Editing Rocket 88 (section)

==Influence==
{{quote box
| quote = "When I was a little boy, that song fascinated me in a big way. I never heard a piano sound like that. I never played the piano then. Soon, I was trying. if you listen to 'Good Golly, Miss Molly,' you hear the same introduction as the one to 'Rocket 88,' the exact same, ain't nothing been changed."
| source = — ''[[Little Richard]]'' (1999){{sfn|Turner|Cawthorne|1999|p=xi}}
| width = 21%
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Ike Turner's piano intro on "Rocket 88" influenced [[Little Richard]] who later used it for his 1958 hit song "[[Good Golly, Miss Molly]]."{{sfn|Turner|Cawthorne|1999|p=xi}}

[[Sam Philips]], the founder of [[Sun Records]] and [[Sun Studio]],<ref>{{Cite web|url=https://www.motortrend.com/news/oldsmobile-rocket-88-first-rock-n-roll-song-history/|title=Did Rock 'n' Roll Really Begin With a Song About a Car?|date=25 March 2020|website=MotorTrend.com|access-date=June 9, 2021}}</ref> and many writers have suggested that "Rocket 88" has strong claims to be called the first rock'n'roll record.<ref name=Petridis/> Others take a more nuanced view. [[Charlie Gillett]], writing in 1970 in ''The Sound of the City'', said that it was "one of several records that people in the music business cite as 'the first rock'n'roll record.{{'"}}{{sfn|Gillett|1970|p=156}} It has been suggested by Larry Birnbaum that the idea that "Rocket 88" could be called "the first rock'n'roll record" first arose in the late 1960s; he argued that: "One of the reasons is surely that Kizart's broken amp anticipated the sound of the fuzzbox, which was in its heyday when 'Rocket 88' was rediscovered."{{sfn|Birnbaum|2012|p=17}}

Music historian [[Robert Palmer (American writer)|Robert Palmer]], writing in ''The Rolling Stone History of Rock & Roll'' in 1980, described it as an important and influential record.  He noted that Hill's saxophone playing was "wilder and rougher" than on many [[jump blues]] records, and also emphasized the record's "fuzzed-out, overamplified electric guitar".{{sfn|Palmer|1981a|p=11}}  Writing in his 1984 book ''Unsung Heroes of Rock ‘n’ Roll'', [[Nick Tosches]], though rejecting the idea that it could be described as the first rock'n'roll record "any more than there is any first modern novel{{snd}}the fact remains that the record in question was possessed of a sound and a fury the sheer, utter newness of which set it apart from what had come before."{{sfn|Tosches|1984|p=139}}  Echoing this view, Bill Dahl at [[AllMusic]] wrote:<ref>{{cite web | url = https://www.allmusic.com/artist/jackie-brenston-mn0000782307/biography | first = Bill | last = Dahl | title = Jackie Brenston: Biography | work = [[AllMusic]] | access-date = June 21, 2020}}</ref>{{blockquote|Determining the first actual rock & roll record is a truly impossible task. But you can't go too far wrong citing Jackie Brenston's 1951 Chess waxing of "Rocket 88", is a seminal piece of rock's fascinating history with all the prerequisite elements firmly in place: practically indecipherable lyrics about cars, booze, and women; Raymond Hill's booting tenor sax, and a churning, beat-heavy rhythmic bottom.}}

Rock art historian Paul Grushkin wrote:{{sfn|Grushkin|2006|pp=26–27}}{{blockquote|Working from the raw material of post-big band jump blues, Turner had cooked up a mellow, cruising boogie with a steady-as-she-goes back beat now married to Brenston's enthusiastic, sexually suggestive vocals that spoke of opportunity, discovery and conquest. This all combined to create (as one reviewer later put it) "THE mother of all R&B songs for an evolutionary white audience".}}  Michael Campbell wrote, in ''Popular Music in America: And the Beat Goes On'':{{sfn|Campbell|2011|p=164}}{{blockquote|Both the distortion and the relative prominence of the guitar were novel features of this recording{{snd}}these are the elements that have earned "Rocket 88" so many nominations as "the first" rock and roll record.  From our perspective, "Rocket 88" wasn't the first rock and roll record, because the beat is a shuffle rhythm, not the distinctive rock rhythm heard first in the songs of Chuck Berry and Little Richard.  Still, the distortion and the central place of the guitar in the overall sound certainly anticipate key features of rock style.}}
[[File:Essex 381 - Rocket"88".JPG|thumb|Bill Haley's version of Rocket 88]]
Ike Turner himself said, in an interview with [[Holger Petersen (Canadian businessman)|Holger Petersen]]:{{sfn|Petersen|2011|p=156}}
{{blockquote|I don't think that "Rocket 88" is rock'n'roll.  I think that "Rocket 88" is R&B, but I think "Rocket 88" is the ''cause'' of rock and roll existing&nbsp;... Sam Phillips got Dewey Phillips to play "Rocket 88" on his program{{snd}}and this is like the first black record to be played on a white radio station{{snd}}and, man, all the white kids broke out to the record shops to buy it.  So that's when Sam Phillips got the idea, "Well, man, if I get me a white boy to sound like a black boy, then I got me a gold mine", which is the truth. So, that's when he got [[Elvis]] and he got [[Jerry Lee Lewis]] and a bunch of other guys and so they named it rock and roll rather than R&B and so this is the reason I think rock and roll exists{{snd}}not that "Rocket 88" was the first one, but that was what caused the first one.{{sfn|Petersen|2011|p=156}}}}

The song was covered by several artists over the years, the first being [[Bill Haley & His Comets]] in July 1951.<ref>{{cite web |url=https://www.edsullivan.com/artists/bill-haley-his-comets/|title=Artists, Bill Haley & His Comets|date=June 14, 2015|work=Ed Sullivan|access-date=November 10, 2023|quote=}}</ref> No matter which version deserves the accolade, "Rocket 88" is seen as a prototype rock and roll song in musical style and lineup, as well as its lyrical theme, in which an automobile serves as a metaphor for sexual prowess.{{sfn|Dawson|Propes|1992|p=}}