James A. Cosby - Devils Music, Holy Rollers and Hillbillies: How America Gave Birth to Rock and Roll

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Jefferson, North Carolina

LIBRARY OF CONGRESS CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

BRITISH LIBRARY CATALOGUING DATA ARE AVAILABLE

ISBN (ebook) 978-1-4766-2538-6

2016 James A. Cosby. All rights reserved

No part of this book may be reproduced or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying or recording, or by any information storage and retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publisher.

Front cover: (top to bottom) Bessie Smith, 1936 photograph by Carl Van Vechten (Library of Congress); Snake handlers at Pentecostal Church of God, Lejunior, Kentucky, September 15, 1946, photograph by Russell Lee (National Archives and Records Administration); Publicity photograph of Hank Williams (MGM Records)

McFarland & Company, Inc., Publishers
Box 611, Jefferson, North Carolina 28640
www.mcfarlandpub.com

To all of those African Americans who have
come through the Delta with song and spirit.
And also to the Kent Bangers.

I would like to thank those who read drafts of this book and provided invaluable feedback: Emily Bilodeau, John Stone, Claire Good, Gerald Good, Cort Hodge and Dr. John McCafferty.

I was first introduced to the Beatles catalog when I was about four or five years old. I could not believe how good they sounded or how much fun they were obviously having. I still believe that the Beatles, like all great artists, had tapped into something far bigger than the four of them.

I later came to find out that parents did not necessarily love this rock and roll stuff like I did. Some even hated it. In fact, it turns out that when rock and roll first came out, the Establishment seriously saw it as an evilthe Devils music, even.

I eventually saw a glimpse of the Devil in rock myself. The rock and roll attitude and attendant lifestyle became synonymous with extreme rebellion and hedonism; as just one of so many examples, the lead singer of the rock band AC/DC, Bon Scott, was jokingly singing about a Highway to Hell (1979)the title song of the first album I ever boughtwhich he and his friends were taking en route to good times and a huge party. A few months after that particular record was released, however, the thirty-three-year-old Scott suffered an alcohol-induced death.

In pondering this rock music stuff, I had to ask myself: When is rebellion positive, and when does it cross into self-destruction? When is structure and stability a good thing, and when is cutting loose required? In short, how does one reconcile the Devils music with I Want to Hold Your Hand? For that matter, what is this rock and roll music?

Years later, I started to look back toward the origins of this amazing music that had come to mean so much to me. Where did it even come from? What was the first rock and roll song? What other songs existed right before the first rock record? How about Elviswas he really a cultural thief? What is the evidence either way? How do I not know the answers to such basic questions?

As I began to dig into these questions, not only did I find some amazing answers, but I also found some more great questions. So who is Dewey Phillips? How does Ike Turner fit into this? And B.B. King? What is the truth of the near-mythic Elvis and the full-blown myth of Delta blues legend Robert Johnson? What is the relationship of the blues and rock? How did the blues come out of slavery? What is this fantastic connection between Pentecostalism and the formation of rock and roll? And Sister Rosetta Tharpe! Hillbillies and cowboys. Teens in the 1950s. Sex and nuclear Armageddon. Madison Avenue (and the true story of Marlboro cigarettesits relevant, trust me). U.B. Phillips. Jimmie Rodgers. And on and on.

A lot has been written about rock and roll, of course; there are maybe a dozen outstanding books that served just as the starting point and the foundation for this one, including Dewey and Elvis, Shout Sister Shout, The Land Where the Blues Began, It Came from Memphis, Blues People, Mystery Train, Race, Rock and Elvis, Last Train to Memphis, and others. I also took a couple of trips to rocks launching pad, Memphis and the Delta, to look around and get the feel of that region. I do not think that anyone has ever tied all of these amazing loose ends together, connected all of the dots, in a way that truly explains how rock and roll came to be or what it even is. It seemed to me that there is a whole slew of overlooked and misunderstood anecdotes each of which says a whole lot about the history of America, Western culture, and, well, the human condition.

As a long-time rock fan, a history buff, and a music writer, I was sure that if all of the above was completely new to me, it would likely be new to a lot of other people, too. This is essentially the book I wanted to read, and considering the incredible impact and popularity of rock and roll music, I hope and believe that others will be interested, too. It is a great history and one that everyone should fully understand.

I do believe the music of the Beatles taught the young people of the Soviet Union that there is another life.

Mikhail Gorbachev

By and large the literature of a democracy will never exhibit the order, regularity, skill, and art characteristic of aristocratic literature; formal qualities will be neglected or actually despised. The style will often be strange, incorrect, overburdened, and loose, and almost always strong and bold.

Alexis de Tocqueville

Today most are not old enough to remember just what a threat rock and roll was to Americas traditional institutions and social mores when it broke loose in the mid1950s. In fact, while rock music has since become a revered social institution in its own right, few of us even know how it actually came to be. Today rock is so accepted and ubiquitous, it almost seems to have just always been around, or perhaps as if the history of rock music begins with Elvis Presley, malt shops, and sock hops.

Currently even the pioneers of punk rock, those lovable fringe degenerates, the Ramones, for example, are a regular part of the soundtrack to otherwise wholesome family entertainment, such as major league baseball games. What used to be your grandfathers stuffy, luxury sedan, the Cadillac, is now sold to the heavy riffing of the heroin-using, occult-dabbling rockers known as Led Zeppelin. While rock and roll was first labeled the Devils music (as had its predecessor, the blues), even the Vatican has since come around. A 2008 article in the papacys official newspaper, Osservatore Romano, actually made positive references to rocks two biggest acts: Elvis Presley and the Beatles.

From its beginning, rock music has inspired and given a voice to a youth movement that has since shaped much of current world culture. Rock came about at a time when Americas institutions were largely failing to provide an outlet for the anxiety, fear, and confusion of life in a modern age that was changing much too fast. In mid1950s America, conformity had become a prized national ideal, and many uncomfortable social topics were being avoided. The rock revolution presented pointed alternatives and outlets not only in music but in lifestyle and attitude. When the U.S. Supreme Courts 1954 decision to end segregation in