What is this thing we call "rocking"?
A sound, a state of mind, a beat....More than the stomp of ragtime or the backbeat of jazz, rocking is the sound of a perpetual downstroke. Not 1-2-3-4, but 1-1-1-1. All drive drive drive; all go go go.
But like anything else in the history of American music, the idea of "rocking" emerged from somewhere and went someplace else.
This episode of Down In The Flood is dedicated to the fine art of "rocking" from Papa Charlie Jackson to Ronnie Montrose.
Listen to Down in the Flood Episode 8: There's Good Rockin' Tonight (32:37 min; 30.6 MB)
You know what I'm gonna say - Nice!
Posted by: jackson | October 09, 2005 at 08:45 PM
WOW! Great job Jason. Picked up a copy of the Papa Charlie record on the strength of this podcast.
Jackson and I used a cut off of that Montrose record on our colabo podcast a month ago or so, "Bad Motorscooter" I think it was. That record was so far ahead of it's time. We used to cover "Make It Last" in one of my high school rock bands. On account of it's obscurity, people thought we wrote it. Was giddy when I first saw it on CD. I thought it was going to be one of the many that would not get pressed into CD format.
Posted by: Tony Alva | October 10, 2005 at 02:54 PM
Papa Charlie Jackson is one of my favorites. Unfortunately he's not all that well known (and not much is known about him), but he was very popular in his day and was the first to record a number of classics, not only "Shake That Thing" but "Salty Dog." I also love his version of the old minstrel number, "Alabamy Bound." The audio is pretty rough tho' on some of his pre-electric 1925-1926 recordings.
Funny, but when I hear some of the ramshackle boogie numbers on Exile, I think I hear echoes of Papa Charlie. "I'm getting sick and tired of telling you to shake that thing," could certainly have been a lyric from that album.
I hope you bought the Papa Charlie through the link on this page. That oughta make me a few cents at Amazon!
That Ronnie Montrose, for one brief moment in the early 1970s he was an AOR star. That version of "Good Rockin' Tonight" is great. In particular I love the stop time drum fills, which have this weird lag. Very cool.
Posted by: Jason Chervokas | October 11, 2005 at 11:22 AM
Another great, great show!!! I'm going to get Papa Charlie and Maddox Bros. cd's. I have heard covers of some of these songs, but it's very interesting to hear some of the originals and older versions.
Posted by: Jeff Golomb | October 13, 2005 at 12:00 PM
Jeff-
Thanks a lot. Please let other people know about the show. One way to do that would be to post a review to Yahoo's new podcast directory if you can. The URL for this show is
http://podcasts.yahoo.com/series?s=e43982ba4e13db419a22db3233298828
Posted by: Jason Chervokas | October 13, 2005 at 01:08 PM