| Rock Awhile | |
| Cover: | Image:Rock Awhile (fixed).png |
| Caption: | A-side |
| Type: | single |
| Artist: | Goree Carter & His Hepcats |
| B-Side: | Back Home Blues |
| Released: | 1949 |
| Recorded: | April 1949 |
| Studio: | ACA Studios |
| Label: | Freedom Recording Company |
| Next Title: | I'll Send You |
| Next Year: | 1949 |
"Rock Awhile" is a song by American singer-songwriter Goree Carter, recorded in April 1949 for the Freedom Recording Company in Houston, Texas.
The song was released as the 18-year-old Carter's debut single (with "Back Home Blues" as the B-side) shortly after recording. The track is considered by many sources to be the first rock and roll song,[1] [2] [3] [4] and has been called a better candidate than the more commonly cited "Rocket 88", which was released two years later.[1] [2] [5] The song features an over-driven electric guitar style similar to that of Chuck Berry years later.[1] [2] [3]
The former New York Times pop critic, Robert Palmer,[6] made this comment about the recording in 1995:
"The clarion guitar intro differs hardly at all from some of the intros Chuck Berry would unleash on his own records after 1955; the guitar solo crackles through an overdriven amplifier; and the boogie-based rhythm charges right along. The subject matter, too, is appropriate -- the record announces that it's time to 'rock awhile,' and then proceeds to show how it's done."[7]