Andy's Rockabilly Hit List: Roy Orbison, Hollies, Joan Jett, Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry

Joan Jett with Chuck Berry and Roy Orbison (above)

A Personal Choice Of 5 Top Rock And Roll Songs

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It is not surprising that some of my choice of rock and roll songs are not top hits and some of them may not be standard fare with our Singapore listeners. The artistes themselves are famous but are the songs as popular as the artistes who performed them?

These songs are truly hot, ones that most fans are aware of. Well, I may be wrong.  So here they are ladies and gentlemen, five songs that provide the rockabilly that many listeners can connect with, powerhouse voices, imaginative guitar intros, the best rolling bass that you can hear and riffs that are superfluous. 

The performance on stage is electrifying especially with Elvis and Chuck Berry if you watch the YouTube videos and the accompaniment is out of this world. Classic rock and roll that will live forever.

This write-up itself cannot survive on its own in the pages of a book. It can only be alive on a blog. With YouTube.

1. Heartbreak Radio: Roy Orbison

A near unknown Orbison number, I asked at least 10 people and only 3 of them know this song, and these are musicians. Again, it's a personal choice but truly one of the best rock songs I've heard. 

Pretty Woman has been so commercialised even before the movie. Heartbreak Radio shows an original Orbison with his guts exposed. You haven't seen what's behind the sunglasses until you hear this one.

The album was released after his death in 1988 and Heartbreak Radio is on side one, track two. King of Hearts came out in 1992 on Long Play too. Another favourite of mine, Crying, is in this compilation.

2. Long Cool Woman In A Black Dress: The Hollies.

This song is from 1972 and performed by British rock group The Hollies. Released originally on an album in the UK, it was put out as a single and sold nearly 4 million copies in the US and the world. 

Like CCR music, it's supposed to be swamp rock style,  leaning more towards 60's rock than 50's rhythm and blues. The introduction with its heavy drum and bass sounds depict the sensuality of this long cool woman with her mysterious black dress, 5'9 and beautiful tall. Like Hollies songs, smooth, suave.

3. I Hate Myself For Loving You: Joan Jett and The Blackhearts

She is the over average hard rocker, still around with 36 million viewers on YouTube with this particular song. An old fan, I forgot about Joan Jett when I went into middle-of-the-road stuff. 

Local singer Wendi Koh, during our Rolling Good Times episode together with the Silver Strings at MediaCorp, sang this song. I realised I had missed out on JJ and started listening again.

A track from, Up Your Alley album, I Hate Myself For Loving You, was created in 1988. It's been one of the best rock songs sung by a lady. At Billboard Hot, it was #8. To me, it's #1. Best. Mick Taylor, former Rolling Stones guitarist played the guitar solo.

Fangs bared; she's the best and the only rock and roll lady on my list.

4. Polk Salad Annie: Elvis Presley

Although it's 1969 original by Tony Joe White, this song never came across to me as a hit until Elvis sang it live in his concerts. And no one could beat Elvis when he used his ten megaton energy to let loose another swamp rock performance that only The King could create. 

Las Vegas was the above venue to introduce Annie. The Pelvis was at his best. Slim, powered with civic sensuality and eager to please, this video says it all. Audience members Elvis shook hands with mentioned that he was shivering and wet after the performance.

Suspicious Minds made its debut in Vegas but Polk Salad Annie was the ultimate to any Presley number. It's my choice anyway.  I thought only Elvis picked it up from the swampland of Louisiana, the success of this song I mean. He recorded it and the only version I love. There are other covers too including one Tom Jones but Elvis was the one rough and tough enough with Annie.

5. Rock and Roll Music: Chuck Berry

I've included this song because I thought Chuck Berry deserves a mention on this list. No African American singer and they were the ones who introduced us to this genre of music.

Covered by a long list of pop stars, Rock and Roll Music still belongs to Mr Berry. It is a 1957 recorded hit and the oldest on my list. One of the most popular compositions by Berry, it has been sung by so many from Billy Haley to Beatles, Beach Boys and Bryan Adams. 

It has been included in the list of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame: 500 Songs That Shaped Rock and Roll but not in the 1001 Songs Before You Die List but it wasn't. Enjoy the songs if you haven't done so. 
Again, this is a personal choice. 😊
Do you have your own list? Please tell me. 

Elvis Presley and The Hollies (below)

Google Images and YouTube Videos.

Read another article about what rockabilly really means...

Sunglasses Turn To Moonglasses In Singapore

Marlon Brando, the bravado with 

his shades and the big bike.

Shades On Stage

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Sunglasses:

Sunglasses have been fashion accessory since the 1940's but others believe that these spectacles with dark coloured lenses have existed since the 1920's. 

Some people thought they were invented because film stars needed them to protect their eyes from the extremely powerful arc lights on movie sets; others felt that sun glasses were invented for the beach.

Dark Dark Sunglasses by The Kittens. 

Video: shinsuke oldiesjuke.

Simply, it's just a pair of dark glasses to protect your eyes from the glare of the blinding sun. Then came the UV ray and computer professional theories and later the LASIK operation which hyped the wearing of this fashion trend. 

