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: Sandy Posey
We were so close I could smell it. All my listeners agreed, the show smelled.

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


  • Added: Oct 16, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 7
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All promos require your outro tag line or outro station id: 1. Rickie Lee Jones, "You're listening to Jamie's quest for the first R&R song 2. Ri...

Bought by Prairie Public


  • Added: Oct 09, 2023
  • Length: 01:02
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Polly Possum
Sly Stone's first record at age 14 when he walked in on established vocal harmony group, The Viscaynes, and told them to follow him to success. Al...

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


  • Added: Oct 09, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 7
Caption: Big Chenier at His Restaurant
A Louisiana music show! but not from the Bayou Lafitte basin (where New Orleans looks up to sea level). Nah, we always do "music you've never hea...

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


  • Added: Oct 03, 2023
  • Length: 02:56:59
  • Purchases: 8
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After the regular show, the radio muse still beckons. She whispers, "Tickle the aether to fill the darkness and silence. Don't rely on a format, ...

Bought by KFCF FM


  • Added: Sep 28, 2023
  • Length: 02:56:59
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Sammy Masters and Jimmy Bryant
No seatbelts, air bags, safety glass, padded dashboards, etc. of the bad old days and we get dead teenager song lyrics. Oh also songs about wine a...

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


  • Added: Sep 26, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 8
Caption: George Martin Along With The Beatles.  Producer For The Beatles.  As "Ray Cathode," Martin Created a 45 rpm Record of "Electronic Music" in the Early 1960s
We won't find the first rock and roll record but in the search we will find the roots of our post WWII generation's musical sensibilities.

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


  • Added: Sep 20, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:01
  • Purchases: 7
Caption: The "Bob" In The Machine
Three of the most individual songwriters, Slim Gaillard, Randy Newman, and Martin Mull, sing about cities.

Bought by Delmarva Public Media and WYAP


  • Added: Sep 13, 2023
  • Length: 59:00
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Clinger Sisters
Music from the post WWII era when a fundamental world-wide musical change was recorded under the undefined phrase, "rock and roll." We search fo...

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


  • Added: Sep 12, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 6
Caption: My Father
The swirls of the radio muse continue to enchant after the highly planned regular three hour radio show. Turn over the aether to the unfeeling rob...

Bought by WYAP


  • Added: Sep 05, 2023
  • Length: 01:21:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Missfits
Late night radio. Daytime distractions are smothered under darkness and silence. Our minds focus on our most important matters. Our deepest buri...

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


  • Added: Sep 04, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 7
Caption: Jaime Brockett LP
Songs and sentiments from where the long sedimentary history of Great Plains of barren flatness were ripped open by an newer era's upthrust of the ...

Bought by Delmarva Public Media


  • Added: Aug 29, 2023
  • Length: 01:22:03
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: The Liverbirds
Finding the first rock and roll record mean searching the music library of songs before rock and roll was popular. Back before it was even commerc...

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


  • Added: Aug 28, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 7
Caption: Nason putting his father's ashes in The Mississippi River after the Krewe Of St. Anne parade on Mardi Gras Day.  A few years later, Nason's ashes followed Nason's steps in the paraded and into the river.
Free form radio in the middle of the night where the surrounding darkness uncovers music and stories about ourselves. Tonight, music of youthful ...

Bought by WPVM 103.7


  • Added: Aug 28, 2023
  • Length: 01:58:00
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Fabulous Combo Kings
Two generations of experts and they still haven't found the first rock and roll song. The structure of their inquiry is generating too many "first...

Bought by WPVM 103.7, KPRG, KFCF FM, Delmarva Public Media, WQCS and more


  • Added: Aug 21, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 9
Caption: Van Morrison
It is 3am on Sunday morning. I've finished my formal show but the radio muse still whispers for more. It's free form radio. Unplanned, improvisa...

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


  • Added: Aug 17, 2023
  • Length: 58:53
  • Purchases: 4
Caption: Slim Lay
To be first to create new art means you must start as unpopular so that is where we search for the first rock and roll song; in all the music you'v...

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


  • Added: Aug 15, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 7
Caption: Skee Brothers
Searching for the first rock and roll song without regard to "hits" means finding surprises. Some beyond belief such as the competitors to the #1 ...

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


  • Added: Aug 08, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 7
Caption: Washington Phillips
The mystery of who and what happens in heaven from scolding abstractions to humerous specifics, pop song lyrics have evolved over the last 100 year...

Bought by KFCF FM and Delmarva Public Media


  • Added: Aug 01, 2023
  • Length: 58:00
  • Purchases: 2
Caption: Brothers Stick and Brownie McGhee
Popular songs done by the song's originators and if rock and roll broke up the orthodoxy, then Spike Jones could be considered the original rock an...

Bought by KTAL-LP [Las Cruces Community Radio], WQCS, KETR-FM, and Prairie Public


  • Added: Jul 31, 2023
  • Length: 02:57:00
  • Purchases: 4