The Five and Dime

A number of years ago I found some recordings of Hardrock Gunter. With an interesting name, I did a little research which eventually led me to find Hardrock living in New Mexico. To make a long story short, we’ve become good friends and in October of 2008, we took a vacation to New Mexico. During our visit, we interviewed Hardrock.

Hardrock is one of the first rock and rollers out there.

His Birmingham Bounce has been written up as possibly the first rock and roll record. (He recorded it in 1950, Red Foley made it into a number 1 hit a little later.) (Gonna rock and roll) Gonna Dance All Night is arguably the first time that the phrase “rock and roll” was ever used in a song in a musical context (also recorded in 1950.) His recall into the army for the Korean Conflict interrupted his career. He was recording on the sun label before Elvis did.

Hardrock is a pioneer of the rockabilly sound. I hope you enjoy the interview. Learn more about “Rock” on the official Hardrock Gunter website.

Tags: Hardrock Gunter, Music

This entry was posted on Tuesday, February 16th, 2010 at 10:05 am and is filed under Just for fun. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.