Rocket 88??? NO! This is Rocket 99!!

Perhaps you are familiar with the classic R & B record "Rocket 88". If not, I encourage you to familiarize yourself with it now. This is one of the records that often gets called "The First Rock & Roll Single". It was credited to Jackie Brenston, but should have more accurately been credited to Ike Turner and his Band, as that was the name the group was named at, at the time. Today's record is not "Rocket 88", but does seem to be about a product that came out 11 updates later, and went up in the air, not down the street. 

Anyway...

I recently found an eBay auction for a record on Tin Pan Alley, "Florida Rocket (Number Ninety-Nine) by one Charlie Hines. Doing a little research, I found that a previous copy listed on eBay once sold for $200. And I thought "well, no bidding on this one for me". But then, as I often do, I went to see if I already owned a copy, and, wonder of wonders, I DO! 

The biggest surprise to me is not that I own a copy, or that it copies sell for up to $200, but rather, that I didn't put this one aside for use here on the blog the first time I heard it. I say that because it's a really fun record!

The record is from late 1958 or early 1959. It's definitely a silly arrangement, what with the slide whistle effects, and the song is a time capsule, with references to rockets into space, the space race with the Russians. That $200 sale described it as Rockabilly, which is a stretch, to say the least. 

Charlie Hines is not documented - anywhere that I can find - as having recorded anything else for Tin Pan Alley. I wonder why - he's the equal of the other singers they had working for them at the time. Anyway, like I said, this is a fun one, and I'm surprised I never thought to share it before. 

Download: Charlie Hines - Florida Rocket (Number Ninety-Nine)

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If "Florida Rocket" was a little silly, it had nothing on the flip side "Riding In My Little Sport Car", in which the focus is solidly on the car honk effect which recurs far too often, and sounds nothing like what a sports car's horn would have sounded like. Everyone involved plays as if they were well aware they were performing a ridiculous - and not very good - novelty arrangement. And I find that sort of odd, as the lyrics didn't have to be used in such a fashion - a straight ahead rocker would have worked with these lyrics just fine. 

Although.... does anyone else think it's weird that it's a "sport car" and not a "sports car"? Was the the terminology in the late 1950's? 

Download: Charlie Hines - Riding In My Little Sport Car

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