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8 E T P A H C
Rock ’n’ roll :
A GENERATION’S IDENTITY �
The rise of rock ’n’ roll in
the mid-1950s transformed
the landscape of American
popular music, further
cementing the popularity
of southern-derived styles
ultimately derived from the
blues and country music, and
transforming the teenager
into both a marketing concept
and a cultural icon. Rock ’n’
roll records were played for
dances at inner-city, primarily
black, public schools, for
parties at predominantly white
suburban private schools, and
for socials in rural settings
catering to young people. If
you were young in the 1950s
in the United Statess, no
matter where you lived, no
matter what your race or class,
rock ’n’ roll was your music.
T
he advent of rock ’n’ roll music in the mid-1950s brought enormous changes to American popular music, chang es whose impact is still being felt. Styles that had remained on the margins of pop music began to in filtrate and eventually dominate the center. Rhythm & blues and country music recordings were no longer directed to specialized and regional ized markets; they began to be heard on mainstream pop radio, and many could be purchased in music stores nationwide. The emergence of rock ’n’ roll was an event of great cultural sig nificance. But several issues demand our attention: first, rock ’n’ roll was neither a “new,” nor indeed even a single musical style ; second, the rock ’n’ roll era does not mark the first time that music was written specifically to appeal to young peo ple; third, rock ’n’ roll was certainly not the first American music to fuse black and white popular styles. The new audience was dominated by the so-called baby boom gen eration born immediately following World War II. It was a much younger target group than ever before, a large audience that shared specific charac teristics of group cultural identity. These were kids growing up in the
1950s, a period of relative economic stability and prosperity marked by a return to socially and politically con servative ways. This was also the first generation to grow up with televi sion; this new mass medium proved a force of incalculable influence. The term “rock ’n’ roll ” was first used for commercial and genera t ional purposes by disc jockey Alan Freed. In the early 1950s Freed dis covered that increasing numbers of young white kids were listening to and requesting the rhythm & blues records he played on his nighttime program in Cleveland — records he began to call “rock ’n’ roll .” Freed
New York disc jockey Alan Freed coined the phrase “Rock ’n’ Roll.”
promoted concert tours featuring black artists, playing to a young, ra cially mixed audience, and promoted them as “rock ’n’ roll revues.” The term “rock ’n’ roll ” itself was derived from the many references to “rock in’” and “rollin’” found in rhythm & blues songs and on race records. The purchase of rock ’n’ roll re cords by kids in the 1950s proved a way of asserting their generational identity through rebellion against adult standards and restrictions. Thus the experience of growing up with rock ’n’ roll music became a defining characteristic of the baby boom generation. So it is not sur prising that the music catered to this age group, which by the late 1950s had its own distinctive culture and its associated rituals: school and vacation (represented in songs such as “School Day” and “Summertime Blues”), fashions (“Black Denim
Trousers and Motorcycle Boots” and “Itsy Bitsy Teenie Weenie Yel low Polkadot Bikini”), social danc ing (“At the Hop” and “Save the Last Dance for Me”), and courtship (“Teen-Age Crush,” “Puppy Love,” “A Teenager in Love,” and “Poor Little Fool”). Some rock ’n’ roll songs — for example, “Roll Over Beethoven” and “Rock’n’Roll Is Here to Stay” — an nounced themselves as emblems of a new aesthetic and cultural order, dominated by the tastes and aspira tions of youth.
Rhythm & Blues
Three prominent African Americans represent the rhythm & blues-based side of rock ’n’ roll. Chuck Berry was a songwriter/performer who ad dressed his songs to teenage America (white and black) in the 1950s; Little Richard cultivated a deliberately out
rageous performance style that ap pealed on the basis of its strangeness, novelty, and sexual ambiguity; and Fats Domino’s work embodied the continuity of rhythm & blues with rock ’n’ roll. Domino was the earliest of the three to become an established performer, but all three crossed over to mainstream success within the first few months following the mas sive success of the white rocker Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock.” The biggest rock ’n’ roll star to come from the country side of the music world was Elvis Presley. In 1955, RCA Victor, a major label, set about trying to turn the “hillbilly cat” into a mainstream performer without compromising the strength of his appeal to teenagers. They succeeded beyond anyone’s expec tations. Although Presley’s televi sion performances were denounced by authorities as vulgar, the shows
Left : Chuck Berry broke racial barriers with tunes such as “Johnny B. Goode” and “Maybellene.” Center: Little Richard is known for his piano stylings and exuberant vocals in “Tutti Frutti,” “Good Golly, Miss Molly,” and other classics. Right: Fats Domino’s hits include “Blueberry Hill” and “Ain’t That a Shame.”
