In 1951, Ike Turner — who would go onto fame, controversy and more as a musical compliment to his talented ex-wife, Tina — took advantage of a connection through B.B. King, and recorded a song he and one of his backing musicians in the “Kings of Rhythm” wrote, called “Rocket 88.”

That backing musician, a saxophonist named Jackie Breston, was not only talented wind instrumentalist and singer, but he was a few years out of the United States Army, having been discharged from service in late 1946.

For their creation, the duo was paid a combined $20.*

It’s now considered the first ever rock ‘n’ roll song ever recorded.

The reference is that of an Oldsmobile “Rocket 88” — a popular car at the time. As for its twelve-bar blues influence, the 1947 song by Jimmy Liggins called “Cadillac Boogie” is given that distinction.

The effort — most notably its technician, guitarist and producer, Turner, as well as his other guitarist Willie Kizart — is also credited with the very first distortion, aka “fuzz guitar.”

Two slightly different accounts of how the effect came to be are both funny and — as anyone who has listened to popular music since can attest — serendipitous (via Deep Blues, Rock & Roll, an Unruly History, The Man Who Invented Rock ‘N’ Roll and Wikipedia):

Kizart’s amplifier was damaged on Highway 61 when the band was driving from Mississippi to Memphis, Tennessee. An attempt was made to hold the cone in place by stuffing the amplifier with wadded newspapers, which unintentionally created a distorted sound; Phillips liked the sound and used it. Robert Palmer has written that the amplifier “had fallen from the top of the car”, and attributes this information to Sam Phillips. However, in a recorded interview at the Experience Music Project in Seattle, Washington, Ike Turner stated that the amplifier was in the trunk of the car and that rain may have caused the damage; he is certain that it did not fall from the roof of the car. Peter Guralnick, in his biography of Sam Phillips has the amplifier being dropped from the car’s trunk when the band got a flat tire and was digging out the spare.

Brenston died of a heart attack on December 15, 1979, at the Kennedy VA Hospital in Memphis, Tennessee. After “Rocket”, he split from Turner and went on the road to do his own thing. Eventually, hard-living, alcohol and a lack of commercial success made him quit show business, and take up a livelihood of driving trucks.

 

*- Rights to the song were eventually sold by Sam Phillips of Sun to Chess Records in Chicago under the name “Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats.” And while it never received the lasting renown its predecessors would (despite reaching the top of the R&B charts in its time), the first part of the structure was stolen almost note-for-note by Little Richard for use in his legendary tune “Good Golly Miss Molly”, which many consider to be a landmark song in the genesis of the genre.