Style Icon: Roy Brown (10 September 1925 — 25 May 1981)

My passion for music extends across many genres including rockabilly. In my teens I used to go to a ‘Rockin’ Club’ off Grafton Road in Camden Town. It was one of those places where everyone dressed up to the nines and at times could easily have resembled main street USA, 1956. There was one track I loved called Hip Shakin’ Baby, a genuine bopper, by Roy Brown. I remember at the time being both enthralled and amazed to discover Roy Brown was black because to me it sounded pure rockabilly. Of course, clubs like the one in Grafton Road played plenty of black artists, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Louis Jordon, but in my musical naivety I assumed rockabilly to be recorded only by white artists; after all wasn’t it white artists that copied black artists? From that point I very quickly learned my error and that the roots of great music are, excitingly, never straight forward. However, what Roy Brown and ‘Hip Shakin’ Baby’ did for me is light the long fuse of musical enlightenment, which continues to smoulder to this day.

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http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_Wc0nZ7f4rQ