Now's the Time: Andy Kirk

Was rock and roll invented in Kansas City?  “Roll ‘Em Pete”, the famous 1938 collaboration between Pete Johnson and Joe Turner, sounds a lot like rock and roll to me.  And a few years after moving from Kansas City to New York City in the 1940s, Andy Kirk’s band was captured in the embedded film performing the style of music later popularized by the likes of Bill Haley.

Roll 'Em Pete: Remembering Pete Johnson

Boogie-woogie, anyone? Kansas City native Pete Johnson was among the form's premier practitioners. His good-time music was a primary building block in the creation of rock and roll. Here's Joe Turner's hit version of "Roll 'Em Pete." The fatalistic lyric- "you're so beautiful but you got to die someday"- always disarms me. The beautiful (and still living!) Lena Horne introduces Johnson and Albert Ammons in this wonderful video.