i mean yeah, the fact alone that she played both lead and rhythm guitar parts while singing in a genre where most women didn't play anything is pretty mindblowing. she was a good guitarist too. also mixing rhythm&blues with gospel makes her one of the early precursors of soul music along with ray charles.
rock n roll in general doesn't seem so shocking if you check out all the black music that came before. the forgotten genre jump blues, which was very popular with urban black audiences in the late 30s and 40s, was already very close to rock n roll despite existing almost 20 years earlier. the main thing white rockers added was a hillbilly/"country" influence (that is often played up btw, rock n roll is about 80% r&b and 20% country). also obviously black rockers like chuck berry did the same thing at the same time (check out "maybellene" for instance).
this is one of my favorite "eras" of american music tbh, it's like the entire DNA of modern popular music is contained within it and it's just inspiring to listen to.
Never heard of jump blues before, so thanks.
This post sent me on a journey into the sound, on youtube, and this is where I ended up for now: Brazilian samba-jazz aka bossa nova by Brubeck quartet, an old favorite featuring one of the best clarinet solos known to me.
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