We baby boomers and post boomers often act as if music started with rock and roll, sometime around Elvis's appearance on The Ed Sullivan Show on September 9, 1956. 

Yes, our generation knows there was a bunch of blues and swing and country stuff happening before then, but as far as we're concerned, that was just a preamble to the real story. 

As evidenced by the Pet Rock, the Bay City Rollers, Bratz and The OC, our generation can be pretty stupid.

Check out nuTsie's Top 100 Songs of 1949.  Unreal.  Hank Williams was writing some of the best songs ever.  Ray Charles was just getting a toehold on the charts.  Louis Jordan was playing rock and roll before rock and roll even existed.  Louis Armstrong, maybe the greatest musician of the 20th century, was still hanging in there. 

It's a continuum...without 1949, there's no Elvis on Ed Sullivan in '56...no Beatles and Stones in '65...no Bee-Gees and Sex Pistols in '77...no G N' R and Michael Jackson in '88...no Li'l Wayne and Rihanna in '09...

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