Rock 'n roll is the bastard child of America, fathered and mothered by blues, country, and gospel, born of the swinging hips and fevered shouts of countless fish fries in every crook and cranny of the country. Were rock ‘n roll to have a birth certificate, you’d expect the birthplace to be listed as Clarksdale or Memphis or New Orleans or Detroit—or countless other sites. Add Hattiesburg, Mississippi to that list.
The claim lies largely in the hands of the Graves brothers. Blind Roosevelt Graves and his brother Uaroy are best known as practitioners of the good old gospel. Their “I’ll Be Rested” and “Woke Up this Morning (With My Mind on Jesus)” 78s are foundation gospel tunes, the kind of pure tunes that are in the DNA of all American music to follow. In 1936 the brothers hooked up with pianist Cooney Vaughn to form the markedly more secular Mississippi Jook Band; and through their recordings “Barbecue Bust” and “Dangerous Woman,” the nascent yelp of rock ‘n roll can be heard. But, is that enough for Hattiesburg to claim to be the birthplace of rock ‘n roll?
“I wonder, not so much from an ego point of view, if I started that phrase in the vernacular,” said musician and filmmaker Webb Wilder. Wilder grew up in Hattiesburg and got The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll (1992) when he was moving to Austin to start his music career. "Rock Begins," one of the first articles collected in the book, lends Hattiesburg's claim some weight.
Written by noted blues scholar Robert Palmer, the article states that rock’s roots came from the “rocking and reeling” style of ecstatic singing found in the “maverick Sanctified and Holiness churches, where guitars, drums, and horns were as acceptable as the pianos and organ, and more easily afforded.” About the Graves brothers, he says, “Their 'Barbecue Bust' and 'Dangerous Woman' featured fully formed rock and roll guitar riffs and a stomping rock and roll beat."
"I used to say, ‘Well, it’s the birthplace of rock 'n roll,' " said Wilder. “That phrase is not in the article, so I’m wondering if I’m guilty of starting that."
Wilder said that the book gave him a means to plumb rock ‘n roll’s history. "I read that Pete Townsend was into Eddie Cochran, so I'd go find what that was all about.” Palmer, perhaps most famous for his 1982 book Deep Blues: A Musical and Cultural History of the Mississippi Delta, makes an enthusiastic case for the Mississippi Jook Band as the beginning of rock ‘n roll’s origin story, but the tracks themselves perhaps bear the strongest evidence.
“Barbecue Bust”: youtube.com/watch?v=1pegm79r1zE
On “Barbecue Bust” Vaughn lays down a boogie worthy of what Jerry Lee Lewis would do decades later, as Uaroy Graves bangs away on tambourine and plays some surprisingly rocked out kazoo solos while brother Roosevelt’s locomotive guitar shuffle and near-feral vocal wailing cinches the claim. This track has the single-minded force of early rock ‘n roll—that nervous, hormonal rush. Never before nor since has a kazoo sounded this dangerous.
“Dangerous Woman”: youtube.com/watch?v=jA3uTsewjVM
The Melotone label for “Dangerous Woman” (serial number HAT 141) categorizes the song as “hot dance” for piano, tambourine, and guitar. Vaughn’s stride piano licks take center stage on this number. Uaroy’s tambourine and Roosevelt’s guitar find that transparent perfection of a rock ‘n roll rhythm section, that place where it is so intrinsic to the recording that it almost disappears. The best moment comes near the end after Vaughn’s piano solo when Roosevelt hollers out, “Well?” It’s like he’s aware something new has just happened but doesn’t know what it is.
While singling out the Mississippi Jook Band, Palmer asserts a number of less-definitive origin stories for rock ‘n roll, one of which is a John and Alan Lomax recording of the old gospel ring shout “Run Old Jeremiah” in a tiny Louisiana church in 1934. Among its spellbinding exhortations can be found, “Oh my lordy / Well, well, well / I’ve gotta rock / You gotta rock.” He describes the Lomaxes’ shock at finding such an old piece of folk music still being practiced while remarking, “But they had also stumbled onto the future.”
A key characteristic in Palmer’s analysis of rock ‘n roll’s roots in Southern church music is that “It was participatory; often a song leader would be pitted against an answering chorus, or a solo instrument against an ensemble, in call-and-response fashion.”
Palmer asserts, “In a very real sense, rock was implicit in the music of the first Africans brought to North America.” It’s an important lineage to acknowledge. Language and culture were the only thing slaves could bring with them from Africa, and their musical rhythms and practices fused with Western religion, giving birth to gospel which begat blues which then begat jazz and rock ‘n roll. That river of song runs so deeply through the collective musical history of the United States and, through its cultural influence, the musical history of the world, it is difficult to map exactly where any of that river’s tributaries begin.
When asked if any amount of evidence can establish a definitive birthplace of rock ‘n roll, Wilder said, “I’ve learned the hard way that music and art is subjective; so I guess the answer is no, you can’t really draw a line in the sand. People are going to have opinions, and I’ve always had ‘em!”
Whether these are the first rock 'n roll songs, they are definitely rock ‘n roll, a loud collective sound that speaks to the primitive urges in all of us, the you and me against the world that spurred a thousand love affairs, the same rush that makes you rev your engine to the radio, even if it’s just in the Whole Foods parking lot. Rock ‘n roll is Roosevelt Graves hollering “Well?” after a tumult of rhythm, one person left to be the answer to the world’s clattering question.
Hattiesburg may or may not be rock ‘n roll’s birthplace. But that old recording of the Mississippi Jook Band ripping through “Barbecue Bust” leaves little doubt that this central Mississippi town has contributed more than a few strands to the music’s DNA.
Details.Details.Details.
The wide world of Webb Wilder can be explored through his website webbwilder.com. His most recent album is 2009’s More Like Me on Blind Pig Records.
The Document Records compilation, Blind Roosevelt Graves and Brother: The Complete Recordings (1929-1936), collects their gospel tunes as well as the secular music made under the Mississippi Jook Band name. It can be heard on Spotify here: tinyurl.com/o6cvs4n
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