Backbeat (biography)

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Backbeat: Earl Palmer's Story is the biography of pioneer rock and roll drummer Earl Palmer. The book is by music journalist Tony Scherman with a foreword by Wynton Marsalis. More than half the text is directly quoted from Palmer, making the book as much an autobiography as it is a biography.

Biography account of a persons life written by another person

A biography, or simply bio, is a detailed description of a person's life. It involves more than just the basic facts like education, work, relationships, and death; it portrays a person's experience of these life events. Unlike a profile or curriculum vitae (résumé), a biography presents a subject's life story, highlighting various aspects of his or her life, including intimate details of experience, and may include an analysis of the subject's personality.

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s from musical styles such as gospel, jump blues, jazz, boogie woogie, and rhythm and blues, along with country music. While elements of what was to become rock and roll can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until 1954.

Drummer percussionist who creates and accompanies music using drums

A drummer is a percussionist who creates music using drums.

The story begins with Palmer as a four-year-old vaudeville tap dancer and continues with the story of New Orleans music and the emergence of a strong rock and roll drumming style featuring the back beat. After his triumphs in the city, Palmer moved to Los Angeles, where he became one of the top session musicians and arrangers of the 1950s through the 1970s, playing on hundreds of hits, from "La Bamba" to Percy Faith and Frank Sinatra.

Vaudeville genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s

Vaudeville is a theatrical genre of variety entertainment born in France at the end of the 18th century. A vaudeville is a comedy without psychological or moral intentions, based on a comical situation. It was originally a kind of dramatic composition or light poetry, usually a comedy, interspersed with songs or ballets. It became popular in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s, but the idea of vaudeville's theatre changed radically from its French antecedent.

New Orleans Largest city in Louisiana

New Orleans is a consolidated city-parish located along the Mississippi River in the southeastern region of the U.S. state of Louisiana. With an estimated population of 393,292 in 2017, it is the most populous city in Louisiana. A major port, New Orleans is considered an economic and commercial hub for the broader Gulf Coast region of the United States.

Beat (music) basic unit of time in music and music theory

In music and music theory, the beat is the basic unit of time, the pulse, of the mensural level. The beat is often defined as the rhythm listeners would tap their toes to when listening to a piece of music, or the numbers a musician counts while performing, though in practice this may be technically incorrect. In popular use, beat can refer to a variety of related concepts including: pulse, tempo, meter, specific rhythms, and groove.

The sections quoting Palmer are colorful, frank, and direct, giving the full flavor of his life as a musician. For example, speaking of playing on Little Richard's records:

Little Richard American pianist, singer and songwriter

Richard Wayne Penniman, known as Little Richard, is an American recording artist, musician, singer, songwriter and actor.

"Richard's music was exciting as a sumbitch. I'm not talking about the quality of it. It wasn't quality music. It wasn't no chords. It was just blues. "Slippin' and Slidin'" sounded like "Good Golly Miss Molly" and they both sounded like "Lucille". It was exciting because he was exciting. Richard is one of the few people I've ever recorded with that was just as exciting to watch in the studio as he was in performance."

The book includes an extensive discography and notes.

Discography is the study and cataloging of published sound recordings, often by specified artists or within identified musical genres. The exact information included varies depending on the type and scope of the discography, but a discography entry for a specific recording will often list such details as the names of the artists involved, the time and place of the recording, the title of the piece performed, release dates, chart positions, and sales figures.

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Earl Palmer American drummer

Earl Cyril Palmer was an American rock and roll and rhythm-and-blues drummer. He is a member of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Electric blues refers to any type of blues music distinguished by the use of electric amplification for musical instruments. The guitar was the first instrument to be popularly amplified and used by early pioneers T-Bone Walker in the late 1930s and John Lee Hooker and Muddy Waters in the 1940s. Their styles developed into West Coast blues, Detroit blues, and post-World War II Chicago blues, which differed from earlier, predominantly acoustic-style blues. By the early 1950s, Little Walter was a featured soloist on blues harmonica or blues harp using a small hand-held microphone fed into a guitar amplifier. Although it took a little longer, the electric bass guitar gradually replaced the stand-up bass by the early 1960s. Electric organs and especially keyboards later became widely used in electric blues.

Robert Palmer (singer) English singer-songwriter and musician

Robert Allen Palmer was an English singer-songwriter, musician, and record producer. He was known for combining soul, jazz, rock, pop, reggae, and blues.

Blues rock is a fusion genre combining elements of blues and rock. It is mostly an electric ensemble-style music with instrumentation similar to electric blues and rock: electric guitar, electric bass, and drums, often with Hammond organ. From its beginnings in the early- to mid-1960s, blues rock has gone through several stylistic shifts and along the way it inspired and influenced hard rock, Southern rock, and early heavy metal. Blues rock continues to be an influence in the 2010s, with performances and recordings by popular artists.

Swamp pop is a music genre indigenous to the Acadiana region of south Louisiana and an adjoining section of Southeast Texas. Created in the 1950s and early 1960s by teenage Cajuns, it combines New Orleans-style rhythm and blues, country and western, and traditional French Louisiana musical influences. Although a fairly obscure genre, swamp pop maintains a large audience in its south Louisiana and southeast Texas homeland, and it has acquired a small but passionate cult following in the United Kingdom, northern Europe, and Japan.

