Story by Stereo Williams
Cover Illustration by Kareem Kenyada
Sex and popular music go together like models and cocaine.
As far back as the blues, there have been songs dedicated to the most carnal of human impulses. “Backdoor Man,” “Hoochie Coochie Man,” and countless other tunes from legendary musicians like T-Bone Walker, KoKo Taylor, Muddy Waters and Howling Wolf dared to venture into salacious territory. The genre was called “the devil’s music” for a reason.
With the dawn of rock ’n’ roll, the salaciousness of the blues was given a new platform, one that was more mainstream and youthful. Part of what made Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Elvis Presley so dangerous to parents in the 1950s was the unbridled sexuality in their music. It was a sound that scared white America, in particular, as it came on the heels of much more refined fare such as the pop standards being churned out by Frank Sinatra, Nat “King” Cole and Bing Crosby.
