Take That, Joan Jett!!!

From a fascinating essay by critic Adam Gopnik in the Aug. 4 issue of The New Yorker:

With minimal ingenuity, any historical period can be made to dissolve into the ones around it. Take the rock revolution—that great shift which, emerging in the mid-nineteen-fifties and established by the mid-sixties, definitively separated the Broadway-and-jazz-based tunes that had previously dominated popular music from the new sound. The break ravaged record companies and derailed careers. In the fifties, the wonderful jazz-and-standards singer Beverly Kenney performed a song she’d written called “I Hate Rock ’n’ Roll,” and then—perhaps for other reasons, but surely for that one, too—took her own life [emphasis mine - S.S.].

Okay, I was unfamiliar with Ms. Kenney and her tragic end, so as you can imagine that got my attention.

You can find out more about her over HERE; it's way fascinating, trust me -- she should be remembered for a whole bunch of cool things rather than suicide.

And here's the anti-rock anthem in question.

Seems a little extreme to me, but obviously it was a different time. In any case, I'm a fan of that whole Fifties deadpan cool girl jazz singer genre -- I adore Chris Connor, for example -- and Ms. Kenney is obviously a superior representative of same.

I should add that the above is from a 1958 live performance on the old Steve Allen show, but alas the actual video of it has not made it to YouTube.