Shake, Rattle and Roll

In early 1954, Atlantic Records executives handed a song by Jesse Stone to a massive, boisterous Kansas City blues shouter named Big Joe Turner. The result was pure, uncut rhythm and blues. Turner famously boomed out highly suggestive lyrics over an incredibly heavy, aggressive backbeat and a blazing saxophone solo. It was a massive, cross-racial hit that became one of the crucial 1954 R&B records that fed directly into rock and roll's commercial explosion. A few months later, Bill Haley and His Comets completely sanitized the lyrics and dramatically accelerated the tempo, introducing the sanitized version to white teenagers and accelerating the rock and roll explosion.