Rocket “88,” a 1951 recording by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, has often been cited as the first rock ’n’ roll record and was also the first No. 1 rhythm & blues hit for Chicago-based Chess Records. Recorded at Sam Phillips’ Memphis Recording Service, it was performed by the Delta Cats, who were actually Ike Turner’s Kings of Rhythm from Clarksdale. The band that traveled up Highway 61 to Memphis consisted of Ike Turner, Jackie Brenston, Raymond Hill, Willie Kizart, or Kizeart as he usually spelled it, and Willie “Bad Boy” Sims, all aged 17 to 20. On the trip, Kizart’s amplifier fell out of the trunk, and Phillips said he stuffed the amp’s broken speaker cone with brown wrapping paper in the studio, producing the distorted guitar buzz that many historians regard, along with the song’s raw energy and driving boogie rhythm, as qualifying it as the first example of rock ’n’ roll. Although the term “rock ‘n’ roll” had not yet been widely applied to musical styles, Phillips, then recording talent for other labels before founding Sun Records, submitted samples to Chess Records of two singles, one by Ike Turner and his Kings of Rythm, featuring Turner on vocals, and another by Brenston singing with the same band under the name Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats. According to Peter Guralnick, the recording date was March 7, and Phillips’ studio logbook notes that Brenston’s mother, Ethel, signed a guardian approval contract because Jackie was still a minor. Brenston rose briefly to stardom and toured on his own in 1951-1952, but he sold his rights to “Rocket ‘88’” to Phillips, never had another hit, later rejoined Turner’s band as a sideman in St. Louis, worked his last job as a truck driver in Clarksdale, and died on December 15, 1979; although his headstone gives his birthdate as August 24, 1928, that was a false date he used to appear old enough to enlist in the Army in 1946, and he was actually born in 1930. By various accounts, the song, named after a popular model of Oldsmobile, was rehearsed at the Riverside Hotel, written on the way to Memphis, or crafted in the studio, and Brenston said it was basically the same as Jimmy Liggins’s “Cadillac Boogie,” with only the words changed; Turner also said Brenston might not have sung on the session had the Kings of Rhythm’s primary vocalist Johnny O’Neal not just left the band when an earlier studio trip had been planned. Raymond Hill, who played the saxophone solo on the record, was born in Clarksdale on April 29, 1933; his parents, Henry and Ollie Mae Hill, ran a roadhouse 2½ miles north of Lyon where Sonny Boy Williamson and others performed, as well as cafes in Clarksdale. Hill led his own band, recorded for Sun Records, hosted a radio show on WROX, and worked mostly as a sideman with Turner, Albert King, and others; he was also the father of Tina Turner’s first child before Ike and Tina became a team. Hill died on April 16, 1996. Hill and Brenston are buried in Heavenly Rest Cemetery on Highway 61 just north of the Lyon city limits, along with DJ Early Wright, performers Lorenzo Nicholson and Foster “Mr. Tater” Wiley, juke joint owner L.S. Thomas, and Lucille Turner Lane.
