THE 1000 BEST SONGS IN THE WORLD EVER.

606-Arthur ”Big Boy” Crudup-That’s All Right.

1946-It has never charted in the UK. There was no UK chart until 1952.

Best Bit-At 1.04. Elvis Presley acknowledged Arthur Crudup’s importance to ‘Rock ‘N Roll’ when he said, ‘If I had any ambition, it was to be as good as Arthur Crudup.

Arthur William Crudup, was born on August 24th, 1905, in Forest, Mississippi, United States, he died of complications of heart disease and diabetes, on March 28th, 1974, at the age of 68. He was fondly known as ‘The Father of Rock and Roll,’ after Elvis Presley (1935-1977) had recorded cover versions of three of his songs, ‘That’s All Right,’ (1946) ‘My Baby Left Me,’ (1950) and ‘So Glad You’re Mine,’ (1946.) Arthur Crudup was born into a family of migrant workers travelling through the South and Midwest, and spent his formative years singing ‘Gospel’ music. In 1926 he was taught to play the ‘Blues’ by a local called Papa Harvey, (1887-1989?) enabling him to later perform in dance halls and cafes. He began his career as a ‘Blues’ singer around Clarksdale, Mississippi, then joined the black Gospel quartet the ‘Harmonizing Four,’ eventually leaving to start a solo career in Chicago in 1940.

Arthur Crudup recorded for ‘RCA Records’ in the mid to late 1940’s, and with ‘Ace Records,’ ‘Checker Records,’ and ‘Trumpet Records,’ in the early 1950’s, recording as Arthur ”Big Boy” Crudup,’ ‘Elmer James,’ and ‘Percy Lee Crudup.’ He stopped recording in the 1950’s because of disputes over royalties, saying, ‘I realised I was making everybody rich, and here I was poor.’ He continued to sing, and supplemented his income by working as a labourer, he later returned to Mississippi and took up bootlegging. In 1968 the ‘Blues’ promoter Dick Waterman (1935-2024) began fighting for Crudup’s royalties, and reached an agreement in which Crudup would be paid $60,000, however, ‘Hill and Range Songs,’ from which he was supposed to get the royalties, refused to sign the legal papers at the last minute, because the company thought it could not lose more money in legal action. By 1971 Crudup had collected a little over $10,000 in overdue royalties, through the intervention of the ‘Songwriters Guild of America.’ Recognising his fortunes would not change, Crudup said in 1970, ‘I was born poor, I live poor, and I am going to die poor.’ Arthur Crudup issued four solo studio Albums, and two collaborative Albums between 1962-1994, and there are 30 official compilation Albums available. Three of his singles charted in the top 5 in 1945, on the Billboard ‘Race Records’ chart, which is now the ‘Hot R&B/Hip-Hop Songs’ chart.

‘That’s All Right’ was originally recorded by Arthur Crudup in Chicago, United States, on September 6th, 1946, it was re-released in early March 1949 by ‘RCA Victor,’ under the title ‘That’s All Right, Mama.’ ‘That’s All Right’ is one of the contenders for the never ending discussion about who actually recorded the first ever ‘Rock ‘N Roll’ song. The ‘Rock’ historian Joseph Burns, of Southeastern Louisiana University has said,’This song could contain the first ever guitar solo break.’ Some of the lyrics to ‘That’s All Right’ had been lifted by Crudup from previous ‘Blues’ songs, most notably the 1926 ‘Blues’ recording, ‘That Black Snake Moan,’ by Blind Lemon Jefferson (1893-1929.)

At the age of 19, Elvis Presley (see also best songs 954-664-442 and 194) recorded his version of ‘That’s All Right, Mama,’ for his very first single, on the ‘Sun Records’ label. The song failed to chart on either side of the Atlantic, but when it was re-issued for it’s 50 anniversary in 2004, it reached Number 3 in the UK. In 1956 Presley recorded ‘My Baby Left Me,’ another Arthur Crudup song, for the ‘B’ side of his single ‘”I Want You, I Need You, I Love You,’ which reached Number 1 on Billboard, and Number 14 in the UK. Elvis Presley said of Arthur Crudup,’Down in Tupelo, Mississippi, I used to hear old Arthur Crudup bang his box the way I do now, and I said, if I ever got to the place I could feel all old Arthur felt, I’d be a music man like nobody ever saw.’ In 2004 the American music magazine the ‘Rolling Stone,’ argued that Elvis Presley’s recording of ‘That’s All Right’ was the first ever ‘Rock and Roll’ record, also in 2004 an article in the British daily newspaper ‘The Guardian,’ argues that rather than Elvis Presley’s version being one of the first records of ‘Rock and Roll,’ it was simply one of ‘the first white artists’ interpretations of a sound already well established by black musicians almost a decade before, a raucous, driving, unnamed variant of ‘Rhythm and Blues.’

‘Mama she done told me, Papa done told me too, son, that gal your foolin’ with, she ain’t no good for you. But, that’s all right, that’s all right, that’s all right now mama, anyway you do.’