Contenders King of RocknRoll
Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry and others could all be considered as – contenders King of RocknRoll.
Podcast
Contenders King of RocknRoll
To hear the show, Contenders King of RocknRoll – LIVE…
Author of Rock’n’Roll Unravelled, Derek Shelmerdine‘s
guest segment, Elvis Presley Unravelled
on The Mop Tops & The King radio show.
First broadcast during the week: 19 to 25 May 2023.
Syndicated on over 100 radio stations around the world.
weekly schedule – times and stations
Contenders King of RocknRoll
Who might be contenders for Elvis’s King of Rock’n’Roll crown?
Midway through Elvis’s meteoric rise to international fame in 1956, journalist Robert Johnson bestowed the title on Elvis. Johnson referred to Elvis as “the fledgling King of Rock’n’Roll”, in an article in the Memphis newspaper Press-Scimitar
LITTLE RICHARD
Little Richard was certainly a contender. Until his Australian tour in October 1957, when he had an epiphany, found God and renounced rock’n’roll.
The Big Show, Rock’n’Roll also featured Gene Vincent, Eddie Cochran, and Johnny O’Keefe and the Dee Jays, Australia’s first rock’n’roll band
Partway through the tour he played in Sydney and is reputed to say to the audience, “If you want to live for the Lord, you can’t take rock’n’roll too. God doesn’t like it.”
Source details vary but the date of the announcement is most frequently given as 12 October. Shortly after this, he threw his jewellery into the Hunter River or maybe Sydney Harbour, once again sources vary.
Several reasons are given for the epiphany. Possibly a sputnik passing overhead and signifying the end of the world or maybe a traumatic plane journey with its engines on fire.
When Little Richard returned to America he recorded one final session for Speciality. Following that, he enrolled into Oakwood Theological College in Huntsville Alabama. He trained as a Seventh Day Adventist minister.
Following his conversion, he only performed gospel songs. That is, until his return to rock’n’roll in 1962.
ELVIS PRESLEY
Elvis left the stage when he was drafted into the US Army on 24 March 1958. 53310761, Elvis Presley was inducted by the Memphis Draft Board. An Army haircut restyled his image the following day. From there he proceeded to Fort Hood, Texas for six-months basic training.
With Elvis off the scene, there was now a real opportunity for someone to snatch his title as the “King of Rock’n’Roll”. Little Richard was no longer a contender but there were certainly others…
JERRY LEE LEWIS
Jerry Lee Lewis arrived in the UK for his first tour on 22 May 1958. When reporters interviewed him, it transpired that the young lady with him was his wife, Myra Gale. They further discovered that she was the 13-year-old daughter of his bass-playing cousin, JW Brown.
He played three poorly received concerts before he pulled out and returned to America. Following Lewis’s departure from his own headlining tour, it continued and he was replaced by British skiffle legend Chas McDevitt.
His first three singles all made Billboard Top-10, with the first two in the Top-5. It was a very different story for his fourth single, High School Confidential. Record sales plummeted and it peaked at #21.
Jerry Lee’s rock’n’roll career never recovered. His fans deserted in their droves on both sides of the Atlantic and his rock’n’roll career was over.
At the time, Lewis was at the top of his game. Just a week earlier on 17 May, his home-town Ferriday held its first “Jerry Lee Lewis Day”.
Sam Phillips, head of Sun Records, made several attempts at damage limitation but to no avail. Jerry Lee left Sun in 1963. He moved to the Mercury subsidiary label Smash, where he reinvented himself as a country artist. This proved to be a very successful move. It provided him with a string of American country hits in the late-1960s, which continued into the early-1980s.
BUDDY HOLLY
Buddy Holly was certainly another contender but sadly, he died mid-tour when his plane crashed on 3 February 1959.
The Winter Dance Party tour reached the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, Iowa. The tour bus regularly broke down in the sub-zero temperatures of America’s mid-West. Because of this, Holly chartered a light aircraft to fly to Fargo, North Dakota for the next concert in nearby Moorhead, Minnesota.
The Crickets were a part of Buddy Holly’s past. His backing musicians for this tour were Waylon Jennings and Tommy Allsup. They originally planned to accompany him on the flight to Fargo. The other star acts on the show were also keen to swap the freezing tour coach for the comfort of an aeroplane.
Jennings gave up his seat for the Big Bopper, JP Richardson. Ritchie Valens “won” the flip of a coin and took Allsup’s seat. The plane took off shortly after midnight but crashed a few miles out of Clear Lake, killing the pilot Roger Peterson and his three passengers.
It’s an ill wind as they say… This tragedy launched the career of Fargo’s own Bobby Vee. When news of the crash reached Fargo, the search began for local talent. Fifteen-year-old Bobby Vee with his backing group the Shadows performed at the Moorhead concert that evening.
CHUCK BERRY
And of course, there was always Chuck Berry. John Lennon once said that “If you tried to give rock’n’roll another name, you might call it Chuck Berry”.
ELVIS PRESLEY – THE KING OF ROCK’N’ROLL
As a result, when Elvis returned to the studio on 20 March 1960 after leaving the US Army, he was still, and will always be – the undisputed King of Rock’n’Roll.
Rock’n’Roll Unravelled
Written by Derek Shelmerdine, Rock’n’Roll Unravelled tells the story of rock’n’roll from its roots to 1970s punk. Not just the music but also the influences such as the Vietnam War and the Civil Rights struggle.
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