series produced by Jamie Dell'Apa

Series image
Image by: Regular Listener, J.T. Lindross, From Finland 

We, the rock and roll generation, have never found our self-defining first rock and roll song. Host Jamie Dell'Apa presents music and musicians you've never heard from the small regional record companies who pioneered rock and roll. Songs that could have been the first rock and roll song. Songs that fill the gap in understanding where we came from and who we are.

Searching For The First Rock and Roll Song features records coveted by collectors from the era when rock and roll was emerging but hadn't yet settled on a definition of itself. Music from before rock and roll was domesticated into a commercial music industry. When country and western sounded like swing, pop music sounded like rockabilly, rockabilly sounded like rhythm and blues, and doo wop sounded like girl groups and all those musics sounded an awful lot like what we now call, “rock and roll”.

Not a hits, oldies, or “history of” radio show. it's all the songs that influenced our now-legendary musicians who are regularly featured in all those hits, oldies, and “history of” radio shows.

Hosted by WWOZ in New Orleans for the last 18 years, the show is carried by a dozen stations.

P.S. We never find the first rock and roll song. Just like our journey through life, the search is the joy. Finding the final destination in life or music is something to continually delay until after next week's episode.
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Searching For The First Rock and Roll Song features records coveted by collectors from the era when rock and roll was emerging but hadn't yet settled on a definition of itself. Music from before rock and roll was domesticated into a commercial music industry. When country and western sounded like swing, pop music sounded like rockabilly, rockabilly sounded like rhythm and blues, and doo wop sounded like girl groups and all those musics sounded an awful lot like what we now call, “rock and roll”.Not a hits, oldies, or “history of” radio show. it's all the songs that influenced our now-legendary musicians who are regularly featured in all those hits, oldies, and “history of” radio shows. Hosted by WWOZ in New Orleans for the last 18 years, the show is carried by a dozen stations. ... Show full description


654 Pieces

Order by: Newest First | Oldest First
Caption: Augie Garcia
The common sound of rock and roll's origination is indistinguishable across two hemisphere separating musicians living under the Southern Cross and...

Bought by KFCF FM, KPRG, Prairie Public, KTAL-LP [Las Cruces Community Radio], Raven Radio and more


  • Added: Mar 03, 2024
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 7
Caption: Sweet Katie Sweet was 3 years old when she recorded this
Long before the child singer Michael Jackson extended his childhood musical career past his voice change, there were countless little kids propped ...

Bought by KPRG, Prairie Public, KTAL-LP [Las Cruces Community Radio], Delmarva Public Media, KSLU and more


  • Added: Feb 25, 2024
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 6
Caption: Johnny Sardo When He Was With Randy and the Rainbows
Also song lyrics specifically about boxers and songs sung by boxers (and other athletes). And oh so many musicians named "Johnny." Oh yeah, songs...

Bought by KFCF FM, KPRG, WMTNradio, Prairie Public, Delmarva Public Media and more


  • Added: Feb 18, 2024
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 8
Piece image
A series of songs similar to "The Stroll" but wackier; Gorilla Walk, Panther Walk, Wild Man Walk, Wee Gee Walk, Cat Walk, etc. Then music and musi...

Bought by KPRG, KFCF FM, Prairie Public, Delmarva Public Media, KTAL-LP [Las Cruces Community Radio] and more


  • Added: Feb 12, 2024
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 7
Caption: Lord Luther
What is it with teenagers commanding popular music of the last 3/4 century then defaulting to the stupidest lyrics imaginable? Songs featuring cre...

Bought by KPRG, KFCF FM, Delmarva Public Media, KTAL-LP [Las Cruces Community Radio], Prairie Public and more


  • Added: Feb 05, 2024
  • Length: 02:57:01
  • Purchases: 7
Caption: Miles Conner
Songs about drinking milk, the hip lexicon lyric and its opposite, extremely goofy lyrics. Plenty of vocal group harmony songs because vocal grou...

Bought by KFCF FM, Prairie Public, Delmarva Public Media, KTAL-LP [Las Cruces Community Radio], KSLU and more


  • Added: Jan 29, 2024
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 6
Caption: The Aquatones
We wipe out more pesky teenagers with overly dramatic teenage angst songs ranging from splatter platters / death disks about car crashes to shotgun...