Sunglasses has a history in itself. A long time ago, in the US, they were commonly known as shades and Marlon Brando (image on bike) had them for his 1954 movie On The Waterfront and Elvis Presley (right) wore them while jamming in a scene for his 1970 bio movie, That's The Way It Is. These dark-lens spectacles were known to have dated way back when into Roman times and 12th Century China.

Pop stars known to wear sunglasses included, Elton John, Paul McCartney, Freddie Mercury, John Lennon, Mick Jagger, Boy George, James Dean, Bob Marley, George Harrison and Ringo Starr. An endless list?

Except for Yoko Ono and a few other lady singers, most female stars do not put on dark glasses for obvious reasons.

Call them what you may, sunglasses were identified differently in various countries. Known as glares in India; speckies in Australia; sunnies in Africa, UK and NZ. The Scots called them glecks and the Middle East, cooling glasses.

In Singapore they were ordinarily known as sun glasses, shades, black specs, sun specs or simply dark glasses. 

Our Singapore band boys wore them constantly. And featured images were our own pop stars from The Quests, The Jets and The Stylers. Know them?

There were different types too; Aviator, Oversized, Shutter Shades, Tea Shades, Wayfarer and Wrap Around. The more starry-eyed youngsters in the 1960's, to show off their expensive taste, called them Ray Ban.

Cursing first, "Damn sun." Then, "Alamak, I left my Ray Ban Aviator at home!" 

Moonglasses

What surprised me was in the early 1960's when everyone was rock n rollin' on the ballroom floor at Paya Lebar Airport night club I saw a dancing couple wearing a pair of sunglasses. No difference actually because they were ordinary shades worn at night. 

It could have started because of Roy Orbison's (left) iconic glasses. There was a cult following when our Only The Lonely pop star made night sunglasses a cool habit among singers. 

Because of his own experience with prescription glasses in 1963, he ended on stage one evening wearing a pair. The idea must have caught on. And they called them, moonglasses?

There were singers who needed to wear them permanently, even at night. They were: Jose Feliciano, Stevie Wonder, Ray Charles, Ronny Milsap and Roy Orbison.

Like cats we copied, and soon the band boys were wearing moonglasses on stage at night. Their excuse was simple; the glare of the stage lights were blinding. So moonglasses were in vogue for a while during Singapore's 60's music craze (images below show *Malay singer Ismail Haron and *Chinese guitar group The Bees). 

Walking the evening streets in Singapore in the 1960's it was easily noticeable that the trend had caught on like wildfire. As the Pokemon phenomenon is today, just imagine a whole lot of youngsters walking around in the middle of the night, with dark glasses on their faces, shading themselves from the moon glare?

I remember one evening when a group of us, some with moonglasses, had to walk to a makeshift carpark (not many beautiful carparks like they have today). It was after a performance at a Changi beach club.

There was a loud thud and we saw our drummer boy fall on the sandy shore. He had bumped into a coconut tree in the dark of night. His pair of moonglasses was still dangling on one ear when we went to 'rescue' him.

Are moonglasses still popular today? Of course but not so spectacular as it was yesterday. You can still see Silver Strings Michael Bangar wearing them during performance, day and night.

Do you have stories to tell about your shades?

*Singers and bands are versatile. Ismail Haron, who had passed on, was a Malay and The Bees was basically a Chinese guitar group but they sang and played western music as well.

Images from: A Personal Collection and Google.

Article is original and some information from Wikipedia and Internet sites.

Roy Orbison and Moonglasses. 

Click below to read:

http://singapore60smusic.blogspot.sg/2009/03/roy-orbison-pretty-woman-moonglasses.html

                                         Ooh, here's a nasty one!

'Sunglasses' - Sandy Posey. 

Video from YouTube by BladeSteve2007. 

as suggested by stephen han.

images: from google.

BABY BOOMERS, ORBISON & MOONGLASSES

"He was the Caruso of Rock. Performers like Elvis Presley agreed that his voice was the greatest and most distinctive they had ever heard. While male rock and roll singers in the 50s and 60s portrayed a defiant masculinity, many of Orbison's songs instead conveyed a quiet, desperate vulnerability.

Roy Kelton Orbison (April 23, 1936 – December 6, 1988) was an American singer-songwriter and musician, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. He grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly / country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis, Tennessee.

His greatest success was with Monument Records in the early 1960s where 22 of his songs placed on the Top Forty, including Only the Lonely, Crying, In Dreams, and Oh, Pretty Woman. His career stagnated through the 1970s, but revived in the 80s. He died of a heart attack at the age of 52, at the zenith of his resurgence.

He was known for performing while standing still and solitary, wearing black clothes and dark sunglasses which lent an air of mystery to his persona (Wikipedia Songs)".

Moonglass and Singapore Youths:

Sunglasses was also the in thing with baby boomers in the 60's and 'Pretty Woman' was sure fire. He had many hits even before this song was used in Julia Roberts' movie. Music and style like Orbison's influenced Singapore so much that many youths in the 60's donned sunglasses even in the dead of night. The band boys and girls had a blast hanging them on their faces. They were called MOON GLASSES then!

But when the authorities came on the scene they even banned them during recordings in the television studios as they reeked gangsterism? Ask the SILVER STRINGS. 

Could sunglasses make a difference? Makes for a better singer? Or isn't just for style? 60s style.

Wikipedia: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roy_Orbison

Image: Google

Information: Wikipedia Songs