Many bands played there, but one that was regarded as the best dance band in the world was Chick Webb’s band, which had the vocalists Louis Jordan and Ella Fitzgerald. The place where the best dance bands played was the Savoy Ballroom in Harlem, New York. Swing was dance music, and the best big bands made music that had a very strong pulse, and was often based on riffing. Swing was a music that was based on jazz, but which used much bigger bands, usually with very tightly arranged horn sections. The best place to start when looking at rock and roll music is with swing, the music that was most popular immediately prior to the Second World War. For those of you who haven’t read the book, or who read it a while ago, I’d better get you up to speed with a brief précis. In volume one, I looked at the history of rock music from its prehistory in 1938 through to 1956, the year that Elvis Presley burst on to the international scene and became the biggest star in the world. And that’s what I intend to do with these books, and the podcasts on which they’re based. But we all come to music with preconceptions, and sometimes the music needs to be put into context for us to hear it with fresh ears. Much of the music I’m covering is music that, to me, is as immediately appealing as any music ever made. That people can listen to Carl Perkins, or Jerry Lee Lewis, or the Drifters, or the Chantels, or Del Shannon, or Wanda Jackson for fun. It’s my belief that the music I’m covering in these volumes has something to offer – that it’s music that can be enjoyed by modern listeners. This was brought home to me almost twenty years ago, when I was doing a popular music history course at university, and as part of the course the lecturers played the room some music by Carl Perkins and said, laughingly, Now, obviously, we don’t expect you to listen to Carl Perkins for fun, but you should know about him. As rock and roll music is increasingly relegated to history, as new genres take over in the popular consciousness and the generations for whom rock music was important become older, it’s difficult for many people to appreciate the music as music. Those of you who have read volume one will already be familiar with the reason this series exists. In this series I plan to chart one version of the history of rock music from its beginnings through to the year 2000, one record at a time. This book is part of a planned ten-book series, which is in turn based on a planned ten-year weekly podcast which you can find at and which includes a lot of snippets of the songs I talk about here. Welcome to the second volume of A History of Rock Music in 500 Songs.
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