Oh gee, that's a tough call. You can clearly hear swung eighths in the Chuck Berry tune and the Beatles are playing their eighths straight.
Both of them, though, in my opinion, pure rock and roll. But on the other hand here's Chuck playing straight eights.
Are you going to try to argue that one of these three tunes is, or isn't, rock and roll? They're just tunes, played differently.
You make a good point. To mine ears, the 'beat'/rhythm/feel of this Chuck tune differs from the Beatles one.
Although both employ straight eighths.
So maybe eighths isn't an apt attribute or measure. The presence of eighths patterns doesn't really give us an indicator or definer...
Also, and I just thought of this now, actually...so many cultural associations are connected with both artists that it gets muddied...Chuck considered a classic R&R pioneer who really always remained connected or associated with that single period genre, while Beatles considered the experimentalists...had I decided to spend thirty mins on my previous post, as opposed to four... I could probably have chosen two comparison tunes/artists less laden with other associations....
I would say Louis and Big Mama can be considered proto-R&R, yes...the genres of both Blues and Jump Swing...if we need to categorize each....were definitely precursors and to me, R&R contains rhythmic qualities of both.
Wild Bill as well. All of those get sooooo close, in many respects, to R&R that it would be silly to deny that the latter was just one more stepping stone away...
But the Hound Dog Mama version...stylistically, still Blues IMHO...
(really interesting direct comparison, tho...because it begs the Q as to what "changed" to make the Elvis considered to be a R&R classic. Was it something musically ? Or was it just the packaging in the context of racism/sociopolitical situations ?)
The Red Norvo example, absolutely not R&R , and I think there is more separation there between early R&R than Mama or Loius.
Swing shuffle beat, walking bass line, no lyrics, absence of "grit", sorta "prettiness" to the melody...this is Swing, or just "Jazz"....imagine rather than asking "tell me why this isn't R&R ?"...had the question been posed as "hey, folks...is this a Jazz (or Swing) tune ....?" the answers would have been unanimous.
Songs we consider "rock songs"....minus the "roll"...on the other hand....do they contain those qualities which connect them back to the Jump/Swing/Blues stuff ? IMHO they are more distant from those roots, the rhythmic attributes aren't there any longer...
(just a quick revisit before forest gets lost from trees....my view/opinion previously stated is...for me....R&R has a swing element to the rhythm...Rock, not so (much)....)
sock hops, 45rpm's, loud jukeboxes....
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