The Documented Birthplace Of Rock And Roll

Though I've been telling people since I can remember that Rock And Roll was born in my own little humble hometown of Hattiesburg, Ms., not many believe me. I know it to be true. Even the honorable Rolling Stone Magazine agrees as mentioned in Wikipedia....

Though I can name numerous references, or simply google them yourself, here is the word from Wikipedia.

"It is a little-known fact that music scholars consider Hattiesburg to be the historic birthplace of rock and roll. [weasel words] As noted in the Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock and Roll, Hattiesburg was a recording location of Blind Roosevelt Graves and his brother, Uaroy Graves, who, along with piano player Cooney Vaughn, recorded two songs in 1936 that "...featured fully formed rock & roll guitar riffs and a stomping rock & roll beat." The Graves Brothers and Vaughn--performing as the Mississippi Jook Band--recorded the songs 'Barbecue Bust' and 'Dangerous Woman' for the American Record Company, reportedly at the Hattiesburg Train Station."

Who knows why no museum was built or even some kind of promotion celebrating this prominent event? It stumps me. Maybe it was not by which the small but growing conservative hamlet wanted to be remembered. I was not even aware until I had been gone a decade or more. Though the local library there now has books and documentation on it, many residents claim not to agree, that it is a fictional story.

Only ten years later, a talent just out of military service from Tupelo, Ms also made a name for himself, later forever seen in the Rock N' Roll hall of fame. He was known as Elvis Pressley but most just called him "Elvis". It said that Elvis was always a very polite young man who was reluctantly pushed into fame and fortune, but actually enjoyed "the creative process" much more than the fame. Many close to him said the fame made him so stressed and uncomfortable, it led to his untimely death.

But why shouldn't Mississippi be the birthplace of such a creative endeavor. It also brought us Elvis, also gave us B.B. King, John Grisham, William Faulkner, Willie Morris, and numerous other legendary greats in the poorest and least educated part of the United States.