Comment by Nav_Panel | Hacker News Reader

Comment by Nav_Panel | Hacker News Reader

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Although all of the comments here have been valid and interesting, I'm gonna poke this reply thread with a Youtube link: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YAqTrbuxCRI

James Cotton - Cotton Crop Blues, on Sun Records. Recorded 1954, with a guitar solo harder/heavier than most records up until the late 60s (with a few exceptions like Dick Dale). And it features distorted power chords. Pretty much the first really heavy track out there, I figure. It's my go-to point to show people the origins of heavy, distorted guitar music.

I also like to show them some Bob Wills & His Texas Playboys, as he had a lot of electrified instruments (electric guitar, electric mandolin, pedal steel) and was a big influence on Chuck Berry and Elvis. Plus I love Bob Wills.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Origins_of_rock_and_roll does a pretty good job of covering the important records that led up to the explosion of rock music in the 60s. Not sure about how it is beyond that.

Pretty glad a musical topic came up here on HN, though. I'm more passionate about music history than I am about computer science (though there are no career prospects there, so CS it is).

OT, but that Cotton Crop Blues link is at 6575 views as of now. (19:25 6Aug2013 ) Very curious to see what an HN link does to it.

It's at 6605, after nine hours (according to the time indicator between your username and "| link | parent | flag"; you forgot to say in what timezone you're in).

One of them is mine, and I only went there because of your comment to be honest.

Edit: you said "19:25" and "nine hours ago" was 2013-08-07 09:03:45 UTC, so you're at EDT? (incidently, everytimezone.com is pretty cool)

haha, yeah. Edit the comment to tag the time, forget the the timezone... EDT ( views are 6785 as of 21:42 7Aug2013, fwiw )

I love learning new pieces of music history, and I'd swear that track was made by a time traveler. I've taken a number of music history classes (I originally wanted to major in music education) in jazz history, classical history, world history, and American history, and have never heard that track. Really appreciate it.

You're welcome :) Glad to share it.

I'd love to take more classes in music history! I already took one (called "Roots of Rock & Roll", covered the mid-1800s minstrel show through the 1960s) that I absolutely adored, but unfortunately there aren't any other jazz, world or American music history courses offered (I wouldn't be that interested in classical history, I'm not quite ready for it yet, but we'll see where my growing musicianship leads me over the rest of my years).

If you have recommendations for good books that deal with music history, especially American musical history from the past 200 years or so, I'd be interested. I also would be interested in discussing this stuff in general; it seems like a lot of people, especially within the tech community, don't delve that deeply into the history and context of music (or really of art in general), so it's great to meet individuals that do.

that is wicked - and it's actually a good song too (the one in the article is a horrid crooner one, far too smooth.)

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