Bought by KPRG, KFCF FM, Prairie Public, Delmarva Public Media, KTAL-LP [Las Cruces Community Radio] and more


  • Added: Jan 21, 2024
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 7
Caption: The Mysterious "Marie Bourbarere" of New Orleans "I'm Coming Home"
Belgium, Japan, Italy, and US guitar slingers; musicians who worked radio and their bands, songs about giant canaries and little Yosemite Sam. All...

Bought by KFCF FM, KPRG, Prairie Public, Delmarva Public Media, KTAL-LP [Las Cruces Community Radio] and more


  • Added: Jan 15, 2024
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 7
Caption: Julie and the Desires
Music and musicians you've never heard, any of which could have been the first rock and roll record. This show puts the "non-commercial" into the ...

Bought by KPRG, KFCF FM, Prairie Public, Delmarva Public Media, KTAL-LP [Las Cruces Community Radio] and more


  • Added: Jan 09, 2024
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 6
Caption: Jeannie and the Big Guys (Cindy Cole was "Jeannie"))
Music goes through eras of innovation followed by imitation which eventually becomes codified into commercial formula. The blandness is then follo...

Bought by KPRG, KFCF FM, Prairie Public, Delmarva Public Media, Raven Radio and more


  • Added: Dec 31, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 7
Caption: Janis Peters
As always, the show is a restatement of who we were after the horrors of WWII. When a new whimsical and hopeful music of youth was adopted across...

Bought by KFCF FM, Prairie Public, KPRG, KSLU, Delmarva Public Media and more


  • Added: Dec 25, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 7
Piece image
This week I wandered into the "Mar" portion of my bottomless musical library to pull 85 songs from "Marvin, Marvel, Mary, etc" musicians and bands....

Bought by KFCF FM, Prairie Public, Delmarva Public Media, KTAL-LP [Las Cruces Community Radio], and Raven Radio


  • Added: Dec 18, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 5
Caption: Meloaires
Also Sputnik and Rocket City (Huntsville, AL) Songs plus corny songs by corny actors including Jerry Mathers (Beaver Cleaver), the cast of McHale's...

Bought by KPRG, KFCF FM, Prairie Public, KSLU, Delmarva Public Media and more


  • Added: Dec 12, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:01
  • Purchases: 6
Caption: Jim Easter and the Artistics
This radio show's search for the first rock and roll song without considering commercial "hits" profoundly re-calibrates a listener's musical esthe...

Bought by KFCF FM, KSLU, KPRG, Prairie Public, KTAL-LP [Las Cruces Community Radio] and more


  • Added: Dec 04, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 7
Caption: Jimmy "Chickie" Horne
Music from "Jimmys" who all predate Jimi Hendrix. All these "Jimmys" could have been awarded "the first rock and roll song" but few to none of the...

Bought by Raven Radio, KPRG, KFCF FM, KSLU, KTAL-LP [Las Cruces Community Radio] and more


  • Added: Dec 01, 2023
  • Length: 02:56:59
  • Purchases: 6
Caption: Dreamtones
The joy of this show isn't finding the first rock and roll song. As in life, it is the the journey through all this music you've never heard that...

Bought by KFCF FM, KPRG, Raven Radio, Prairie Public, KSLU and more


  • Added: Nov 20, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 7
Caption: Tracy Pendarvis
Songs by musicians insisting on being referred to as, "Mr." as we search for the first rock and roll song in all the music that you've never heard.

Bought by KFCF FM, KSLU, Prairie Public, KPRG, Delmarva Public Media and more


  • Added: Nov 13, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 7
Caption: Krazy Kats
And finding not the song, but the feeling, the emotion, the state of mind from where the first rock and roll song emerged. It's what we do in publ...

Bought by KFCF FM, KSLU, Prairie Public, KPRG, Delmarva Public Media and more


  • Added: Nov 06, 2023
  • Length: 02:56:58
  • Purchases: 6
Piece image
Songs from the late 1950s / early 1960s about how skinny legged pants making the wearer a cooler, better dancer. Yep, I'm gonna buy my way into bei...

Bought by KFCF FM, WYAP, KPRG, Prairie Public, KTAL-LP [Las Cruces Community Radio] and more


  • Added: Oct 30, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:01
  • Purchases: 7
Caption: Orlons
Rock and roll is the great undefined feeling that is foundational to how we define ourselves, the post-WWII generation. Unfortunately, the first r...

Bought by KPRG, WYAP, KFCF FM, KSLU, Prairie Public and more


  • Added: Oct 23, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:01
  • Purchases: 7