Unsung heroes of popular music

Hi,

It would be nice if people would give examples of artists, producers, writers, etc who don't always get the credit they deserve. Some people have helped the course of popular music but may not had much credit.

Feature people and why they deserve a mention.

I'll start.

Bobby Bryd - Partly responsible for James Brown

Without Bobby Byrd, there may never have been James Brown. James Brown took the wrong path in his teens and was put in jail. He got parole due to Bobby's family sponsoring him. They first met playing sport.

Bobby Byrd's family looked after James when he came out. This was one of his parole conditions. There were a few times when he broke a few of the other conditions but Bobby Byrd spoke up for him & kept him out of jail.

James joined Bobby's group, the Flames. Under Bobby's watchful eye James developed into a musicial force. Bobby helped James to develop as a singer and a performer. This led to James taking over the group as lead singer and group leader. From here, James started to turn into a legend of popular music.

Bobby worked with James right into the early 70s. Contributed on many of his great recordings including Sex Machine. He died a few months ago of cancer



Ike Turner - The inventor of Rock & Roll

Thought of by many to be just the violent, drug using ex-husband of Tina Turner. He has paid for his errors but he did help to invent Rock and Roll.

He built up a strong reputation in R&B being an excellent bandleader and musician. His band, Kings of Rhythm built up a good reputation. In the early 50's they recorded with Sam Philips of Sun Records fame.

Ike Turner wrote a song called Rocket 88. This was sung by one of his sax players, Jackie Brenston. The tune was based around a late 40s song called Cadallac boogie. It was also based on a song called Rocket 88 boogie. Ike made his tune more raw, adding a strong backbeat. He took strong elements fro the jump blues and swing that was big at the time. He played piano on the recording. His panio intro was later copied by Little Richard on "Good Golly Miss Molly". The record features an early example of the distorted guitar sound that is so loved in popular music.

For some reason the record came out as "Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats" with no writing credit for Ike Turner. The record was a smash hit and was covered a few months later by Bill Hailey.

Jackie left the band & Ike carried on. He later meet Tina turner and that's another story.

There are other artists and records that could have the claim of the first rock & roll record but alot of people point to this one.




SCIDB

 

Fantastic link (Rocket 88) Dean. I want the girl, the car and the record!

1951, unbelievable.

 

Paul Shuttleworth would have got his due fame if he hadn't morphed into Ned Flanders.

 

Great stuff; Jackie Brenson was Turners cousin, and Turner wrote the song on the way to the March 3rd Memphis session. After a particularly tortuous journey from Mississippi to Memphis
They lost their bass-it blew off the top of the car and one of the guitar amp bounced onto the carpark tarmac, breaking the speaker.Turner stuffed the cone with paper and an new guitar sound was born-amazing stuff.