50 Fun Facts About Hard Rock and Roll

Rocket 88 (1951) was credited to Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, but whose band actually played on it?

Brenston was Turner's saxophonist; the record went to number one on the R&B chart and helped fund Sun Records.

Legend says Willie Kizart's damaged amp on Rocket 88 was repaired with what, creating its fuzz tone?

Sam Phillips liked the buzz and kept it, giving rock its first fuzz tone by accident on Highway 61.

Sam Phillips opened his Memphis Recording Service at what address in January 1950?

Sun Records itself followed on 1 February 1952, funded partly by the success of Rocket 88.

Who bought the Sun label from Sam Phillips in 1969?

Singleton was a Mercury Records producer; the label still trades on the original 1950s rooster-and-sunrise logo.

Elvis's That's All Right, cut at Sun in 1954, was a 1946 blues number by which artist?

Memphis DJ Dewey Phillips played it on his Red, Hot, and Blue show three days later.

Elvis made his first television appearance on a KSLA-TV broadcast of which radio show, the Opry's rival?

The Hayride booked him for a year of Saturday nights and its drummer D. J. Fontana turned the trio into a quartet.

What newspaper story inspired Heartbreak Hotel's writers Mae Boren Axton and Tommy Durden?

Elvis recorded it on 10 January 1956 with Chet Atkins and Floyd Cramer in the room, and it became his first million-seller.

Elvis first heard Hound Dog performed by which Las Vegas lounge act, whose version he copied?

The song had been a 1953 hit for Big Mama Thornton, written by Leiber and Stoller.

Elvis paid how much for Graceland in March 1957?

He had given his parents a $100,000 budget to find a farmhouse-like property with room around it.

Chuck Berry's Maybellene was his adaptation of which country song?

Leonard Chess preferred it to Berry's blues material, and Willie Dixon played bass on the session.

What was Chuck Berry's only number-one single?

The 1972 novelty song came almost two decades after Maybellene topped only the R&B chart.

Which songwriter was hired to clean up the lyrics of Little Richard's Tutti Frutti?

Producer Bumps Blackwell heard the hit in it; Pat Boone's sanitised cover then charted higher than Richard's own.

Little Richard's breakthrough came at which Los Angeles label, run by Art Rupe?

Lloyd Price suggested he send a demo there in February 1955; Rupe loaned him the money to escape his Peacock contract.

Buddy Holly's real surname was Holley. What changed it?

He signed with Decca in February 1956 and simply kept the error.

Why did Buddy Holly's band record That'll Be the Day under the name the Crickets?

Norman Petty produced it in Clovis, New Mexico, and sent the demo to Brunswick, and it topped both the US and UK charts in 1957.

Which Nashville producer, famous for Patsy Cline, produced Buddy Holly's unhappy early Decca sessions?

Holly wanted more control, so he drove to Norman Petty's studio in Clovis and cut the demos that made his name.

Which bassist in Buddy Holly's Winter Dance Party band gave up his plane seat to the Big Bopper?

Tommy Allsup lost his seat to Ritchie Valens on a coin toss, and drummer Carl Bunch was in hospital with frostbite.

What type of aircraft crashed near Clear Lake, Iowa, on 3 February 1959?

Pilot Roger Peterson lost control shortly after take-off in wintry weather; the band was heading for Moorhead, Minnesota.

Bill Haley's band was renamed the Comets over Labor Day weekend 1952. What had they been called?

As the Saddlemen they had already covered Rocket 88 in June 1951, and Crazy Man, Crazy charted in 1953.

Bo Diddley was born Ellas Otha Bates in which Mississippi town?

He grew up on Chicago's South Side as Ellas McDaniel and played rectangular guitars through tremolo and reverb.

Alan Freed's Moondog Coronation Ball, called the first rock and roll concert, was shut down in 1952 at which venue?

Far more people turned up than the arena could hold and the show ended in a near-riot.

Freed left New York's WINS in May 1958 after a riot at a dance featuring which performer?

The dance was in Boston; the payola hearings finished his career the following year.

Which Chicago DJ told the 1959 Congressional payola hearings he had taken $22,000 to play a record?

Dick Clark testified too and survived, partly because he had sold off his music-industry holdings.

How long did the FBI investigate the Kingsmen's Louie Louie for obscenity before giving up?

Drummer Lynn Easton later admitted he did yell an expletive after fumbling a fill at 0:54, which the Bureau missed.

Louie Louie was written and first recorded in 1956 by which R&B musician?

