My daughters recently introduced me to Shut Up and Dance with Me by Walk the Moon. Great song. I thought it was a new song but see it is from 2014. That’s new for me
Anyway, one of the things that I like about it is the synthesizer solo in the middle of the song. I grew up listening to prog and hard rock, and a guitar or keyboard solo was in almost every song. But songs very seldom have solos these days, so Shut Up really struck me.
It got me wondering, what would be the first pop/rock song with a guitar or keyboard solo? You can define solo as you like, but I am thinking of a segment of the song with a clear lead by one instrument that could stand alone as a (short) piece of music. And they generally display some degree of technical skill. It should be more than a few chords as a bridge between verses.
One song that sticks in my memory is the Animals’ version of House of the Rising Sun with its iconic Hammond solo. My understanding is that solo was possibly the first time that a keyboard was showcased in a pop song rather than just being part of the musical tapestry. That was 1964, but I am sure there are earlier examples of instrumental solos in pop songs.
Actually, I just thought of Ben E King’s Stand by Me as another possibility. That was 1961, but I don’t know whether it can be considered a pop song as it is more likely R&B. And the solo in question is strings rather than guitar or keyboard….
The first Rock and Roll guitar solos were mimicking Swing and R&B saxophone solos and have been around since the birth of the genre. The first electric guitar solo is pretty well documented. Here it is from 1940. Ernest Tubb - Walking The Floor Over You - YouTube
This is going to get into the question of what you consider a “pop” song. To me, Stand By Me is absolutely a pop song. It has pop structure; pop subject matter with an easy-to-follow melody; it has a classic four-chord pop progression; it’s a top 10 hit, meant for a mass audience. It’s not like the “serious” music of classical or jazz at the time. (I do NOT agree with that sort of dichotomy, but for gatekeepers, especially of the time, it would be seen as “non-art” music. Hell, even jazz for some at the time would be as well.) For me, at least, pop songs can be Motown, R&B, rock, disco, dance, etc.
Back then, Pop was code for what white people listened to on white radio. R&B was code for black music or “race music”. By 1961, fewer listeners and performers restricted themselves to those boxes, yet for whatever stupid reason, the terms persist. So “Stand by Me” (written by two Jewish guys) is both Pop and R&B (Soul) charting at #4 on the Pop charts and #1 on the R&B charts.
The big band misic of the 30’s and 40’s was ‘pop music’ of the time, and it was full of solos. Songs like In the Mood, A String of Pearls, etc. Solos were a big deal, including drum solos. Some songs were little more than frameworks for a whole bunch of solos.
I’m going to guess that solos in pop music go back to the very beginning of whatever we define as pop music.
For the purposes of this thread, maybe we should define “Pop Music”. Although the ‘pop’ in pop music came from the word ‘popular’, pop music now is its own genre. Pop, as a form, originated in the mid '50s. Other music styles, just because they were ‘popular’ shouldn’t technically apply.
That’s easy. The first Rock and Roll song to hit the Pop charts was …
Even without the boost it got from the film, it hit the Pop top 40 a year earlier (1954). It might not be the first Rock and Roll record, but it was the first significant “white” record of the genre and “white” is what defined the Pop category back then.
Then, to answer the OP, you kind of have to identify what the first Pop song (as a form) was. Because that song almost certainly had a solo. I think the answer we are looking for is, :There have always been solos in Pop songs.
Peggy Lee was 15 or 16 and still in high school when she had a Saturday radio show. Pretty much everything she sang was a hit because Peggy Lee was singing it.
Michael Jackson was 10 years old when the Jackson 5 sang “I Want You Back”.
Dylan recorded his first album at 20, he was an old man going by the ages of the previous two.
The oldest of The Dixie Cups was 20 when they recorded their big hit “The Chapel of Love”.
In 1967 Janis Joplin was 24 years old when she took the world by storm at The Monterey Pop Festival. Three years later she was dead. Jimmy Hendrix left us not long after.
Jimmy Hendrix was 24 years old in 1966 when he had several top hits in the UK. Four years later he was dead.
The winner? Little Stevie Wonder was 13 years old when he had a #1 hit called “Fingertips Pt 2”.