“I’ll Never Stand in Your Way” (1953) is Elvis Presley’s first known recording. The “King of Rock ’n’ Roll” holds records for the most Top Forty and Top Ten hits, the most consecutive #1 hits, and the most weeks at #1.
Left: Founding Beach Boys (l. to r.) Mike Love, Al Jardine, Brian Wilson, Dennis Wilson and Carl Wilson became known for their close vocal harmonies. Right: Berry Gordy founded Motown Records. With his unmatched ability to discern popular taste, he launched the careers of many popular music giants.
Eventually branch out totally beyond the traditional forms, sounds, and lyric content of rock ’n’ roll to create something truly different and unique. The reference point that most people would use for constructing a model like this would probably be the Beatles. But the group that first established this model, and did so with outstanding success, was the Beach Boys. The Beach Boys were in fact a clear, and stated, model for the Beatles, especially during the re markably productive and innovative years (for both groups) of 1965-67.
Motown
The music of the 1960s includes a remarkable spectrum of styles and influences. In Detroit, Berry Gordy Jr. was creating his own songwrit ing/producing/marketing organiza tion. Motown was named after the
“Motor town,” Detroit, the automo bile production capital of America. It came to be one of the most stunning African-American business success stories. The intensity and duration of Motown’s commercial success re flected the distinctive dual thrust of Gordy’s vision. First, he was determined to keep all of the creative and financial as pects of the business under Afri can-American control. This worked because Gordy had an uncanny abil ity to surround himself with first- rate musical talent in all aspects of the record-making process, and to maintain the loyalty of his musi cians for substantial periods of time. It also worked because Gordy had a shrewd head for business as well as for music, and this leads us to the second element of his visionary plan. Motown’s music was not directed primarily at black audiences. Gordy sought to make an African-Ameri
- can pop music addressed to the wid est possible listening public. It is almost as if Gordy launched his enterprise as a kind of counterof fensive against the expropriation of African-American music and the exploitation of African-American musicians that had been as much a part of the early history of rock ’n’ roll as it had been of other periods in the development of American popular music. And the unique ge nius of Gordy was the ability to cre ate a black music aimed right at the commercial mainstream that never evoked the feeling, or provoked the charge, of having sold out. With few exceptions, Motown recordings avoided direct evocations of earlier rhythm & blues forms and styles; 12 bar blues patterns are strikingly rare, as are the typical devices of doo-wop or anything suggestive of the 1950s sounds of Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, or Little Richard. Yet a generalized
The Counterculture and Psychedelic Rock
The explosive entrance of folk rock into the wide arena of American popular culture coincided with the development of increasingly innovative approaches to rock ’n’ roll itself. This was a period of in creasing political restlessness and ferment in the United States. The youth audience for pop culture was directly implicated in the politics of the Vietnam War, as all young American men between the ages of 18 and 26 were eligible to be drafted into the armed forces. In addition, a significant number of young people were involved with the many orga nizations, demonstrations, and legal initiatives that characterized the civil rights movement. During the late 1960s an “alterna tive” rock music scene established itself in San Francisco. The city had long been a center for artistic com munities and subcultures, includ
ing the “beat” literary movement of the 1950s, a lively urban folk music scene, and a highly visible and vocal gay community. “Psychedelic rock” encompassed a variety of styles and musical influences, including folk rock, blues, “hard rock,” Latin music, and Indian classical music. In geo graphical terms, San Francisco’s psy chedelic music scene was focused on the Haight-Ashbury neighborhood, center of the hippie movement. Jefferson Airplane was the first nationally successful band to emerge out of the San Francisco psychedelic scene. Along with the Quicksilver Messenger Service and the Grate ful Dead, Jefferson Airplane was one of the original triumvirate of San Francisco “acid rock” bands, play ing at the Matrix Club (center of the San Francisco alternative nightclub scene), larger concert venues such as the Avalon Ballroom and Fillmore, and at communal outdoor events such as happenings and be-ins. The Airplane’s 1967 LP Surrealistic Pil
low sold over one million copies. The biggest celebrity in the group was vocalist Grace Slick (b. 1939), who was the most important female mu sician on the San Francisco scene. Grace Slick’s only serious compe tition as queen of the San Francisco rock scene came from Janis Joplin (1943-70), the most successful white blues singer of the 1960s. Joplin came to San Francisco in the mid 1960s and joined a band called Big Brother and the Holding Company. Their appearance at the Monterey Pop Festival in 1967 led to a contract with Columbia Records, eager to cash in on RCA’s success with Jef ferson Airplane, and on the growing national audience for acid rock. Big Brother’s 1968 album Cheap Thrill reached Number One on the pop charts. Joplin’s full-tilt singing style and directness of expression were inspired by blues singers such as Bessie Smith and by the R&B re cordings of Big Mama Thornton.
