So finally after looking into the history of Blues and RnB I feel I can now finally talk about the big one, Rock and Roll! Rock and Roll and such an huge influence on modern day music and to think what we call rock started with rock and roll in the 1950 is kinda insane. Similar to the Blues and RnB no one was really documenting exactly what was happening at the time. I mean people have a pretty good idea what and where these musical phenomena were occurring but nothing is concrete. Rock and Roll is a generally considered a really fun and energetic time period for music and I'm happy to get into the history of it all.
The History of Rock & Roll
The history of Rock and Roll starts in the 1950's an exciting time for music to be sure. Rock and Roll is the combination of many different musical elements, Country music from the south, gospel music from church, the crooning of the blues and of cause the all important swinging and grooving of R&B.
For some of us, it began late at night: huddled under bedroom covers with our ears glued to a radio pulling in black voices charged with intense emotion and propelled by a wildly kinetic rhythm through the after-midnight static. Growing up in the white-bread America of the Fifties, we had never heard anything like it, but we reacted, or remember reacting, instantaneously and were converted. (Palmer R, 1990)
Rock and Roll was blowing up in a big way in the early 1950's, having lyrics and energy aimed at Teenagers and early adults a new demographic was tapped into. Before rock and Roll, music had never really been targeted at earlier audiences, with most teenagers having a record player and disposable income the smaller labels were able to make some serious bank selling to both white and African american audiences alike. It was the best of both worlds and for once most people were all listening to and enjoying the same type of music. Though back to my point of the two people who really started the rock rolling our soulful 'king', Elvis and our jumpin' jivin' Chuck Berry.
It's pretty rare that people don't know who Elvis Presley is. Elvis is the personification of the american dream when it comes to music, a single child country kid growing up in Memphis decides he wants to sing rather than drive his truck around for The Crown electric company. So he walks into Sun records in 1953 and pays $3.98 to record a 2 sided record for himself and sings My Happiness and That's When Your Heartaches Begin and kick starts his music career with sun records. Obviously it wasn't quite that simple and if you're interested in the whole history his biography goes into greater detail but for the sake of pacing I'll move into his greater career that started the genre. Recording song after song, hit after hit, Elvis was a country wide sensation due to his greater cultural influence.
With a sound and style that uniquely combined Elvis' diverse musical influences and blurred and challenged the social and racial barriers of the time, he ushered in a whole new era of American music and popular culture. (Elvis Australia, 2016)
Growing up with ghetto tunes and gospel church music Elvis incorporated all of it into his singing style which had many people rather impressed. Even James Brown considered the 'Godfather of soul' considered Elvis to be like a brother to him which speaks lengths about Elvis' character. Many people believe (me too until Idid this research) that Elvis' created Rock and Roll with the blood sweat and tears of the African American community, covering culturally 'sacred' songs like Hound dog by Big Mama Thorton. Many people believe he did this to bring soul music to the greater white audience and had no respect in doing it. But listening to the two versions of the song you can hear the respect Evils had for R&B and Blues music and simply tried his hardest to do the genre justice.
Many people also believe that Elvis' was only named 'King of Rock and Roll' because of his colour and popularity above the much more musically talented but 'unfortunately not white' Chuck Berry.
If Elvis Presley cracked open the door for rock & roll, Chuck Berry kicked it wide open—and did his signature duck walk over it for good measure... sounded like nothing else in music at the time, and immediately established Berry as the purveyor of a new style of music, where blues, country and R&B came together in urgent, exciting ways. In fact, it's not an exaggeration to say that he's the most influential figure on modern rock & roll: Name any major band—the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Aerosmith—and they'll have cited Berry as an inspiration. (Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, 1986)
Chuck Berry was easily the greatest influence on modern rock and roll with hits like, Johnny B. Goode, You never can tell, Roll over Beethoven and No Particular Place to go.
This was the start of the Rock and Roll we know today. Chuck Berry got his start with Chess Records in 1955 making music that was just too easy to dance to and again relatable to a younger audience which helped his success. This began the era of true Rockin' and Rollin setting a standard for many bands to come like The Rolling Stones, The Beatles, The Kinks just to name a few.
The structure of Rock and Roll
The structure of Rock and Roll compared to R&B or the jazz music of the time was quite simple. For guitar a simple rock chord progression looks something like this containing the 1st 4th and 5th chord in the chord progression.
This chord progression was used by Chuck Berry a lot and is actually a Blues chord progression. For more info on this, here's a guitar tutorial I found that helped me understand what this actually means.
For Drums timing is usually always 4/4 usually around the 120BPM range but of course since rock and roll is such a huge and varied genre that varies song to song. The basic rock beat is very simple containing only a snare kick and hi hat but again this depends on the song. Kick on beats 1 and 3, snare on 2 and 4 and hi-hats playing eighth notes on each beat.
Whole song structure wise Chuck berry's Maybellene had a structure of BABABCBAB (B being Chorus, A being verse and C being Bridge/solo) which is quite different to the average rock structure of ABABCB. When it comes to instruments used in Rock & Roll the minimum setup for a rock band is Vocals, drums, bass and lead guitar. Chuck Berry was still heavily influenced by R&B and had Piano and an upright bass rather than an electric one but the spirit stays the same. All in all rock and roll has some very simplistic elements but it's spirit and tempo make is very easy to dance to carrying over from its relative of R&B.
Conclusion
In conclusion Rock and Roll was a huge movement in the musical scene in the early 1950's. Artists like Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry blurred the line between race and culture and pioneered a genre that everyone could enjoy and dance to. Too many bands to count were influenced by this time period and it's main players and we owe a lot to Rock and Roll for music we love today.
References
Berry, C. (2011). Chuck Berry - Johnny B. Goode [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFo8-JqzSCM
Berry, C. (2011). No Particular Place To Go - Chuck Berry [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cpitvLeNjuE
Chuck Berry. Retrieved from https://www.rockhall.com/inductees/chuck-berry
Elvis Presley Biography | A Comprehensive history of Elvis Presley's dynamic life | Elvis Biography. (2016). Retrieved from https://biography.elvis.com.au/
Howcast. (2013). How to Play Basic Rock Drum Beats | Drumming [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CvsFEsXakwo
Palmer, R. (1990). 1950s Rock and Roll: A Decade of Music That Changed the World – Rolling Stone. Retrieved from https://www.rollingstone.com/music/music-features/the-50s-a-decade-of-music-that-changed-the-world-229924/
Presley, E. (2008). elvis presley-hound dog [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lzQ8GDBA8Is
Thorton, M. (2011). Big Mama Thornton - Hound Dog (1952) Blues [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yoHDrzw-RPg
Ward, B. (2017). Champion or copycat? Elvis Presley's ambiguous relationship with black America. Retrieved from https://theconversation.com/champion-or-copycat-elvis-presleys-ambiguous-relationship-with-black-america-82293
Your Guitar Academy. (2017). What Is The Rock & Roll Chord Progression - Intermediate Guitar Lesson [Video]. Retrieved from https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LTm2VYGRFYY&t=160s
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