During the early 1950s, white, rural Southerners began fusing acoustic blues and country songs with the electrified jump-blues craze to create rockabilly, an inspiration to contemporary rock 'n' roll. With its rhythmic electric-guitar lines and a percussive slap-bass technique on the upright, rockabilly was essentially the blues and R&B played by hillbillies. Early strains of the soon-to-be-classic sound can be heard in the music of Bill Haley, whose national hit "Rock Around the Clock" boasted a rockabilly-like rhythm. Sun Studios in Memphis, Tenn., however, was ground zero for the rockabilly explosion. Elvis Presley's first ten sides in 1954 and '55 defined the genre with their sparse arrangements (guitar, bass, drums), yelping vocals, and quick rhythms. Presley's success spawned legions of followers, from the instrumental virtuosity of Carl Perkins and the piano-smashing mania of Jerry Lee Lewis to the coy pop stylings of Buddy Holly. Gene Vincent and Eddie Cochran held true to the form and inspired legions of rowdy young men on both sides of the Atlantic to grow their hair longer and grease it back into a perfect pompadour. By the late '50s, though, rockabilly had been effectively commodified by the recording industry, and glossy studio production tamed the music's country edge. Even the once-wild Johnny Burnette eventually morphed into a pop crooner. Decades later, however, the classic rockabilly sound found new audiences thanks to such artists as the Blasters, Big Sandy, the Cramps, and the Stray Cats.

Notable Artists: Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Burnette, Wanda Jackson, Hasil Adkins