This is the first comprehensive overview of rockabilly, beginning with its crystallization as a distinct style in 1954 with Elvis Presley's first release. Presenting the who, what, where, and when of the music, Craig Morrison's lively account will bring back memories of "Blue Suede Shoes," "Be-Bop-A-Lula," Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, and more. A volume in the series Music in American Life Craig Morrison is a musicologist and bandleader - Craig Morrison & the Momentz - living in Quebec, Canada. He also teaches courses at the McGill Centre for Continuing Education ("History of the Blues," "History of Country Music," and "Wild Thing - Music of the Sixties") and is a radio columnist for the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation.
Craig Morrison is a Montreal ethnomusicologist, author, teacher, and musician. He specializes in rock and roll and its roots in blues, jazz, rhythm and blues, country, folk, gospel, and pop. Raised in Victoria BC, Canada, he bought his first guitar in 1966 and played in coffeehouses.
As a teenager, seeing concerts of blues (such as Sonny Terry and Brownie McGhee), jazz (Louis Armstrong), and rock (Janis Joplin) led to an interest in music history. Playing in groups provided a deeper appreciation of music styles and he has since performed and recorded extensively with his own bands and backed others, notably rhythm and blues legend Vann "Piano Man" Walls. Two CDs are available on Amazon: Live at the Oscar, and Echoes From the Blue Angel.
For more than a decade, he has been teaching courses at Concordia University in Montreal (where he earned a PhD), on Rock and Roll and its Roots, The Music of the Beatles, and Pop/ Soul and its Roots. Since the early 1970s, he has been teaching private lessons on guitar and piano. Since 1982, he has been interviewing veteran musicians, more than 100 of them, across North America, from the rockabillies of Tennessee and Texas, to the garage, folk rock, and psychedelic pioneers of the West Coast, as well as many seminal blues, r&b, and country players.
All three of Craig Morrison's books are available through Amazon.com: Go Cat Go! Rockabilly Music and Its Makers (University of Illinois Press), American Popular Music: Rock and Roll (Facts On File), and Psychedelic Music in San Francisco: Style, Context, and Evolution (self published). Additionally Morrison has written CD liner notes and numerous articles for the Encyclopedia Britannica, Encyclopedia of the Blues (Routledge), Women and Music in America Since 1900 (Greenwood Press), the Journal of American Folklore, and other publications.
