Source: https://inews.co.uk/essentials/culture/music/arthur-big-boy-crudup-father-rocknroll/What makes Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup the father of rock’n’roll ?
By John Clark, Wednesday June 22nd 2016
Arthur 'Big Boy' Crudup was rediscovered and started touring and recording again the late 60s, early 70s (Photo: Bear Family)
One of the pivotal moments in the history of post-war popular music came at the end of a long and not very rewarding recording session at the small Sun studio in Memphis in 1954. Studio boss Sam Phillips had been trying to prise out a debut recording from his new signing, a lank-haired young truck driver with a poor complexion but a remarkable voice called Elvis Presley.
Backed by guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black, the three had been fooling around with country ballads and mediocre pop songs. Nothing had clicked. Left to themselves while a disgruntled Phillips went into the control room, Presley said that “this song popped into my mind that I had heard years ago, and I started kidding around with it”.
Elvis was jumping around
Moore took up the story. “Elvis just started singing this song, jumping around and acting the fool and then Bill picked up his bass, and he started acting the fool, too, and I started playing with them… Sam stuck his head out and said: ‘What are you doing? And we said ‘We don’t know”. ‘Well back up,’ he said. ‘Try to find a place to start, and do it again.’”
The song, “That’s All Right, Mama”, became Presley’s first release and went on to change the face of pop music. Sam Phillip’s long-held ambition of finding a white boy who could sing the blues had been fulfilled with a song written and originally recorded in 1946 by a Mississippi-born blues guitarist and singer whom Elvis idolised called Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup.
“I said if I ever got to the place I could feel all old Arthur felt, I’d be a music man like nobody ever saw”
Elvis Presley
A mainstay of what, in the late 1940s, were called the “race charts”, Crudup, born in 1905 had been a late starter in the music game, first picking up a guitar in 1937 after a period spent in logging camps and building roads. He stated playing on the streets at first before attracting the interest of talent scout Lester Melrose. By 1941 he was signed to RCA records.
He’d also attracted the attention of Presley himself. “Down in Tupelo, Mississippi, I used to hear old Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now, and I said if I ever got to the place I could feel all old Arthur felt, I’d be a music man like nobody ever saw, ” he told the Charlotte Observer newspaper in 1956.
‘My baby left me, never said a word’
Although physically a large man, hence his nickname, he had a light but firm voice, which allied to his forceful and rhythmic guitar style, resulted in a string of self-composed blues numbers whose wry lyrics encapsulated love (“So Glad You’re Mine”), betrayal: (“My baby left me, never said a word. Was it something I done, something that she heard?”) and his aversion to some cities (“That mean old Frisco and that lowdown Santa Fe”). Presley loved them, and went on to record “So Glad You’re Mine” and “My Baby Left Me”. Along with other such as “Mean Disposition” and “Who’s Been Foolin’ You” they became blues standards recorded by everybody from Canned Heat to Eric Clapton.
You would have thought that this would have made Crudup a rich man. Except that Melrose wasn’t keen on paying royalties. All that his artists would get at the end of a recording session was a handshake and a small fee. So throughout the late 50s and 60s while Presley was enjoying worldwide sales, Crudup was scraping by with club dates and even part-time work as a bootlegger.Eventually, in the 60s when a new generation was discovering the blues, Crudup was rediscovered for a white market eager to hear his music. Dubbed “the father of rock’n’roll” he began appearing at college gigs and festivals and even toured the UK. I saw him perform at the University of Essex in Colchester in 1970. He was a tall imposing figure with grey hair and, even then, an immense stage presence.
A towering influence
A couple of years later, after lengthy negotiations, Crudup almost received some of the royalties due to him. Set to receive a cheque for $60,000, he was told at the last minute that the publishing company had decided to withhold it because of legal problems. Crudup never did see his money. It was only after his death in 1975 and after the original publishing company was sold that his family received $248,000, with regular and greater payments since.
And now, more than 40 years after his death, his towering influence is also getting due respect from the record business. The Grammy-winning reissue company Bear Family is releasing a five-CD box set of his complete recordings from 1941 to 1962, complete with a hardback biography. A big tribute for a big man, in every sense of the word.
Arthur ‘Big Boy’ Crudup: A Music Man Like Nobody Ever Saw will be released next month on Bear Family records
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But to bad that African American at that time did get ripped off by white record label directors 
