Rock 'n' Roll
Rock 'n' roll is a style of popular music that originated in the United States in the mid -1950s. By the mid-1960s it evolved into the more encompassing international style known as 'rock' music. Some describe rock 'n' roll as a merger of country music and rhythm and blues, but this is an oversimplification and were it so, it would have existed long before it burst into the national consciousness. The roots of rock 'n' roll had been in place for decades, but the genre flourished in the mid-1950s when nourished by a volatile mix of black culture and white spending power.
Heralding this new sound were disc jockeys such as Alan Freed of Cleveland who created rock-and-roll radio by playing hard-driving rhythm-and-blues and raunchy blues records that introduced white suburban teenagers to a culture that sounded more exotic, thrilling, and illicit than anything they had ever known. It was Alan Freed who popularised the phrase "rock 'n' roll", which was black slang for having sex.
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| Alan Freed (1921 - 1965) Image source |
DHM YouTube Playlist - Alan Freed Rock & Roll Radio Show
In 1954 that sound coalesced around an image: that of a handsome white singer, Elvis Presley, who sounded like a black man. Presley never claimed to have invented rock 'n' roll and talked about how much he was influenced by black gospel music and the blues, which he listened to on the radio growing up. His absorption of these black influences is what allowed him to have a 'black feel' to his music.
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| Elvis Presley (January 8, 1935 - August 16, 1977) Image source |
DHM YouTube Playlist - Blue Suede Shoes
Presley was hardly the only artist who embodied this attitude, but he was clearly a catalyst in the merger of black and white culture, making something far bigger and more complex than both. When Bill Haley and His Comets kicked off the 1955 motion picture Blackboard Jungle with "Rock Around the Clock", teens in movie houses throughout the United States stomped on their seats.
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| Bill Haley & His Comets. Image Source |
Other artists considered to be the founders of rock 'n' roll include Fats Domino, Chuck Berry and Hank Williams.
DHM YouTube Playlist - Hank Williams
This blog is intended to be educational and to share knowledge about music. Daily Hit of Music does not claim to own anything contained in this post and declares its sources openly.
The following sources were used for this blog post: Greg Kot from Encyclopaedia Britannica, Jack Newfield from The New York Sun, Wikipedia.
Image sources can be found in the image captions.
Recordings can be found on YouTube by clicking the 'DHM YouTube Playlist' links.
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