Wynonie Harris “All She Wants To Do Is Rock” b/w “I Want My Fannie Brown” on 78 rpm, 1949, King Records. Today, August 24th, is Wynonie Harris’ birthday (b. 1915, d. 1969). Harris is one of the forerunners of rock-n-roll, his style of music jumpin’ rhythm-and-blues, often laden with risqué, down-and-dirty lyrics and performed with suggestive moves. (He purportedly had a heavy influence on Elvis: he “copied many of the vocal gymnastics of Wynonie as well as the physical gyrations. When you saw Elvis, you were seeing a mild version of Wynonie.”

“All She Wants To Do Is Rock” was one of Harris’ biggest hits, landing at #1 on the R&B charts in 1949. The B-side, “I Want My Fannie Brown” was an answer song to Ray Brown’s “Miss Fanny Brown” – Harris’ b-side also charted, hitting #10. (Brown was also, of course, a huge influence on early rock-n-roll, especially his hit “Good Rockin’ Tonight,” a song that Brown originally offered to Harris but Brown ended up recording himself. It hit #13 on the R&B chart in ‘48; Harris then recorded his own version later that year and it went to #1.)

“All She Wants To Do Is Rock” is on the King Records label, which operated from 1943 to 1975. Based in Cincinnati, it originally specialized in “hillbilly” music. Its subsidiary Federal Records recorded many early and successful R&B, jump blues, and rockin’ rhythm artists, including Wynonie Harris. It also launched James Brown. This mixture of country and R&B artists (recording, mastering, printing, pressing and shipping were all done in-house) helped foster the blending of genres – country artists would cover R&B tracks and vice versa – which further aided the evolution of rock-n-roll. This record was likely originally purchased in the 1940′s at the Harlem Record and Appliance Shop in Milwaukee, a shop no longer in existence.