Left: The Jefferson Airplane in 1966. Right: Janis Joplin.
Jimi Hendrix, the Guitar Hero
The 1960s saw the rise of a new generation of electric guitarists who functioned as cultural heroes for their young fans. Their achieve ments were built on the shoulders of previous generations of electric guitar virtuosos — Les Paul, whose innovative tinkering with electronic technology inspired a new genera tion of amplifier tweakers; T-Bone Walker, who introduced the elec tric guitar to R&B music in the late 1940s; urban blues musicians such as Muddy Waters and B. B. King, whose raw sound and emotional di rectness inspired rock guitarists; and early masters of rock ’n’ roll guitar, including Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly. Beginning in the mid-1960s, the new guitarists — including Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, Jimmy Page, Jeff Beck, and the Beatles’ George Harrison — took these influences and pushed them farther than ever before in terms of technique, sheer volume, and improvisational bril liance. Jimi Hendrix was the most original, inventive, and influential guitarist of the rock era, and the most prominent African-American rock musician of the late 1960s. His early experience as a guitarist was gained touring with rhythm & blues bands. In 1966 he moved to London, where he joined up with two English musicians, bassist Noel Redding and drummer Mitch Mitchell, form ing a band called the Jimi Hendrix Experience. The Experience was first seen in America in 1967 at the Monterey Pop Festival, where Hen drix stunned the audience with his flamboyant performance style. This sort of guitar-focused showmanship, soon to become commonplace at
Guitarist Jim Hendrix fused elements of rock, soul, blues, and jazz.
rock concerts, was not unrelated to the wild stage antics of some rhythm & blues performers.
Rock ’n’ roll Will Never Die?
During the 1970s, the music indus try created a number of rock genres, designed to appeal to the widest possible demographic and promoted on Top 40 radio and television. Mu sicians as diverse as Led Zeppelin; Stevie Wonder; Elton John; Carole King; Pink Floyd; Paul Simon; Neil Diamond; Crosby, Stills, and Nash; the Rolling Stones; Frank Zappa and the Mothers of Invention; and Santana were promoted by record companies under the general head ing of rock music. By the mid-1980s, the rocker Bruce Springsteen found a large audience. Springsteen’s songs reflected his working-class origins and sympathies, relating the stories of still young but aging men and women with dead end jobs (or no
jobs at all), who were looking for ro mance and excitement in the face of repeated disappointments. Spring steen performed with his E Street Band, and their music was charac terized by a strong, roots-rock sound that emphasized Springsteen’s con nections to 1950s and 1960s music. The band even included a saxophone — virtually an anachronism in the pop music of this period — to mark the link with the rhythm & blues and rock ’n’ roll of earlier eras. Purists insist that rock music is past its prime. The times have changed, and so has the spirit of the times. Many others insist just as fer vently that rock continues alive and healthy today, and many will agree that it is hard to argue with their evi dence. The profusion of forms and genres that can be called, in one way or another, rock music, is astound ing. One Web site lists 32 varieties of rock music. Punk, thrash, metal, grunge, country rock, and glam rock, to name just a few, have all developed out of the rock ’n’ roll tra dition that began in the 1950s. They continue to be played and heard and, just as significantly, to provide the stimulus for new forms and styles of popular music in America and around the world.
