- Triple U

Down By The River: Rock and Roll History

Each week on Down By The River there is a deep dive into a musician or band. Since January 2022 presenter Chris Owens has been going through the history of rock and roll following a timeline that began in the 1930s, showing how the pioneering musicians inspired the rock and roll music that came after them.

Episode 1 – Charlie Christian and Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Episode 1 of the rock and roll history explores the emergence of the electric guitar in recorded music in the 1930s, beginning with the music of Charlie Christian, and Sister Rosetta Tharpe.

Episode 2 – Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys

Bob Wills & The Texas Playboys formed in 1934 were one of the biggest Western Swing bands.

Western swing music is an amalgamation of rural, cowboy, polka, old-time, Dixieland jazz, and blues blended with swing. And is one of the genres that made up the rockabilly and rock and roll music that emerged in the 1950s.

Episode 3 – Loui Jordan

Loui Jordan began his career in big-band swing jazz in the 1930s, but he became known as the innovator of jump blues, a swinging, up-tempo, dance-oriented hybrid of jazz, blues and boogie-woogie.

Episode 4 – Fats Domino

Fats Domino was an American pianist, singer and songwriter. One of the pioneers of rock and roll music, Domino sold more than 65 million records.

Born in New Orleans to a French Creole family, Domino signed to Imperial Records in 1949. His first single “The Fat Man” is cited by some historians as the first rock and roll single and the first to sell more than 1 million copies.

Episode 5 – Sun Records – Part 1

Sam Phillips is one of the legends of Rock and Roll Music. He began his music career as a DJ and engineer for a radio station in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

Phillips was the founder of Sun Records and Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee, where he produced recordings by Elvis Presley, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Howlin’ Wolf.

Part 1.

Sun Records – Part 2

Sam Phillips is one of the legends of Rock and Roll Music. He began his music career as a DJ and engineer for a radio station in Muscle Shoals, Alabama.

Part 2.

Chess Records Pt 1

Part 1 of a deep dive into the music of Chess Records.

Chess was an American record company established in 1950 in Chicago, by Leonard and Phill Chess, specialising in blues and rhythm and blues. It was the successor to Aristocrat Records, founded in 1947. It expanded into soul music, gospel music, early rock and roll, and jazz and comedy recordings, released on the Chess and its subsidiary labels Checker and Argo/Cadet.

Chess Records Pt 2

Part 2 of a deep dive into the music of Chess Records.