Rocket 88 is the name of a United Kingdom

United Kingdom

The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern IrelandIn the United Kingdom and Dependencies, other languages have been officially recognised as legitimate autochthonous languages under the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages...

-based boogie-woogie

Boogie-woogie

Boogie-woogie has the following meanings:*Boogie-woogie, a piano-based music style*Boogie-woogie , a swing dance or a dance that imitates the rock-n-roll dance of the 1950s*"Boogie Woogie" , a song by EuroGroove and Dannii Minogue...

 band formed in the late 1970s by Ian "Stu" Stewart

Ian Stewart (musician)

Ian Andrew Robert Stewart was a Scottish keyboardist, co-founder of The Rolling Stones and inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame...

, Charlie Watts

Charlie Watts

Charles Robert "Charlie" Watts is an English drummer, best known as a member of The Rolling Stones. He is also the leader of a jazz band, a record producer, commercial artist, and horse breeder.-Early life:...

, Alexis Korner

Alexis Korner

Alexis Korner was a blues musician and radio broadcaster, who has sometimes been referred to as "a Founding Father of British Blues"...

 and Dick Morrissey

Dick Morrissey

Richard Edwin "Dick" Morrissey was a British jazz musician and composer. He played the tenor sax, soprano sax and flute.- Background :...

.

The band is named for the 1949 Pete Johnson

Pete Johnson

Pete Johnson was an American boogie-woogie and jazz pianist.Journalist Tony Russell stated in his book The Blues - From Robert Johnson to Robert Cray, that "Johnson shared with the other members of the 'Boogie Woogie Trio' the technical virtuosity and melodic fertility that can make this the most...

 instrumental "Rocket 88

Rocket 88

"Rocket 88" is a rhythm and blues song that was first recorded at Sam Phillips' recording studio in Memphis, Tennessee, on 3 March or 5 March 1951...

 Boogie" and is also the title of their 1981 live album, recorded by the Rolling Stones Mobile Studio

Rolling Stones Mobile Studio

The Rolling Stones Mobile Studio is a mobile recording studio owned by the musical group the Rolling Stones. Numerous bands and artists have recorded music using it, including Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple, Lou Reed, Bob Marley, Horslips, Fleetwood Mac, Bad Company, Status Quo, Iron Maiden, Mola Mola...

.

The continuation of an ad hoc band formed by Stewart, Watts and Bob Hall

Bob Hall (boogie-woogie pianist)

Robert 'Bob' Hall , is a leading English boogie-woogie pianist. A long-time collaborator of Alexis Korner, he also performed regularly with bottleneck bluesman Dave Kelly and his sister, Jo Ann Kelly.-Career:...

, George Green, Colin Smith

Colin Smith (musician)

Colin Ranger Smith, born London 20 November 1934; died London 29 March 2004, was an English jazz trumpeter.He joined the Terry Lightfoot band in 1957 before moving on to playing with Cy Laurie, in 1958. His long tenure in the Acker Bilk band began in 1959, taking a break in 1966 to sail across the...

, John Picard

John Picard (musician)

John Francis Picard, born Tottenham, London, 17 May 1934 is a British jazz trombonist.After serving in the RAF, during which he played at weekends with Cy Laurie, he spent a further four months with Laurie before joining Humphrey Lyttleton, from 1954 until 1961. From 1962 to the early 1970s he...

, the band featured many top British musicians from different backgrounds who would meet up whenever possible during the late 1970s and early 80s for what was in effect an ongoing jam session. Other "regular" members of the band included the above-mentioned founding members, plus Jack Bruce

Jack Bruce

John Symon Asher "Jack" Bruce is a Scottish musician and songwriter, respected as a founding member of the British psychedelic rock power trio, Cream, for a solo career that spans several decades, and for his participation in several well-known musical ensembles...

, Danny Adler

Danny Adler

Danny Adler is a blues-rock guitarist.After playing with leading Cincinnati musicians, such as Bootsy Collins, Slim Harpo, H-Bomb Ferguson and Albert Washington, in the early 1960s, he went to San Francisco in 1969 to join John Lee Hooker, T-Bone Walker, Solomon Burke, and experimental group...

, Don Weller

Don Weller (musician)

Don Weller , is a British jazz musician, tenor saxophonist and composer.-Career:...

, Colin Hodgkinson

Colin Hodgkinson

Colin Hodgkinson is a British rock, jazz and blues bassist, who has been active since the 1960s.-Career:...

, Zoot Money

Zoot Money

George Bruno Money, known as Zoot Money is a British vocalist, keyboardist and bandleader best known for his playing of the Hammond organ and association with his Big Roll Band...

, Chris Farlowe

Chris Farlowe

Chris Farlowe is an English rock, blues and soul singer. He is best known for his hit single "Out of Time", which rose to #1 in the UK Singles Chart in 1966, and his association with Colosseum and the Thunderbirds.Outside his music career, Farlowe collects war memorabilia.-Career:Inspired by Lonnie...

, Hal Singer

Hal Singer

Harold Joseph "Hal" Singer is an American R&B and jazz bandleader and saxophonist.-Biography:Born in Tulsa, Oklahoma, Singer studied violin as a child but, as a teenager, switched to clarinet and then tenor saxophone, which became his instrument of choice...

, Mickey Waller

Micky Waller

Micky Waller was an English drummer, who played with many of the biggest names on the UK rock and blues scene, after he became a professional musician in 1960...

, Pete York

Pete York

Pete York is a rock drummer who has been performing since the 1960s.-Early life:...

, Dave Markee, Harvey Weston, Charlie Hart, Willie Garnett and Malcom Everson.
Jack Bruce would play stand up bass, with bleeding fingers, in local pubs in South London such as the Half Moon in Putney. There other Stones such as Jagger would pop in and play. Jagger did not get to do vocals but would play an often un mic'd harp.

Album

The band recorded a live album, Rocket 88

Rocket 88 (album)

Rocket 88 is an album recorded live in Germany in 1981 by the boogie-woogie band Rocket 88. The band had a casual line-up, and founder/producer/band-member Stewart in his liner notes makes reference to the other "permanent" band-members who were not present for that particular recording.Although it...

at the Rotation Club, Hanover

Hanover

Hanover or Hannover, on the river Leine, is the capital of the federal state of Lower Saxony , Germany and was once by personal union the family seat of the Hanoverian Kings of Great Britain, under their title as the dukes of Brunswick-Lüneburg...

, while on tour in Germany

Germany

Germany , officially the Federal Republic of Germany , is a federal parliamentary republic in Europe. The country consists of 16 states while the capital and largest city is Berlin. Germany covers an area of 357,021 km2 and has a largely temperate seasonal climate...

, in November 1979. It was released in March 1981 on the Atlantic Records

Atlantic Records

Atlantic Records is an American record label best known for its many recordings of rhythm and blues, rock and roll, and jazz...

label (SD 19293). Ian Stewart wrote the sleeve notes on the back cover of the album, giving not only a brief history of the band, but also an interesting history of boogie woogie and rock 'n' roll in general.