Sleep Walk

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From the time when "rock'n'roll" seemed to be all about young Italian-Americans from New York.

Santo and Johnny on the Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show, August 1959:

[youtube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2rwfqsjimRM&w=550&h=309]

Written by the teenage brothers in their bedroom at two in the morning, so the story goes. A precursor to the later Californian Surf Music with that steel guitar sound – though they don't get any credit for it in the Wikipedia entry. See also instrumental rock, and groups like the Shadows: Apache came along a year later, in 1960.

Here's a great version by Jeff Beck from 2010 – using tremolo instead of slide.

Comments

  1. Martin Adamson Avatar
    Martin Adamson

    And yet on their albums – on Spotify – they mostly play standards. There were a few other guitarists at that time doing similar things – Les Paul was the grandad, Mickey Baker (of Mickey & Sylvia) another.

  2. Humphrey Duck Avatar
    Humphrey Duck

    Please, please, please… It’s Vibrato, not Tremolo.

  3. Mick H Avatar
    Mick H

    I just mean with his use of the tremolo arm to alter the pitch – though I admit that strictly speaking this is vibrato rather than tremolo.

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