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The history of rock and roll
The development of rock n roll
The development of rock n roll
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When you almost any young kids, teenagers, or even young adults to define rock ‘n’ roll and who they believed are the pioneers of this genre, you shouldn’t be too surprised by the answer you receive: Elvis Presley, Nirvana, Rolling Stones, or Little Richard. The combination of sexuality, gyrating hips, and the chance to rebel against parents are all factors that made rock ’n’ roll successful, but blissfully unaware, a lot of people do not know that Rhythm and Blues (R&B) was actually a huge part of creating this new music genre, and that rock ‘n’ roll also signified a big change for African Americans in the 1950s. After WWII played out, population shifts occurred in the US. With southern traditions, and music, coming into contact with new urban based music, the audience that followed it, and mixing the sounds of the “boogie woogie” of rhythm and blues, the soulfulness of gospel, and throwing a dash of country twang in there, the recipe for Rock ‘n’ Roll was finished, and a whole new genre created. “The sound of the city”. Although an exciting new period for a lot of 1950s youth, “th...
It was no coincidence that rock ‘n’ roll and the civil rights movement started at the same time. The genre originated from African American music and was greatly discriminated against. Traditional white Americans would target anything bad about it. But as the teenager demographic of the 1950s started increasing the sales of the music, the genre started gaining more popularity. It was the style of Elvis Presley and his new voice that made girls weak in the knees and boys want to be him. Artists such as Presley had enough influence to change the view of their devoted fans on civil rights issues. Soon as protest songs and rock ‘n’ roll became more popular and influential, it began a gap between the young adult generation and their parents which led to the rebellion of the civil rights movement. Through these factors rock ‘n’ roll influenced a great deal over the civil rights movement.
The social and political context of the 1950’s is crucial to any understanding of the birth of rock n roll.
Rock and roll music existed before Elvis Presley came along, but with his arrival on the performing scene, Americans could ignore it no longer. In 1956, he strode in front of a television camera for the first time as the provocative image of a high school hood and achieved an instant rapport with millions of U.S. teenagers who were experiencing their own adolescent rebellion. Hip-wiggling gyrations that brought a storm of protest from the adult world reinforced his popularity with young people, and he became the epitome of a whole generation that saw itself as defiant, disenchanted, and less inhibited than the one that had gone before. His songs, an amalgam of white country and western music, black rhythm and blue, and gospel sounds of both races, heralded a change in popular music that would eventually make this interaction of black and white musicality an accepted idiom in American culture.
Rock became its flamboyant clothing and its clothing became rock. ” It is apparent from Garofalo’s earlier quote that rock ’n’ roll in the 1950s is held to be a watershed moment in the rise to prominence of African American sounds in the pop mainstream. “Opening up isn’t easy, especially with all the segregation that was going on then. The earlier forms of music like jazz and the blues were bringing popularity to the African American community, but they were still considered lower than those with the lighter skinned people. They were fighting for equality and all those feelings transferred to their famous music too.
Rhythm and blues, also known today as “R & B”, has been one of the most influential genres of music within the African American Culture, and has evolved over many decades in style and sound. Emerging in the late 1940's rhythm and blues, sometimes called jump blues, became dominant black popular music during and after WWII. Rhythm and blues artists often sung about love, relationships, life troubles, and sometimes focused on segregation and race struggles. Rhythm and blues helped embody what was unique about black American culture and validate it as something distinctive and valuable.
A black man named Chuck Berry started rock music in 1955. It was during a time when all the young people wanted Rhythm. The music industry began to realize that racial issues and prejudice wouldn’t change the fact the kids wanted blues and rock. Music industries began promoting white artists such as Elvis Presley but the real musicians were people like, Chuck berry. They seemed to have a better presence with the audience. The black rockers and very few white rockers were able to capture the rebellious attitude of teenagers and created soundtracks to ant conformity.
Rock n Roll started with slavery. To understand we must understand what slavery was and where it left the sons and daughters of African who knew nothing of European rods of American culture. Every society has its indigenous music, which serves as entertainment, story teller, and accompaniment to Ritual and Ceremony. It is not nearly sufficient to identify black musical heritage from slave work songs through Rag Time, Blues, Jazz, Gospel, R&B, and the like, and simple extrapolate the line further to encompass Rock n Roll.
