Rock'n'roll finally gets a look-in

AT LONG last, with your recent review of the Honeydripper (M Star May 9), my comrades at the Morning Star have acknowledged rock'n'roll, the before-the-Beatles real deal good stuff.

This, after all, remains the most revolutionary popular music ever.

Forget cries for dope anarchy and Billy Bragg rewriting The International, good old rock'n'roll did more for civil rights than any other single factor. And, boy, for a few wonderful years, it turned the whole music world upside down, with most of us who love this music knowing full well that it was black well before white people became involved.

Jools Holland, the NME and art school dropouts flourish their musical snobbery and ignorance by wallowing in the term rhythm and blues, which was popularised by the all-white, all-middle-aged editorial board of Billboard magazine.

The term wasn't used to describe a particular music, but to cover all records that sold in "negro" areas.

No-one can fail to rejoice in the contributions made by the non-black US working class, be they lorry-driving Elvis, farm boy Jerry Lee Lewis or Dion from an Italian ghetto. This was and is music from the people, by the people and for the people.

Oh yeah, and by the way, it's here to stay.

PAUL BARRETT
Penarth