Searching For The First Rock And Roll Song

Series produced by Jamie Dell'Apa

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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
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Three hours of music you've never heard by musicians you've never heard of. Collector's music so that you don't need to spend your adulthood in yo...

  • Added: Apr 04, 2013
  • Length: 02:55:29
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Music you've never heard by musicians you've never heard of. Presented in goofy themes for reasons that I've forgotten.

  • Added: Feb 10, 2013
  • Length: 02:55:29
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Robert Moulton the singing cab driver drops in with ... oh it's too goofy to write about but he had me laughing at his audacity. Also songs with d...

  • Added: Feb 04, 2013
  • Length: 03:03:04
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You can hear echos of Guitar Slim's eight-second riff in hundreds of songs (but we'll only hear a few of them). Also music about the 99 versus 1 p...

  • Added: Jan 01, 2013
  • Length: 03:08:21
Caption: Me on Mardi Gras Day 2009, Credit: Storkleg
Also the night that started the "He lurks..." intro to Sam's show.

  • Added: Dec 03, 2012
  • Length: 02:17:00
Caption: New Orleans, where drunks swim home.
The physical and human debris of America wash down the Mississippi to New Orleans. We accept being at the end of the country's sewage line. At th...

Bought by KPIP-LP


  • Added: Aug 29, 2012
  • Length: 29:25
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: De-friend!  De-friend!
Before the internet's social media, there was the front door. A piece of wood where a knock substituted for a mouse and you were friended or defri...

Bought by KPIP-LP


  • Added: Sep 03, 2011
  • Length: 02:57:45
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: The late Danny Gatton, a regular performer at the Twist
Marc Gretchel, the owner of the Twist and Shout music club drops in to recall the music and magic of his club.

Bought by KPIP-LP


  • Added: Aug 23, 2011
  • Length: 02:57:33
  • Purchases: 1
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Why does the music of Doc Pomus and New Orleans sound so good together?

Bought by Prairie Public, KPIP-LP, and Prairie Public


  • Added: Jan 17, 2011
  • Length: 02:52:35
  • Purchases: 3
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Thanksgiving is a glutton of taste. Christmas a gluttony of taste and touch. New Years a gluttony of taste and, well getting drunk enough to forg...

Bought by KPIP-LP


  • Added: Dec 27, 2010
  • Length: 03:01:49
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Miss Atomic Bomb of 1957, Credit: Las Vegas Review Journal
Adding atomic bomb lyrics to any instrumental song makes that song so much better.

Bought by KPIP-LP


  • Added: Dec 10, 2010
  • Length: 01:13:09
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Mardi Gras festival on another planet
The 40 year old Star Trek episode, The Return of the Archons, features a society that celebrates a Mardi Gras festival and is lead by a guy named ...

Bought by KPIP-LP


  • Added: Jan 19, 2011
  • Length: 03:00:16
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Little Richard and the Upsetters with Charles Conner on Drums
You've heard him so many times yet never knew it was Charles Conner who created that unique Little Richard sound. He's the Upsetters' drummer. Ye...

Bought by KPIP-LP


  • Added: Nov 29, 2010
  • Length: 02:34:26
  • Purchases: 1
Caption: Wild Jimmy Spruill, Credit: 3dgorillabob
You've loved his unique guitar sound. A sound that made many records into hits but never knew his name because he was "just a session musician." ...

  • Added: Dec 31, 2010
  • Length: 01:18:56