Prompted by a post on another thread about Bobby Day's Over and Over released on Class Records (owned by Leon Rene) in 1958 I was musing about the session musicians. Well they included Plas Johnson (tenor sax), Rene Hall (guitar) and Earl Palmer (drums), all from New Orleans.
Who they? Well Earl Palmer was the first great rock 'n' roll drummer and played on a thousand hit records and helped the career of the (self proclaimed) most famous rock drummer of all time: Hal Blaine, who played on 35,000 records. It was Blaine who created the beat behind all the great Phil Spector hits, the Beachboys etc. Biographies were written about both: Backbeat and Hal Blaine & The Wrecking Crew - which I have.
Whilst Jim Horn (the go-to sax player in the rock era) was the first choice for artists such as Duane Eddy I have rejected out-takes of tunes where Plas Johnson takes the solo, although the issued version of the tune was Jim Horn. In my view the Jim Horn take is the better- more down and dirty than sweet. And Rene Hall? Well he was the guitarist of choice behind Sam Cooke and even had a highly regarded record in his own right with Twitchy .
Over and Over, although only issued as a "B" side, as noted in the other post was a USA #1 by the Dave Clark 5 and it is currently being used in a TV advert - over 60 years after it was written.
Of course Bobby Day deserves the credit for composing and recording Over and Over but I would contend that the fact of his having three outstanding session musicians behind him made the track great and that is why it is still being played and making a lot of money even after the composer has been dead for thirty years.
Because pop or rock music is normally seen as ephemeral there is little literature of worth of the 1950/60s and what was published was only in the USA but there are a few research writers of worth - Colin Escott is one.
The most useful, although of course not comprehensive, book on the era is John Broven's 600 page Record Makers and Breakers published in 2009 by the University of Illinois Press in Chicago.
The most useful general guide is Colin Larkin's Encyclopedia of Popular Music in 10 volumes (ie 9000 pages) 4th Edition 2009 published by Oxford University Press.
So two University publishers - and it's only rock 'n' roll.