One thing that I don’t quite lean into as much on here is my musical background. I started learning classical guitar at the age of 6, gained my Grade 8 by the age of 16, studied in Music Technology at college, am currently in three bands and my first live gig was when I was 15 and a lead guitarist for a heavy metal band. Therefore, I figured I should probably combine my love for music with this website and decided that the best way to do that would be a musical blog/column to be released every Thursday. You’re welcome. My aim is to incorporate all manner of genres and musical topics from all manner of life. This week’s subject: Favourite Rock and Roll Artists and their Top Tracks.

For the past 13 years I’ve been playing bass guitar in a 1950’s Rock and Roll cover band. It originally started as a favour to my Dad (who himself has been in Rock and Roll bands for a good 30-40 years) as a friend of his (Mick) needed a backing band to help him out for a show and I was asked to play bass. We then spent 2 years gigging all across the UK before Mick decided to call it a day and have subsequently carried on playing for another 11 years.

I’d grown up around the genre due to my Dad being into this sort of music and playing in bands, so I loosely knew a lot of the songs that our band would be playing but over the course of the last 11 years it’s become one of my go-to things to listen to. My Spotify Wrapped playlist for last year showed that the main artists I’d listened to were Metallica, Black Label Society, Matt Berry, Johnny Cash, Little Richard and Jerry Lee Lewis. That’s a quite a nose-dive between them! Anyway, let’s get into my Favourite Rock and Roll artists and their Top Tracks

Jerry Lee Lewis

I’ve got to start with Jerry as many (myself included) view him as the greatest rock and roll piano player of all-time. We were fortunate enough to see his last ever UK show (an event that also featured an appearance from musical legends Robert Plant and Ringo Starr) and regularly listen to the following: Breathless, Wine Spo Dee O Dee, Crazy Arms, Great Balls of Fire, Whole Lot of Shaking and Rockin My Life Away

Chuck Berry

Chuck Berry is one of the most iconic 50s musicians with some of the most familiar rock and roll tracks under his hat. Everyone has heard the fantastic “Johnny B Goode” but other top tracks from Chuck include Bye Bye Johnny, Let It Rock, Roll Over Beethoven, No Particular Place to go and Maybeline

Elvis Presley

I can’t really do a top “1950s Rock and Roll” article and not mention the king himself, Elvis. Elvis was a next-level superstar with a string of hit albums, Number 1 records and multiple movies. Everyone knows the classics like “Blue Suede Shoes” (which is absolutely one of the tracks I’d recommend) but he also did such great stuff like Little Sister, Big O’Hunk O’Love, Burning Love, My Baby Left Me and Ready Teddy

Anyhoo, that’s this week’s music-orientated column done. There is so much more to check out out there and if you’ve got a Spotify account then I’d recommend checking out my Rock N Roll Playlist that features 75 of my favourite RnR tracks: