Rocket 88

"Rocket "88""
Single by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats
B-side	"Come Back Where You Belong"
Released	April 1951
Format	10" 78rpm
Recorded	March 3 or 5, 1951, Sun Studios in Memphis, Tennessee
Genre	Rhythm and blues, rock and roll
Length	2:48
Label	Chess 1458
Writer(s)	Jackie Brenston (credited) Ike Turner (uncredited)
Producer(s)	Sam Phillips
Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats singles chronology
"Rocket "88"" "My Real Gone Rocket"
Music sample "Rocket 88" 32 second sample of "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats

"Rocket 88" (originally written as Rocket "88") is a rhythm and blues song that was first recorded in Memphis, Tennessee, on March 3 or 5, 1951 (accounts differ). The recording was credited to Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats, who were actually Ike Turner's Kings of Rhythm.

The record reached no. 1 on the Billboard R&B chart. Many experts acknowledge its importance in the development of rock and roll music, with several considering it to be the first rock and roll record.

The original version of the twelve-bar blues song was credited to Jackie Brenston (Ike Turner's saxophonist) and his Delta Cats, which hit number one on the R&B charts. The band was actually 19-year-old Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm band, who rehearsed at the Riverside Hotel in Clarksdale, Mississippi. Brenston sang the lead vocal and was credited with writing "Rocket 88". The song was a hymn of praise to the joys of the Oldsmobile "Rocket 88" automobile which had recently been introduced, and was based on the 1947 song "Cadillac Boogie" by Jimmy Liggins. It was also preceded and influenced by Pete Johnson's "Rocket 88 Boogie" Parts 1 and 2, an instrumental, originally recorded for the Los Angeles-based Swing Time Records label in 1949.

Drawing on the template of jump blues and swing combo music, Turner made the style even rawer, superimposing Brenston's enthusiastic vocals, his own piano, and tenor saxophone solos by 17-year-old Raymond Hill (later to be the father of Tina Turner's first child, before she married Ike). Willie Sims played drums for the recording. The song also features one of the first examples of distortion, or fuzz guitar ever recorded, played by the band's guitarist Willie Kizart. The song was recorded in the Memphis studio of producer Sam Phillips in March 1951, and licensed to Chess Records for release.