What The Hell Is "Rock-Swing"? Is The New York Times Making Up Words Again?

I'm afraid this might have something to do with this dude

http://www.usaweekend.com/99_issues/990321/images/setzerbrian.jpg

I always thought "Crazy Little Thing..." was just an incredibly fey rockabilly ripoff.

He meant "rock-schwing," but it was changed in a copy editor error.

Lots of rock and roll has a swing-style beat (or shuffle, or boogie, or whatever you want to call it). I've never heard it referred to as "swing-rock" before, but I knew right away what the guy meant so I don't see it as particularly offensive.

Though I guess in a way it's kind of redundant, since the rock and roll beat evolved out of the swing beat, and since SO MUCH early rock and roll had a swing beat.

no, this guy just forgot about rockabilly

see, i would have had no problem with "and the rock swing of..."

i've had enough coffee now though. i'm all better.

As usual, the New York Sunday Times ...

This article is ostensibly a lash-up on classic rock bands who have substituted news singers for their salad days voice. Before the runover they get things wrong. "Creedence Clearwater Revival" isn't CCR, it's Creedence Clearwater Revisited, and it's obvious to anyone who follows CCR or who has seen the CCRev CDs in stores. And they're not "recent" which is what the Times writes.

They also cite Van Halen. Ahem.

FUBAR as usual going on about Van Halen and Gary Cherone and, this, in the caption for the big pic for the story: "...Mr. Hagar has returned..."

But this from Sept 3 or so, from Blabbermouth:

Classic Rock Revisited: Is VAN HALEN done?

Sammy Hagar: "I don't know. It is right now. They can do whatever they want. If Ed and Al want to get a new singer and a new bass player then they can do whatever they want. I wouldn't complain and I wouldn't say that they shouldn't have done that. What I would say is that I think it is a big mistake to do that. I would never try to run their lives like they do me. They are free to do whatever they want. The way they want to do business and the way they want to mingle with their co-band members and other people who are involved in their organization, I don't want any part of.
======

So we're one step closer to "Rock Star: Van Halen", then?

Hard to tell. The New York Times piece, as per its usual dealing with things even remotely hard rock, was for dumb people who fancy themselves Sundary deep thinkers, I guess. How do you fuck up the news on Van Halen at a newspaper with so many layers of cream-o-the-crop editors?

Threadstarter, do ye not recall the swing/ska craze at the turn of the century? esp after the movie Swingers came out, and even my co-worker, who looked just like Jerry Garcia '74, saw it and showed up the next day with Sinatroid caesar-cut and goatee, and I knew o shit.

*shudder*

Didn't Bill Haley and the Comets start out as a swing band?

And there's always Jive Bunny and the Mixmasters or whatever they were called.

But really rock swing = Louis Prima (or, where Van Halen is concerned, maybe David Lee Roth covering Louis Prima?) (Or maybe the Glen Miller quotes inside Charlie Daniels's "the South's Gonna Do it Again"?) (Or maybe, yeah, Royal Crown Revue and Cherry Poppin Daddies, yikes)

bill haley swings the hell out of me. that stuff is the best. so does all the greasy boogie woogie that love. boogie woogie is definitely rock-swing.

here is the track-listing of the no-name boogie woogie comp that i have been listening to lately:

pine top smith - pinetop's boogie woogie

cripple clarence lofton - had a dream

joe sullivan - boogie woogie maxixe

meade lux lewis - honky tonk train

art hodes - ross tavern boogie

louis jordan - choo choo chi boogie

red nelson - streamlined train

honey hill - boogie woogie

pete johnson - shuffle boogie

art hodes - south side shuffle

albert ammons - mecca flat blues

bob zurke - gin mill blues

albert ammons - woo woo

freddie slack - down the road a piece

In any case, I don't think "Crazy Little Thing Called Love" swings very well at all.

and there's also country boogie woogie (i.e. post western swing/pre rockabilly) stuff like moon mullican, tennesse ernie ford, etc

The best description of the early rock'n'roll beat I ever read was in an interview with Little Richard's drummer (Charles Connors, I think), who talked about how Richard insisted on playing straight-8's on the piano, even though the rest of the band was playing a swing-shuffle. So the tension between the piano and the rest of the band was what put the rock in the roll. Anyway, made sense to me, and it also explained why no band I ever played with was ever able to get "Tutti Frutti" right, because we'd either play it straight or swung but never both at once.

otm. And another tension is the way he seems to be planting his feet, standing his ground amidst the swingoogie (which I luv, don't get me wrong), and then stretching his voice waaaay up and out, cat. (Like Fogerty in Creedence sometimes, like metal would)(also like other singers who knew they had to do that to penetrate the din of murk in most live gigs back then)