Gene Steven's is Digging Up "The Roots of Rock'n'Roll"

Sep 06, 2018

By Gene Stevens

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Our main theme throughout 2018 has been to explore various music genres. If you’ve been a regular listener you may have heard our spotlights on swing and retro-swing; rhythm & blues, doo wop and soul; rockabilly, country-pop crossovers, folk-rock, surf, Broadway and many others. What I haven’t yet done this year is an exploration of ‘The Roots of Rock’n’Roll’. We’re going to dig deep, past the layers of rockabilly and rhythm & blues, back to its country, gospel and blues roots – to see how rock’n’roll came to be. Who were some of its founders and its forgotten legends, what songs were the essential building blocks of the exciting new music that emerged in the mid-50s ?

This is one of my favourite stories to tell – and I’m delighted it’s the first of a 2-part celebration. That’s right – this Sunday (Sep.9), ‘The Roots of Rock’n’Roll’, followed on Sep.16th by a ‘Rock’n’Roll Celebration’ of the 600th episode of ‘Vintage Favourites’!

By the way, this Sunday (9th), stay with me after 3 o’clock, when I’ll start a couple of major birthday salutes to Michael Buble and David Clayton-Thomas. Long time listeners will know Zoomer Radio was called ‘AM 740’ during its first 7 years after our 2001 launch. It was in 2003, when a record label representative brought around a new recording by a young man from Vancouver who was singing some great old standards – his name was Michael Buble. And we are very proud to have been the first major Canadian radio station to play Michael and support him with very heavy airplay of 7 songs from his first album back in 2003 – which we added that first day I heard those songs. I’ll tell you more about that story in this weekend’s ‘Vintage Favourites’ – Sunday between 2:00 and 4:30. Cheers.

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