He was inspired by a Latin band's take on El Loco Cha Cha; the Kingsmen's 1963 version made it a garage-rock anthem.

Chubby Checker's The Twist set what record?

It hit the top in September 1960 and again in January 1962 when high society belatedly caught the craze.

Ricky Nelson's 'Poor Little Fool' was the first number one on which new listing in 1958?

He placed 54 songs on the Hot 100 and its predecessors between 1957 and 1973.

Cliff Richard's 1958 single often called Britain's first authentic rock and roll record was what?

He was born Harry Webb in Lucknow, India, and with the Shadows ruled British pop until the Beatles.

John Lennon's pre-Beatles skiffle group took its name from what?

Quarry Bank High School's song ran "Quarry men old before our birth"; Lennon formed the group in November 1956 at sixteen.

Stuart Sutcliffe bought the bass guitar that got him into the Beatles with money from what?

He joined in January 1960 and stayed in Hamburg with photographer Astrid Kirchherr when the band went home.

Which Hamburg club owner gave the Beatles their first residency there in 1960?

He fired them for playing the rival Top Ten Club and reported the underage George Harrison to the authorities.

The Cavern Club opened on 16 January 1957 catering to which kind of music?

Alan Sytner modelled it on Paris's Le Caveau de la Huchette; the first act was the Merseysippi Jazz Band.

Which Rolling Stones keyboardist was dropped from the official line-up but stayed as road manager until 1985?

He was among the first to answer Brian Jones's ad and never really left the band's inner circle.

The Rolling Stones' instrumental 2120 South Michigan Avenue is named after the address of which studio?

They cut it there on their first US tour; the building became a Chicago Landmark in 1990.

Which act was the first to sign for Woodstock, agreeing in April 1969 to play for $10,000?

Hendrix, by contrast, closed the festival at 8:30 on Monday morning after rain delays.

At what time did Jimi Hendrix finally take the stage to close Woodstock?

Most of the crowd had already gone home, missing the Star-Spangled Banner.

At the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival every artist played for free except one, who was paid $3,000. Who?

Paul McCartney, on the board of governors, insisted the festival would be incomplete without Jimi Hendrix.

Which band organised the Altamont Free Concert but never got to play?

The 6 December 1969 show, with Hells Angels as security, ended with the killing of Meredith Hunter and was filmed for Gimme Shelter.

Which bassist of the Animals became Jimi Hendrix's manager and brought him to England in 1966?

Within months the Jimi Hendrix Experience had three UK top-ten hits: Hey Joe, Purple Haze and The Wind Cries Mary.

Who wrote 'Me and Bobby McGee', Janis Joplin's posthumous 1971 number one?

Mercedes Benz, her final recording, was on the same album, Pearl.

The Doors took their name from a book by which writer?

The Doors of Perception itself borrows a line from Blake; the band formed in Los Angeles in 1965.

Fender's two-pickup solid-body launched in 1951 as the Broadcaster. Why was it renamed the Telecaster?

Gretsch already sold Broadkaster drums; the one-pickup version had launched in 1950 as the Esquire.

Besides Leo Fender, which three men are credited with designing the Stratocaster between 1952 and 1954?

The contoured, double-cutaway body has been in continuous production since 1954.

What did the original 1952 Gibson Les Paul come with?

Humbuckers arrived in 1957 and the sunburst in 1958, creating the bursts collectors now pay fortunes for.

Les Paul's home-made solid-body prototype, which inspired the Gibson Les Paul, was nicknamed what?

Born Lester Polsfuss in Waukesha, Wisconsin, he also pioneered overdubbing and multitrack recording with his wife Mary Ford.

Which blues singer recorded 'My Man Rocks Me with One Steady Roll' in 1922?

Huey Piano Smith credited New Orleans shouter Cha Cha Hogan with popularising the term in 1950.

Where did the Killer, later of Sun Records fame, make his very first recordings in 1952?

He reached Sun in 1956, and Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On made him famous the following year.

Ritchie Valens's real surname was what?

He was 17 when he died and had turned a Mexican folk song into La Bamba.

Eddie Cochran died in April 1960 after a taxi crash in which English town?

He was heading for Heathrow with Gene Vincent and songwriter Sharon Sheeley after a show at the Bristol Hippodrome.

Which Atlantic Records founder established the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation in 1983?

The foundation began inducting artists in 1986, three years before Cleveland won the long search for a permanent home; the I. M. Pei museum opened in 1995.