To people who never grew up in the ’50′s (or even came close to it) that decade seems like it could be best summarized by: sock hops, going steady, music that will make you sing into your hairbrush, racism, the birth of Suburbia, and an unreasonable amount of obedience and domesticity being expected out of women. It was a time that was largely irony-free. As a result of this, the film, television, and music of that decade were mostly cheery and smelled and tasted like bubble gum. If you wanted to see or hear art that went against the sign of its time the ’50′s will almost always let you down in terms of mainstream art.
Enter Sonny Burgess.
To be sure, Burgess was not a huge game-changer; he was not an equivalent of Elvis, or a precursor to Dylan or Lennon or anything like that. What he did was produce some of the most raucous and energetic rockabilly and boogie woogie music of the ’50′s (i.e.–the nascent years of Rock ‘N’ Roll). Now I know what you’re thinking: “energetic rockabilly music” sounds about as cool as a sock hop, or hanging out with Betty Sue at the diner hoping that the star high school QB will come over and give you his jacket.
Many of you probably do not know who Sonny Burgess is (he’s the guy with the guitar wearing the dark suit in the picture above). Many of you probably have never heard the song “We Wanna Boogie” either. This song, to my knowledge, has never made an appearance on any noteworthy soundtrack or has ever been used in a popular ad campaign. Nonetheless, it is a song that should be properly introduced, as it is not only one of the best songs to have been produced in the Sun Records studio but it also contains one of the best guitar solos of the ’50′s (and could possibly even crack the top 50 of Most Underrated Guitar Solos of All Time list).
If you are reading this you are most likely a person who has grown up believing two things: 1) that Eddie Van Halen, Jimi Hendrix, Jimmy Page, Pete Townshend, or Eric Clapton are the archetype images of what a lead guitarist should look (and sound) like, and 2) that the rock music of the ’50′s is hopelessly uncool and has aged poorly. “We Wanna Boogie” not only still holds up well (all things considered) but it also so raw and so raucous (for the time) that one can almost see why some parents were afraid of rock and the social changes it was bringing about.
“We Wanna Boogie” starts off innocently enough as a straight-up boogie woogie track with an emphasis on the piano and a horn, all while Burgess’s vocals sound like a guy trying to sing while facially imitating Groucho Marx.
And then it happens.
At the 1:25 mark, a guitar solo breaks out and for the next 25 seconds you hear a slew of screams and yells in the background to accompany it. The solo itself is surprisingly full-bodied and jagged, and not tinny and careful like many other “solos” of this era. If you were to put yourself in the mindset of someone hearing this song for the first time in 1956 this could have been as incendiary as Elvis’ appearance on the The Ed Sullivan Show that same year. Rock has always been founded on movement and rhythm and guitars and “We Wanna Boogie” never deprives the listener of these three things.
This song may sound really dated to some: the vocals might be too much of an obstacle, the horns an outdated relic, and maybe the overall song is too boring. And that’s fine. But inside that guitar solo (and even the escalating drums towards the end of the song) you will find some great rock roots amongst the heavy rockabilly and boogie influences.
By the time “We Wanna Boogie” was released in 1956 Sun Records had already seen Elvis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash, and Jerry Lee Lewis walk through its doors and cut singles and achieve huge success. And while you may have never heard of Sonny Burgess or this song, it is pretty telling that on a reissued best of rockabilly CD Sun put this song as the first track to start things off.
This is one of the best songs from when Sun Records was at the height of their Zeitgeist that most people have probably never heard.
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