IT'S 'N' DAMNIT!

I can't explain it, I have a thing for Ricky Nelson's early stuff. While not really rockabilly, it was simple rock 'n' roll but with James Burton on guitar, you're a step closer. I think part of it is my admiration for a kid rocker making lemons into lemonade. He was stuck playing himself in a TV family sitcom under the guidance of show biz parents. He managed to make a music career from the exposure he got playing on the show. He became a teen idol and then kind of grew out of it, still playing music long after the show went off the air. Unfortunately with his later stuff there were some real dogs. One such dog was his "Rock and Roll Lady" from 1975. Completely textbook sappy. As I mentioned in a post a while back, Nelson and John Fogerty covered each other's songs in the seventies (Creedence did "Hello Mary Lou", Nelson did Fogerty's "Almost Saturday Night") and as a weird addendum of sorts, just as Nelson had his "Rock and Roll Lady", Fogerty had "Rock and Roll Girls", likewise a dog.

One clue that they would be bad? This to me is glaring. There are numerous ways to write out "rock 'n' roll". With apostrophes, without apostrophes, one apostrophe, with a "d", without a "d" and so on. You can't consult a dictionary because they are hardly experts on the subject at hand. Now, I've had this conversation before. My brother and I used to have debates about the correct way. After much discussion we agreed that the correct way to write it is "rock 'n' roll". No "a", no "d", two apostrophes. The further you stray from that, the more out of touch you are. The furthest away from the correct way is just how both Nelson and Fogerty wrote it, "rock and roll". That's straight out of the parents' lexicon. Anyway, there's a few early Ricky Nelson songs down there too. Penance.

~ NOTE: ALL MEDIA IS HOSTED BY THE BLOGS & SITES NAMED BELOW ~

Listen:
Ricky Nelson - It's Late mp3 at Time Goes By
Ricky Nelson - Be Bop Baby mp3 at Rocky 52
Ricky Nelson - Boppin' the Blues mp3 at Rocky 52
You've been warned:
Rick Nelson - Rock and Roll [sic] Lady mp3 at Time Goes By
John Fogerty - Rock and Roll [sic] Girls (streaming) at YouTube