Top 10 Rockin’ Records

By 1948, R&B musicians and bar/nightclub/restaurant owners living or traveling through Florida already knew that Henry Stone was someone they could do cash business with. He recorded unknown artists off the street, and gambled on manufacturing vinyl. Then he worked with jukebox operators in black establishments throughout all the same hoods of today known as Overtown, Liberty City, Opa Locka, The Goulds, and Perrine, getting records played and quarters paid, working with all the great R&B DJ’s like Ed Cook, Jockey Jack, to get the sounds of independent music on the radio and feeding his family and other people’s families doing it. He also carried records from his friends in California, New York, and Chicago to shot houses in Wildwood, and Tampa, even up to Tallahassee and down to the Florida Keys. Hitting the back roads in his Buick way before there was ever a highway with his Rockin’ Records, the independent label he founded to record artists like Ray Charles, John Lee Hooker, and even Willie Baker. W.C. Baker was a songwriter who he hired as a shipping clerk at his downtown Miami warehouse. These records would be forgotten if not for collectors finding them all over the country all these years later. As far as blues, none of it was really hits, many had little more than regional impact, and some not even that. But Henry Stone always loved making records, and he knew how to get them out there. Now that’s what you call distribution.

10. Willie Baker – Goin’ Back Home Today
Label: Rockin’ Records
Style: Blues
Genre: Blues
Year: 1953

9. Little Sam Davis – She’s So Good To Me
Label: Rockin’ Records
Style: Blues
Genre: Blues
Year: 1953

8. John Lee Booker (BKA John Lee Hooker) – Blue Monday
Label: Rockin’ master, DeLuxe release
Style: Blues
Genre: Bues
Year: 1953

7. The Charms – Heaven Only Knows
Label: Rockin’ Records
Style: Pop
Genre: R&B, Doo Wop, Vocal Group

6. The Crystals – My Girl
Label: Rockin’ Records
Style: R&B
Genre: R&B

5. Wilbert Harrison – The Letter
Label: Rockin’ original master, re-issued on DeLuxe and Glades
Style: Pop
Genre: R&B
Year: 1953

4. Rouse Brothers – Orange Blossom Special
Label: Rockin’ original master, re-issued on DeLuxe
Style: Bluegrass
Genre: Hillbilly
Year: 1953

3. John Lee Booker – Stuttering Blues
Label: Rockin’ original master, re-issued on DeLuxe
Style: Blues
Genre: Blues
Year: 1953

2. Earl Hooker – Sweet Angel
Label: Rockin’ original master, re-issued on DeLuxe
Style: Blues
Genre: Blues
Year: 1953

1. Ray Charles – St. Pete Florida Blues
Label: Rockin’ original master, re-issued on DeLuxe
Style: R&B
Genre: R&B
Year: 1953