"Rock Awhile" is a song by American singer-songwriter

Goree Carter Goree Chester Carter or Christer Carter (December 31, 1930 – December 29, 1990), was an American singer, guitarist, drummer, and songwriter. He was also credited with the stage names Little T-Bone, Rocky Thompson and Gory Carter, and recorded ...

, recorded in April 1949 for the Freedom Recording Company in

Houston, Texas Houston (; ) is the most populous city in Texas, the most populous city in the Southern United States, the fourth-most populous city in the United States, and the sixth-most populous city in North America, with a population of 2,304,580 in ...

. The song was released as the 18-year-old Carter's debut single (with "Back Home Blues" as the B-side) shortly after recording. The track is considered by many sources to be the first

rock and roll Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock 'n' roll, or rock 'n roll) is a Genre (music), genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It Origins of rock and roll, originated from Africa ...

song, Robert Palmer, "Church of the Sonic Guitar", pp. 13-38 in Anthony DeCurtis, ''Present Tense'',

Duke University Press Duke University Press is an academic publisher and university press affiliated with Duke University. It was founded in 1921 by William T. Laprade as The Trinity College Press. (Duke University was initially called Trinity College). In 1926 Du ...

, 1992, p. 19. . John Nova Lomax (December 2014)
Roll Over, Ike Turner
''

Texas Monthly ''Texas Monthly'' (stylized as ''TexasMonthly'') is a monthly American magazine headquartered in Downtown Austin, Texas. ''Texas Monthly'' was founded in 1973 by Michael R. Levy and has been published by Emmis Publishing, L.P. since 1998 and is ...

''Roger Wood (2003), ''Down in Houston: Bayou City Blues''
pages 46-47

University of Texas Press The University of Texas Press (or UT Press) is a university press that is part of the University of Texas at Austin. Established in 1950, the Press publishes scholarly books and journals in several areas, including Latin American studies, Texan ...

and has been called a better candidate than the more commonly cited "

Rocket 88 "Rocket 88" (originally stylized as Rocket "88") is a song that was first recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, in March 1951. The recording was credited to "Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats", who were actually Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm. The ...

", which was released two years later. The song features an over-driven

electric guitar An electric guitar is a guitar that requires external amplification in order to be heard at typical performance volumes, unlike a standard acoustic guitar (however combinations of the two - a semi-acoustic guitar and an electric acoustic gui ...

style similar to that of

Chuck Berry Charles Edward Anderson Berry (October 18, 1926 – March 18, 2017) was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist who pioneered rock and roll. Nicknamed the " Father of Rock and Roll", he refined and developed rhythm and blues into th ...

years later. The former

New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''the Times'', ''NYT'', or the Gray Lady) is a daily newspaper based in New York City with a worldwide readership reported in 2020 to comprise a declining 840,000 paid print subscribers, and a growing 6 million paid d ...

pop critic, Robert Palmer, made this comment about the recording in 1995:

"The clarion guitar intro differs hardly at all from some of the intros Chuck Berry would unleash on his own records after 1955; the guitar solo crackles through an overdriven amplifier; and the boogie-based rhythm charges right along. The subject matter, too, is appropriate -- the record announces that it's time to 'rock awhile,' and then proceeds to show how it's done."Racket
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Personnel

– vocals, electric guitar * Lonnie Lyons – piano * Louis "Nunu" Pitts – bass * Allison Tucker – drums * Conrad O. Johnson – alto saxophone * Sam Williams – tenor saxophone (

rhythm Rhythm (from Greek , ''rhythmos'', "any regular recurring motion, symmetry") generally means a " movement marked by the regulated succession of strong and weak elements, or of opposite or different conditions". This general meaning of regular recu ...

) * Nelson Mills – trumpet (rhythm)

References

External links

Commentary on the song
''SpontaneousLunacy.com'' 1949 debut singles 1949 songs Goree Carter songs {{1940s-song-stub