Johnny B. GoodeChuck Berry
Johnny B. Goode
1958 · From Chuck Berry Is on Top
Chuck Berry's intro lick is rock's opening statement, a country boy's origin myth now drifting past the solar system.
★ 9.8
Browse by time · decade
1950s
1950 – 1959
Showing 108 songs from the 1950s
Heartbreak HotelElvis Presley
Heartbreak Hotel
1956
Elvis's first RCA single, all cavernous echo and empty rooms, the loneliest number one ever cut.
★ 9.6
Tutti-Frutti
1955 · From Here's Little Richard
A nonsense holler cleaned up just enough to press, and the moment rock and roll stopped asking permission.
★ 9.5
Hound Dog
1956
Leiber and Stoller wrote it for Big Mama Thornton; Elvis took it, sped it up, and set it on fire.
★ 9.5
So What
1959 · From Kind of Blue
Two chords and all the space in the world, Davis proving that less was the most radical idea in jazz.
★ 9.2
What'd I SayRay Charles
What'd I Say
1959 · From What'd I Say
Twelve minutes left at a Pennsylvania dance, so Charles improvised it on his Wurlitzer and many stations banned it.
★ 9.0
I Walk the Line
1956 · From Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar
Cash slipped paper under his guitar strings for that snare tick, and hums to find each new key.
★ 8.8
(We're Gonna) Rock Around the Clock
1954
Cut in leftover studio minutes with Sammy Davis Jr. waiting outside, it flopped until Blackboard Jungle put it under the credits.
★ 8.8
Take Five
1959 · From Time Out
Morello kept soloing in five, so the quartet built him a tune in 5/4; Desmond wrote the theme.
★ 8.7
That's Alright MamaElvis Presley
That's Alright Mama
1954 · From The Sun Sessions
Presley started clowning through an Arthur Crudup blues on a break; Sam Phillips heard it and rolled tape.
★ 8.6
Smoke Stack Lightning
1956 · From Moanin' in the Moonlight
One chord, no changes, Sumlin's guitar circling, and Wolf's howl answering the trains whose sparks named the song.
★ 8.5
I Got a Woman
1954 · From Ray Charles
Charles took a gospel record he heard on tour, swapped the subject, and cut soul music's blueprint in Atlanta.
★ 8.4
Maybellene
1955 · From Chuck Berry Is on Top
Ida Red, a 1938 Bob Wills fiddle tune, turned into a car chase, with Johnnie Johnson's piano running underneath.
★ 8.4
Jailhouse Rock
1957
Leiber and Stoller wrote it as a goof; Scotty Moore's solo nearly derails the take and Presley never blinks.
★ 8.3
Don't Be Cruel
1956
Blackwell gave Presley half the writing credit; the Jordanaires hum behind a vocal so relaxed it barely seems to try.
★ 8.2
That'll Be the DayBuddy Holly and the Crickets
That'll Be the Day
1957
Holly took the title from a John Wayne line and recut it in Clovis after Decca shelved the first version.
★ 8.2
Mannish BoyMuddy Waters
Mannish Boy
1955 · From The Anthology: 1947-1972
Waters answered Bo Diddley's answer to his own song in 1955, holding one chord and a stop-time riff throughout.
★ 8.1
Folsom Prison Blues
1955 · From Johnny Cash with His Hot and Blue Guitar
A prison film in Germany gave Cash the song; he borrowed the melody from Gordon Jenkins and later paid up.
★ 8.1
Your Cheatin' Heart
1953 · From 40 Greatest Hits
A lyric dictated from a car seat, one last Nashville session, and six weeks at country number one.
★ 8.0
Rollin' Stone
1950 · From The Anthology: 1947-1972
One man, one electric guitar, no band; the Chess single that later named a magazine and a British group.
★ 7.8