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The Origin Of Rock And Roll 1950's
It all started back in the mid-fifties. A strange new
synergy of rhythm and blues, soul, jazz, harmony, black and white
gospel, and country and western music took hold of the younger North
American generation. This music snared their senses with a rhythm, back
beat, energy and tribal passion they had never before encountered. It's
initial appeal was to middle class white teenagers who soon came to feel
it was their own. Perhaps it was -- their parents hated it. In this era,
so called 'race music' was largely censured by America's white
establishment as being too rebellious, sexual and anti-social to be
acceptable. To the ears and eyes of the elder generation, this new music
style or Rock 'n' Roll as it came to be known, was nothing less than
evil incarnate. The term rock 'n' roll was first coined by disc jockey
Alan Freed who featured the music on his radio programs in the early
fifties. The early forms of rock 'n' roll ushered in new
ways of both performing and dancing. Artists like Bill Haley and the
Comets adapted the work of many earlier black artists to come up with
their sound. Rock 'n' roll bands like Haley's used instruments such as
bass, acoustic and electric guitars, drums, piano and saxophone. The
music's solid rhythm and heavy back beat inspired new forms of dancing
that exist to this day. Though quite precious in retrospect, the lyrics
were often defiant in nature and shockingly energetic when judged by the
'Tin Pan Alley' standards of the day. Soon there were stars - Chuck Berry , Jerry Lee Lewis
, Little Richard , and Carl Perkins . Chuck Berry established the ground
rules. Lewis and Perkins contributed a country and western feel with
Little Richard topping it all off in a dynamo of showmanship. But it
took a truck driver from Tupelo Mississippi by the name of Elvis Presley
to put all these styles together in a way that would change popular
music for all time. Elvis possessed an incredible two and one-half
octave voice that could communicate any rock 'n' roll style to near
perfection. Weather it was a slow gospel ballad or a screaming rocker,
Presley connected with his material -- and with his audience. Rock 'n'
roll now had a 'King'. The Elvis hit-record era encompassed 1956-1963. During this period the recording companies, buoyed
by growth and financial gains, attempted to remove the original raw,
blues derived sentiments of the music. Their executives were convinced
that the whole Rock 'n' Roll bit was just a fad and proceeded to
engineer new, sanitized acts in the hope of sustaining the windfall. By
the end of the fifties many schlocky, sentimental songs designed in
record company boardrooms were being marketed as 'Rock 'n' Roll'.
Dissatisfied with this, many serious fans started paying attention to
other music forms (such as folk) and soon found themselves quite
detached from the era's Rock 'n' Roll mainstream.
The Origin Of Rock And Roll 1960's
The sixties brought in a new direction - a style
of tight melodic vocal on a harmony backing. Artists like Smoky Robinson
and the Miracles, The Temptations, Diana Ross and the Supremes, Gladys
Knight and The Four Tops brought us what came to be known as the (Motown
sound). Across the Atlantic an invasion was shaping up. In England a
group influenced by Carl Perkins and Elvis known as The Beatles had
worked their way up from playing at schools and clubs to national
celebrity status. It almost seemed as if the four young gents' magnetic
personalities and trend setting haircuts might have been responsible for
their success as much their musical prowess - which they had in
abundance. No matter. They soon took over North America and the world.
Many other British groups followed -- hence the term (British Invasion).
These bands included The Searchers, The Yardbirds, The Kinks, The Who
and oh yes, The Rolling Stones. The 'Stones like many British bands, had
cut their musical teeth on imported American blues records by artists
like Howlin' Wolf. The influence this had on their music was to help
turn mid sixties rock 'n' roll around to it's original rebellious
direction -- but this time a lot louder and angrier than before. It
seemed there was now more 'rock' and less 'roll' on every new record.
Rock 'n' Roll had suddenly become just 'Rock'.
Towards the late sixties the lyrics on forthcoming
rock albums started to embrace the drug or psychedelic culture of that
era. Groups such as The Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead and the
Jimi Hendrix Experience tore rock 'n' roll away from it's dance roots.
Aided in large part by (then) new stereophonic recording techniques,
these artists and others turned out many long, aurally complex songs
that were quite abstract in nature. This trend was not lost on the
Beatles, culminating with the release of their landmark Sgt. Pepper's
Lonely Hearts Club Band album in the summer of 1967.
The Origin Of Rock And Roll 1970's
In the Seventies rock continued on it's path of
fusion with other musical forms. Perhaps it was really some form of
affirmation, as many of these were the offspring of musical styles that
contributed to rock 'n' roll's birth in the first place. Alongside folk
rock there was now country rock and jazz rock. With these strains as a
foundation, styles such as acid, metal, glam' and punk found their way
into both the music and lyrics of a new generation of artists. By mid
decade, some were starting to miss the dance element, as most rock was
now produced for pop radio and album listening. This helped in starting
off the short-lived 'Disco' fad. In true reactionary fashion, disco
spurred rock back in the direction of it's ancestral basics. The
resulting culture was ironically dubbed 'new wave'. Prominent rock
artists of this era included The Cars, The Clash, The Police and Elvis
Costello. Toward the end of the decade, rock had arguably gone full
circle. Rock 'n' roll had finally come of age.
The Origin Of Rock And Roll 1980's
In the eighties and nineties, the popularity of FM
radio along with new media such as CD and video brought rock music to a
greater commercial ebb than ever. Artists such as Paul McCartney, Pink
Floyd, Bruce Springsteen, U2 and The Rolling Stones had all played
50,000 seat venues on corporately charged mega tours. Perhaps as sort of
an antidote to all this, in the mid eighties a so called (alternative)
camp started to form. This community sought out and supported music from
little known, mostly independent artists that had likely never played
anything larger than a small club. There was an irony that came with
membership in this category though. When a successful alternative group
finally reached that critical mass of high popularity, were they really
"alternative" any more? Case in point, R.E.M. was one of the darling
alternative bands of the mid eighties. A decade later, virtually a
household name, they signed a multi-Million Dollar contract with a major
recording label.
The Origin Of Rock And Roll 1990's
As the nineties rolled on a generation gap started
to show. Younger rock fans were drawn towards 'grunge' oriented groups
like Pearl Jam and the Stone Temple pilots, while their elder cohorts
(parents?) still enjoyed the likes of the Rolling Stones, Beatles and
Led Zeppelin. A lot of this was short-lived however, as the
aforementioned mammoth concert tours by the 'Stones and U2 had a
tendency to attract fans of all ages. In 1995, a major U.S. network
television documentary brought the Beatles story - and record sales, to
a whole new generation.
