The music and artists of the original rockabilly movement, the mixture of "hillbilly" and "race" music that helped lay the groundwork for the mainstream acceptance of rock and roll.
This pioneer started out as a singing cowboy but soon found a way to merge Western Swing with jump blues, making him rock's first star and igniting a cultural revolution with "Rock Around The Clock."
Col. Tom Parker could make Elvis nervous, and Elvis could make The Beatles nervous, but only one man could do both, and that was Carl Perkins. Like far too many of his rock-pioneer peers, however, his career was often overshadowed by what didn't happen in it, as opposed to the great things that did.
The "King of Twang" remains one of rock's greatest instrumentalists, and its first real guitar hero. But you may also be surprised to find how many musical lives he touched directly, from Darlene Love to the Beach Boys to Art of Noise! Read more about the man who helped turn the guitar into rock's favorite instrument.
One of rock's first guitar heroes, a rockabilly pioneer, a hero to legions of UK fans, and a first-class songwriter, Eddie Cochran nevertheless doesn't get his due often enough from rock fans. There's much more to him than "Summertime Blues."
The limp, the swagger, the hellraising stage show, the black leather... few rock and roll artists have become so iconic with so little airplay as did rockabilly legend Gene Vincent. Along with his backing band, the Blue Caps, Gene and his music proved to be a major inspiration for artists ranging from John Lennon to Jeff Beck.
He's remembered chiefly as one of the "three stars" killed on The Day The Music Died, but the career of Ritchie Valens, tragically brief as it was, means more than that -- means more even than his status as a pioneer in Latin-American rock and roll.
