D J Fontana

[moldynudger]

I'm sure everone knows that he was Elvis's first drummer and stayed with him up untill the late 60's. Anyway, I was listening to The all Elvis channel on satallite radio the other day. I heard a live version of hound dog from the 50's taken from a t.v. show. It may have either been the Milton Berl show or Steve Allen show? Anyway at the end of the song it starts by ending like the record but then D. J. Fontana goes into this crazy drum solo that goes on for almost a whole 2 minutes! They then change the tempo completely, They then go back into the songs outro again but this time at about half pace.

I though it wa intersting for two reasons, firts I didn't think D.J. Fontana was that good (I mean this solo sounded as good as any swing era drummer tearing it up), and second most rock n roll of the fifties the songs were alway 2 maybe 3 minutes tops and for them to extend it with a 2 minute drum solo especially the fact that it was on a variety television show, well I just though that it was pretty cool and worth mentioning. Plus most of the drummers from the early 50's rock n roll era were pretty munch not aloud to step out beyond the back beat, which always confused me because the Idea behind rock n roll was this big back beat or as some of the squares of the day started calling it "Beat music" So I wonder why there wasn't as many drum solos durring that era?? The only guy that comes to mind who sort of had more freedom was Dickie Harrell who played on the two most famous records Gene Vincent and his blue caps made and Harrel was only 15 at the time he was on those records! Amazing stuff especially with Cliff Gallup on guitar in my opinion he was the first Rock N Roll "noodiling soloist" I could go on and on but I'll leave you with this. If you never got into that raw early 50's I'm talking good Rockabilly style Rock N Roll suggest you give it another chance. That was like the punk rock of the day. In the 50's it took the risque rock that was around already and pushed the envelope further. And for a good history lesson visit www.sunstudios.com, there is an awesome flash video that everyone should view.

Peace out!

[Henry II]

For me, with few exceptions, country music is as annoying to play as it is to listen to.

Yippie-aye-oh-kay-ay! MF! [img]graemlins/shhh.gif[/img]

<font color="#a62a2a" size="1">[ January 16, 2006 03:33 PM: Message edited by: Henry II ]</font>