The advent of rock and roll took place over the 1940s and 1950s. Rock music was born  of numerous influences, including blues, rhythm and blues, gospel, and country. Many early rock tunes were covers of earlier blues or R&B tunes. Bill Haley and the Saddlemen started as a Western swing band, but after they began covering blues tunes such as Jackie Brenston’s “Rocket 88,” Haley renamed his group the Comets. Chuck Berry, a blues musician, took a country song, “Ida Red,” changed the title to “Maybelline,” and rewrote the lyrics, creating a rock tune.

    A real rock phenomenon began in the 1950s in Memphis, Tennessee, when the record producer Sam Phillips began attracting young white artists to cover blues tunes. Phillips’s company, Sun Records, became the center of attention when the young Elvis Presley began recording there in 1954. Presley’s success attracted a number of other young artists such as Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Eddie Cochran. They all contributed to a sound that became known as rockabilly.

    A significant change in rock music took place during the 1960s. The record industry had a number of problems coping with this new music because rock musicians frequently wrote their own songs, which cut the incomes of songwriters who traditionally wrote for pop singers. There was considerable resistance to the open sexuality in many rock songs’ lyrics and in the way many rock musicians lived and dressed.  Also, by about 1963 many of the successful artists of the 1950s were no longer performing. Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly, and the Big Bopper all died in a plane crash; Elvis was drafted; Jerry Lee Lewis’s career was ruined because of his marriage to his young cousin; Eddie Cochran died in a car crash that also injured Gene Vincent; Little Richard entered Bible college; Carl Perkins was seriously injured in a car crash; and Chuck Berry was imprisoned for two years.

    All of these factors contributed to the popularity of a softer, more pop-oriented type rock. Teen idols such as Frankie Avalon, Paul Anka, and Fabian became the models during this period. They projected a clean-cut image and sang songs that promoted an image of ideal, nonsexual teen love. Most of the music was geared toward young teens.

     During the 1950s, British teenagers were listening to blues bands and rockabilly stars, assimilating their style. In 1964 the British Invasion began. The Beatles were the first to arrive in the United States, and then the Rolling Stones. The harder-edged style of some of the British groups, with their blues influence, offered an alternative to teen idol rock.

     The music of the teen idols didn’t appeal to the college crowd. Although the British bands were popular, this age group also found folk music appealing. Folk music became associated with the civil rights movement and with the protest movement against the Vietnam War, with lyrics that were on a higher intellectual plane. Bob Dylan became the center of the folk movement. His popularity soared, though, only when he abandoned the pure acoustic folk tradition and began performing with amplified instruments in 1965. Other groups, such as the Byrds, the Mamas and the Papas, and Simon and Garfunkel followed.

     Another alternative sound that developed during the 1960s was soul music. Soul, which is rooted in the gospel tradition, was centered primarily in Chicago, Memphis, Philadelphia, and Detroit, the home of Motown Records. Aretha Franklin and Sam Cooke are examples of this style, but the “godfather of soul” is James Brown.

      A young guitarist of the late 1960s needs mentioning, Jimi Hendrix. Chas Chandler of the British group the Animals heard Jimi in a local American blues band and invited him to come to England.  Jimi accepted the offer and later formed the Jimi Hendrix Experience. He was a star in England before returning to the United States to play in the 1967 Monterey Pop Festival. His rendition of “The Star-Spangled Banner” at Woodstock, 1969, was one of his most famous performances. He died tragically in 1970.

     During the 1970s rock, which always comprosed a variety of styles, became even more varied. Individual styles were usually associated with certain groups: country rock was originated by the Eagles; southern rock by the Allman Brothers Band. Blood, Sweat, and Tears developed a jazz-rock style. Blues-influenced bands equipped with fuzz boxes and other devices developed hard rock and heavy metal styles. Stage theatrics contributed to glitter rock. The most controversial style (prior to gansta rap) was punk rock.

     In the 1980s, hip-hop culture contributed a variety of sounds based on Jamaican reggae. DJ Kool Herc began playing music for break dancing and chanting in rhyme over the music. The result became rap. Rap originally had some very positive elements. The rapper Afrika Bambaataa formed Zulu Nation and encouraged unity among all people. These positive elements became overshadowed, however, when Los Angeles street gangs took up the style and created gangsta rap.

     MTV came into existence during this era and forever changed the marketing of rock music. When rock videos began being produced, dancing ability became as important as singing. At first few black performers were shown on MTV, but Michael Jackson broke through and eventually became known as the self-titled “king of pop.”

     A number of other styles also emerged during the 1980s. Alternative rock was originally coined to indicate a British style of pop. It was an alternative to the dance oriented rock shown on MTV.  Other alternative styles were post-punk bands like Minor Threat, a band led by Ian McKaye, who was aggressively against drugs. Another post-punk style, industrial rock, used sound effects created by all kinds of machines. These groups also used traditional instruments like guitars with feedback and fuzz tone. 

     Techno, electronic dance music, is another style that emerged during the last decade. This music is associated with the rave culture and the drug Ecstasy. The music features a throbbing beat and a hypnotic repetition of synthesized music.

QUESTIONS AND TOPICS 

1. Until 1947, record companies marketed what they termed “race music” only to black Americans. These were recordings by black performers in a variety of styles; blues, jazz, jump bands, gospel, and so on. In 1947 the term rhythm and blues was coined as a marketing device. The term was generally applied to music that was performed at faster tempo, usually by small groups called jump bands. Rhythm and Blues gradually came to replace the term race music and was applied to a variety of musics by black artists.

2. In the early 1950s a number of white musicians began mixing country elements with R&B or blues-oriented tunes. These were the rockabilly artists, most of who came out of Memphis and Sun Records. Rockabilly eliminated the jazz instrumentation and the shuffle beat (swing), and usually sped up the tempo. 

3. As blues elements were being discarded by American rock groups of the late 1950s and early 1960s, British teenagers were becoming enamored of the blues. Blues clubs sprang up everywhere. Early British groups such as the Beatles and the Rolling Stones started out performing songs that were heavily influenced by the blues. The Beatles soon abandoned the blues influence for a more pop-oriented sound, but not the Rolling Stones. Many male blues artists such as Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf traveled to England and performed there, exerting an even stronger influence. In addition to the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, Eric Clapton and John Mayall were influenced by the blues.

4. Gangsta rap has given rap a negative reputation. Actually there is much that is positive in rap. Break dancing requires a great deal of athleticism and rhythmic coordination. The lyrics of many rap songs are quite ingenious, with a definite poetic style. Rap is often used in classrooms as a way of teaching children to speak distinctly and to develop creativity. 

5. During the late 1960s the drug culture in the United States became more open. Rock lyrics were more explicit about drugs and drug use. This was especially true with the harder-edge rock from San Fransisco. Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, and Jim Morrison all succumbed to this life style, and all died of drug overdoses at the age of twenty-seven. But the drug culture has always surrounded popular music in the United States. From the days of the first blues singers through the big band era, drug use and suggestive lyrics have been present.

FURTHER TOPICS FOR DISCUSSION

1. What made New Orleans a likely center for the development of jazz?

2. What elements of ragtime are present in early jazz?

3. How does soul compare to black gospel?

4. How does the presence of almost all of these styles, from the early days of blues and New Orleans jazz, to techno and others impact our culture? How does it impact the recording industry?