Big Blog Post: American Roots Rock and Roll

 Rock and Roll

Big Blog Post #1 By: Christopher Feuers 10/29/2023

Believe it or not, there was a time when the musical genre of rock and roll did not exist.  According to an Ohio State University website, artist and musician biographies, most historians agree that rock and roll began in the year 1954.  Of course, it did not start out of the blue and out of nowhere.  Rock and Roll is a genre that came into existence from a combination of rhythm and blues and country music.  Technological advancements also contributed to rock and roll coming onto the music scene.  Before these advancements, music was marketed to families and adults only.  When  33’s and 45’s records came to be, along with smaller, cheaper record players, it opened the doors for young people to be able to listen to music in their own rooms.  At the same time, the transistor radio was invented and became available for teenagers.  In addition, it was previously too expensive of an option for most to have a radio in their car, but it became more commonplace in the 1950’s.  So, people of all ages began listening to music while driving more often.  All of this is to say, the music industry knew the demographics of people listening to music was changing.  The younger generation was growing tired of listening to the music their parents listened to in the living rooms.  For example, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, and Big Bands were the musicians and types of music that most adults and families listened to together in their homes.  At this time, white teenagers in major cities began tuning in to radio stations that previously only blacks in America listened to.  Radio stations, record companies, and others in the music industry knew a huge shift in music was beginning to occur and in order to appeal to the masses they would need to promote rhythm and blues and music in a similar vein.  This explains the history of how rock and roll music was birthed.

   Rock and roll were everything suburban America was not.  (America Rock and Rolls) Children/Teenagers began moving to a totally new type of music.  Most parents and people in the older generation at this time were horrified.  Youngsters were twisting, shouting, and dancing in ways never seen before.  This was the baby boom generation, so the sheer number of people in the teenage category was much larger than usual.  And, money was not as much of an issue as in recent years in America, so this age group had funds to buy and listen to the type of music that excited them.  As a result, the music industry gave birth to rock and roll and boomed.

  The following website has some great information for 1950’s rock and roll that I will quote:  Pop Music

Rock ‘n’ Roll combines elements of Rhythm and Blues and Country and Western Music and emerged in the mid-1950’s. Rock ‘n’ Roll helped establish the typical pop music instrumental combination of Lead and Rhythm Guitars, Bass Guitar and Drum Kit. Repetition is an important feature of Rock ‘n’ Roll meaning untrained composers and performers could quickly and easily learn music and then improvise over the basic structure.

Lyrics:  Simple, repetitive and easily memorable – teenage concerns: love, relationships, cars, school life and holidays. 

Artists, Bands & Performers:   Mainly male lead singers using high-pitch vocals and Falsetto giving an untrained or shouty tone/timbre with screeches, jeers and cheers. (Little Richard, Elvis Presley, The Beatles, Bill Haley & The Comets, The Beach Boys, Johnny Cash, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, Chubby Checker, The Doors)

Instrumentation – Typical Instruments, Timbres and Sonorities Early Rock ‘n’ Roll – lead vocalist accompanied by a small group of acoustic instruments – piano, drum kit, saxophone, trumpet, harmonica, trombone and double bass. The Electric Guitar soon became an essential part of Rock ‘n’ Roll and Backing Singers/Vocalists were frequently used in Rock ‘n’ Roll songs.

Technology:  Amplifiers for Electric Guitars used for the first time. Basic effects such as Reverb and Echo. Clean guitar sounds (not overdriven). Double-track lead and backing vocals for richer sounds. “Raw” sound of recordings.

  Rock and roll, also called rock ’n’ roll or rock & roll, style of popular music that originated in the United States in the mid-1950s and that evolved by the mid-1960s into the more encompassing international style known as rock music, though the latter also continued to be known as rock and roll.

Cited from: (early rock and roll)

Cleveland, Ohio, and Nashville, Tennesse were two birthplaces of early rock and roll.  Larger metropolitan areas in the United States such as these are where 1950’s rock and roll got started, but this genre soon morphed into “rock” that became worldwide.

   The birth of rock and roll and the early 1950’s cannot be discussed without talking about Elvis Presley’s huge impact on music and the world.  Part of what made him and rock and roll so impactful is the feeling it gave everyone.  All began to feel like they could play music.  

To this way of thinking, rock and roll—the music associated with performers like Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, and the early Beatles—is music that anyone can play (or can imagine playing) and everyone can dance to. The learning curve for performing the stuff is short; the learning curve for appreciating it is nonexistent. The instrumentation and the arrangements are usually simple: three or four instruments and, frequently, about the same number of chords. You can add horns and strings and backup singers, and you can add a lot more chords, but the important thing is the feeling. Rock and roll feels uninhibited, spontaneous, and fun. There’s no show-biz fakery coming between you and the music. As with any musical genre, it boils down to a certain sound. Coming up with that sound, the sound of unrehearsed exuberance, took a lot of work, a lot of rehearsing. No one contributed more to the job than Sam Phillips, the founder of Sun Records, in Memphis, and the man who discovered Elvis Presley.

(Elvis Presley)

The beginning of rock and roll in the 1950’s had a huge impact in so many ways on so many people.  This genre of music not only changed the music industry but divided generations.  The impacts of rock and roll can be seen and felt in the world today and will be for years to come.

Funk, Clayton. “Art, Culture, Music, Film, Television.” Introduction to 50s Rock’n’Roll, aaep1600.osu.edu/book/06_Intro.php. Accessed 29 Oct. 2023.

Menand, Louis. “The Real History of Rock and Roll.” The New Yorker, 9 Nov. 2015, www.newyorker.com/magazine/2015/11/16/the-elvic-oracle.

“Rock and Roll.” Encyclopædia Britannica, Encyclopædia Britannica, inc., 20 Oct. 2023, www.britannica.com/art/rock-and-roll-early-style-of-rock-music.

“America Rocks and Rolls.” Ushistory.Org, Independence Hall Association, www.ushistory.org/us/53d.asp. Accessed 29 Oct. 2023.