The evolution of Rock and Roll is one of the greatest of all time when it comes to music. The genre came into light after World War II and started in America’s south, originated from African American music styles, such as: gospel, blues, and rhythm and blues (R&B); and continued to grow rapidly.
Shortly after jump blues bands started playing their music it evolved into something closer to rock. Bill Haley officially made the new genre “rock” music when his song “(Were Gonna) Rock Around the Clock” appeared in the movie Blackboard Jungle in 1955, breaking rock into the mainstream (Kallen, 2012, 14). Although Haley is credited for bringing rock to mainstream, other black artists such as B.B. King, Little Milton, Howling Wolf, and Ike Turner were the true pioneers of the rock music style but were not as popular because of their race. After the success of Haley, a Memphis studio owner, Sam Phillips was desperately looking for a rock artist that could become mainstream, Sam had previously recorded for other talented black artists but their music wasn’t getting as much attention because of racial prejudice. Phillips’ dream of promoting a rock musician became true when a young man named Elvis Presley recorded a demo in his studio in 1954 (Kallen, 2012, 18). Short...
The birth of youth oriented music began with the birth of rock and roll. Many think that rock is generally composed of a white population, and not many would believe that rock was actually started by blacks. This shows early signs of multiculturalism through music. Rock and roll music is actually a spawn of rhythm and blues, that was created in the 1950’s. The name ‘rock and roll’ was identified by Alan Freed, a radio disc jockey that introduced rhythm and blues to the mainstream public, and altered it for the rock and roll. “What Freed certainly knew but few whites were unaware of at the time was that the term (rock and roll) was widely used in black music as a euphemism for sex” (R&RG, 20). Concepts of rhythm and clues such as “complex rhythms and call-out response” and “blending work of both joys and sorrows in the South” were taken black American heritage (R&RG, 23). These styles of music were set to anglo-style songs and thus produced a new style of music. This new style of music set the stage for some of the most influential musicians of youth in this time. One of the most influential musician of this time was Chuck Berry. Berry was one of the first rhythm and blues performers to have an interracial audience, and a heavy influence in the futu...
In 1951, Cleveland radio disc jockey Alan Freed sparked the three word phrase ‘Rock and Roll’. But whatever you call this genre of music, it took the world by storm, and changed the face of music, and history forever.
‘my first album was ‘Rock around the clock’ (Lee, 2002). The changes in fashion too played a huge part in 50’S Britain where a seventeen-year-old apprentice ‘Terry Hitchen’ remembers Saturday night dances where ‘everybody put a suit on, and a tie, girls tended towards twin set and pearls, shorter skirts and ‘Whirlpool bras’ (Beckett, 2015). Previously girls and boys wore their Sunday best clothes but rock and roll influenced the clothes worn ‘boys very smart in their Teddy boy clothes’ (Beckett, 2015) and girls wearing skirts with lots of lace underneath because they bounced to the sounds of rock and roll when they danced (Beckett, 2015).
The origin of Rock music is clarifying as the most important music styles there has been. For instance, rock and roll was considered to be too vulgar and sexual. Singers and songwriters were carried defiant attitude towards society and to the authority. Rock and roll music was originated 1950’s in the united states the rhythm and blues was combine with country music and jazz. The lyrics were catching, and were about love and teenagers’ rebellion. In the United States African-Americans were known to be the first one to play rock and roll. Music made in productions studios become more interested in the different style of music and was introduced to America. In the beginning of rock and roll was only listening by teenagers. For the teenagers,
As the definition of rock music states, rock emerged from the combination of black rhythm-and-blues and white country-and-western. Those two kinds of music prevailed on the music scene since the beginning of the 20th century. Both were familiar to the audiences of the time. What Elvis did that shook the waves and initiated a revolution in music, was to combine those two familiar ideas in an unfamiliar way. The result was a new – for the time – music genre, which as such had a lot to offer and a lot to explore within.
At the beginning of the 1950s, a new form of music began causing public ripples, exciting an expanding teenage audience while worrying many others who preferred smoother, and more calmer music, this new music form would come to be known as "Rock & Roll". Rock & Roll music was created from a combination of electric blues, country and gospel music. Some people say that the rise of Rock and Roll was in a way related to the civil-rights movement, which occurred during the same time period. Teenagers fell in love with "Rock & Roll" becoming an instant hit, listening to it on radios they started buying it in record stores. Rock & Roll music expressed themes such as love and freedom from the oppression ,and boring life of middle-class society.