The Wrecking Crew (music) loose collective of session musicians based in Los Angeles whose services were employed for thousands of studio recordings in the 1960s and early 1970s

The Wrecking Crew was a loose collective of session musicians based in Los Angeles whose services were employed for thousands of studio recordings in the 1960s and early 1970s, including several hundred Top 40 hits. The musicians were not publicly recognized in their era, but were viewed with reverence by industry insiders. They are now considered one of the most successful and prolific session recording units in music history.

Good Golly, Miss Molly 1958 single by Little Richard

"Good Golly, Miss Molly" is a hit rock 'n' roll song first recorded in 1956 by the American musician Little Richard and released in January 1958 as Specialty single 624 and next in July 1958 on Little Richard. The song, a jump blues, was written by John Marascalco and producer Robert "Bumps" Blackwell. Although it was first recorded by Little Richard, Blackwell produced another version by The Valiants, who imitated the fast first version recorded by Little Richard, not released at this time. Although the Valiants' version was released first, Little Richard had the hit, reaching #4. Like all his early hits, it quickly became a rock 'n' roll standard and has subsequently been recorded by hundreds of artists. The song is ranked #94 on the Rolling Stone magazine's list of The 500 Greatest Songs of All Time.

Tutti Frutti (song) 1955 single by Little Richard

"Tutti Frutti" is a song written by Little Richard along with Dorothy LaBostrie that was recorded in 1955 and became his first major hit record. With its opening cry of "A-wop-bop-a-loo-mop-a-lop-bom-bom!" and its hard-driving sound and wild lyrics, it became not only a model for many future Little Richard songs, but also a model for rock and roll itself. The song introduced several of rock music's most characteristic musical features, including its loud volume and vocal style emphasizing power, and its distinctive beat and rhythm.

Rockin Robin (song) song by Bobby Day

"Rockin' Robin" is a song written by Leon René under the pseudonym Jimmie Thomas, and recorded by Bobby Day in 1958. It was Day's biggest hit single, becoming a number two hit on the Billboard Hot 100, and spent one week at the top of the charts in R&B sales. Michael Jackson recorded his own version of the song in 1972, which reached greater success.

René Joseph Hall was an American guitarist and arranger. His best-known recording was the instrumental "Twitchy", which featured a single-string guitar (Unitar) lead played by Willie Joe Duncan, the instrument's inventor.

Garage punk is a rock music fusion genre combining the influences of garage rock, punk rock, and other forms, that took shape in the indie rock underground between the late 1980s and early 1990s. Bands drew heavily from stripped-down 1970s punk rock and Detroit proto-punk, and incorporated numerous other styles into their approach, such as power pop, 1960s girl groups and garage rock, hardcore punk, early blues and R&B, and surf rock.

"Quarter to Three" is a popular song, adapted and expanded from "A Night with Daddy 'G' – Part 1", an instrumental by the Church Street Five, which was written by Gene Barge, Frank Guida and Joseph Royster, and sung by Gary U.S. Bonds. The song became a number-one hit on the Billboard Hot 100 in the United States on June 26, 1961, and remained there for two weeks.

Drag City (song) 1963 song performed by Jan and Dean

"Drag City" is a 1963 song by Jan and Dean, written by Jan Berry, Roger Christian, and Brian Wilson. It describes the narrator's trip to a drag racing strip and borrows heavily from an earlier Jan and Dean song "Surf City," also co-written by Berry and Wilson.

"You're the Reason I'm Living"" is a 1963 single by Bobby Darin from his album of the same name. The single was very successful spending 3 weeks at # 3 on Billboard's Hot 100 singles chart.

"Chicken Shack Boogie" is a 1948 jump-boogie song by the West Coast blues artist Amos Milburn. It was the first of four number-one hits on the R&B chart by Milburn. It was the B-side of a 78-RPM single, the A-side of which, "It Took a Long, Long Time", reached number nine on the same chart.

This article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music in the 1950s.

Teenage Heaven 1959 single by Eddie Cochran

"Teenage Heaven" is a 1959 song by Eddie Cochran and Jerry Capehart. It was the A-side of Liberty F-55177 and was featured in the movie Go, Johnny Go! The single rose to number 99 on the Billboard charts. The B-side "I Remember" was also recorded and filmed for the movie but was left out.

"Hey Little One", a song written by Dorsey Burnette and Barry De Vorzon, was initially recorded by Dorsey, released on May 2 1960 on the Era label as the double A-side "Hey Little One"/"Big Rock Candy Mountain". "Hey Little One" reached number 48 on the Billboard Hot 100 chart. Musicians on the recording include veteran session drummer Earl Palmer.

"Devil or Angel" is a song written by Blanche Carter and originally recorded by the Clovers in 1955. It was re-recorded by John Bailey after he left the Clovers and formed another Clovers group for Lana Records in 1965.

I Just Wasnt Made for These Times song

"I Just Wasn't Made for These Times" is a song written by Brian Wilson and Tony Asher for American rock band the Beach Boys about depression and social alienation. Also produced and sung by Wilson, it appears as the eleventh track on their 1966 album Pet Sounds. He described it as "about a guy who was crying out because he thought he was too advanced, and that he'd eventually have to leave people behind." Its chorus features Spanish-sung background vocals: "Oh, ¿cuándo seré? Un día seré"

References

International Standard Book Number Unique numeric book identifier

The International Standard Book Number (ISBN) is a numeric commercial book identifier which is intended to be unique. Publishers purchase ISBNs from an affiliate of the International ISBN Agency.