The Birth of Rock & Roll

My main musical interests have always been in folk music, both the old ballads from England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland that sailed the pond along with emigres to America as well as the music that led to and became part of the great folk music revival in England and the US during the mid +- 20th century.  But Rock & Roll is an integral part of most people's life as it is with my own. 

The roots of R&R are pretty evident and well known and while it may be an interesting discussion all on its own (and touched on here since everything is intertwined), here I'm primarily concerned with the "Why" of R&R.

A previous topic on mine (Come on guys!), talks a lot about the Wrecking Crew and its place in the evolution of popular music in the 1960s. Here, I'd like to look backwards and not so much at the music but at the culture that dictates the music.

I hope people with better insight than myself can add to or even correct, if need be, my narrative.

America, pre-WWII was a very adult-oriented society. Adults controlled the money; adults, especially fathers, dictated the behavior, beliefs and even the preferences of the youths. Of course, this isn't an absolute statement, but rather a culturally accepted given at the time.  The music was mainly Big Band and Swing for more urbanite and Country and Western for the rural poor and Jazz and Blues for the Blacks.  Again, nothing absolute and there was a lot of crossover.  Radios weren't portable and were somewhat limited and because of that, what people heard on the radio was also limited to not only what one could receive (and a lot of it was pre-TV "shows" rather than music) but also what the master of the household would prefer or allow.  
One has to keep in mind that the Great Depression that started in 1929 really hurt the newly developing recording industry and vinyl records didn't even exist for home use to any extent until post-WWII.  During the 1930s the 78.2 rpm records were primarily made either of shellac or a plastic compound. Both were far more fragile than later vinyl and very limited in the number of tracks.  Phonographs were an expensive alternative to the free airwave radios and limited to the middle class. Records were also expensive and collections tended to be small with the content mostly limited.  

So what does that tell me?  I picture that during the pre-WWII era, kids exposure to musical variety was mainly dependent upon radio and possibly a handful of records, all limited yet again by the adults' preferences.  Of course there was live music and I imagine the more adventurous and motivated kids gravitated towards those places, but that would have been a small number and only in specific areas.  

Then WWII happened.  The kids became men overnight and men who travelled far and saw many things.  These men (and women) returned home and the repressed economy that had fashioned them was suddenly giving way to an unprecedented economic expansion with jobs, mobility and disposable income.  Children born just prior to and during the war years were teenagers unlike any teenagers from the past.  Kids had a bit of money, keys to cars, free time and independence from their parents' preferences.  Meanwhile the recording industry had mostly switched to vinyl 45s and 33s.   The parents who listened to Swing .. Bing Crosby, the Andrew Sisters, Frank Sinatra... during the war years provided a market for this type of music and the big recording studios focused on artists like Tony Bennet, Pat Boone, Mitch Miller but small independent studios had been putting out Black music (jazz, R&B, gospel, blues) and others country & western.  Something else that shouldn't be underplayed is the technological advancements in electric guitars and electric bass guitars, pickups, amplifiers, studio sound track layering and effects such as echo chambers... all from the early 1950s on. 

Groups like Bill Haley and His Comets (formerly Bill Haley and the Saddlemen) blurred the line between C&W and R&B when he covered the R&B song "Rocket 88" in 1951 and "Rock This Joint" in 1952.

"Crazy, Man, Crazy in 1953 tried to appeal to the youth using modern vernacular:

In 1954 he cover Joe Turner's R&B classic "Shake, Rattle and Roll."

All these songs had been huge hits, mostly with white kids, but the biggest, probably because it provided the background for a hit movie, "The Blackboard Jungle," was  his 1955 cover of Sonny Dae's R&B song, "Rock Around the Clock" :

Also in 1954 Elvis, who had found his way into Sam Phillips Sun studio the year before, became what Phillips has been looking for, a Black voice with White skin.  Elvis' first release was a somewhat white palatable cover of Arthur Crudup's 1946 "It's Alright Mama" but still with a notable edge.

But on the flip side, was a fantastic cover Bill Monroe's CW hit, "Blue Moon of Kentucky"

Although only a regional hit, it laid the foundation for his soon to be phenomenal success but more importantly the foundation for the melding of Black & White which was the basis for Rock & Roll.  
Elvismania proved beyond any reasonable doubt the viability of Rock & Roll, even if many major labels refused to see it, (which in itself indicated that the rebellious element was a driving force behind this genre from the very start) and groups like Buddy Holly and the Crickets, the Everly Brothers as well as individuals such as Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis and Little Richard quickly emerged and sold tons of records to the kids with cash for their now affordable record players. 

Elvismania:

So, this end my foray into the birth of Rock & Roll.  I'd really like to hear what others might know or how they might interpret this phenomenon (an overused word, but totally applicable to this mainstream shift that took place in the music industry).

One last observation: although the instrumental lineups vary a lot at this point, all these group members are real instrumentalists, ie real musicians.... as Rock & Roll was found to be super profitable, much of that changed during the following decade. 

i am not into rock and roll. just rock sounds better to me... without roll. but the best rock to me is the one mixed with hip hop, punk, or pop, i don't have much to say about old or original rock or rock&roll songs

Well, unfortunately, that's what this thread is all about.

In tandem with the advent of the Chuck Berrys and the Little Richards and equally influential are these three Kings

B.B. King
"Lucille"

Freddie King
"I'm Tore Down"

Albert King
"That's What The Blues Is All About"

Love Elvis' Blue Moon of Kentucky. His earliest, including live, recordings are a delight.

My title is a play on the famous "Birth of the Blues"

but it does have an element of truth.... and Elvis is an integral part of that truth.

To be honest, listening to the above and a handful more of early Bill Haley songs, I unexpectedly gained a new respect for him. 

There is a YouTube video of the "Threetles" (McCartney, Harrison, and Starr) performing Blue Moon of Kentucky around the time of the Anthology sessions.  They and John Lennon were greatly influenced by the early 50's R&B and rockabilly recordings.

Of course they were. Their biggest influence were the Everly Brothers. The Elvis, Chuck Berry, Little Richard influences are too striking to ignore.  Paul also liked show tunes and Ringo, C&W, such as Buck "They're gonna put me in the movies" Owens and the Buckaroos.  

To me the cultural question of "why" boils down to the "why" that continues today - youth have a natural rebellious attitude towards "mainstream" culture - ie the dominant culture of their parents. Blues with its African roots was quite literally influenced by the hardships of life. Practically the main point of Elvis' music was to be sexual at a time when sexuality was very oppressed. 

Modern youth seem very deprived of music that is actually counter-cultural. Only the surface-level facade of it. And many of them seem to be inherent nihilists as a result. Growing up in a world with dumb beliefs and not having a truly countering movement against it... Just the pretend version, which only makes the smart ones even more cynical. Too much stuff is simply manufactured and manipulative. I can't think of a single modern popular artist who has anything worthwhile or deep to say in their music.

Thanks.

While kids have always been naturally rebellious, I think until the 1950s, the demonstration of that rebelliousness through music - at least in any grand scale  was almost impossible.  Certain conditions came about after WWII that turned impossible to almost unavoidable (that's the gist of all that above).

I didn't consider the sexuality part.  I imagine you don't get hundreds girls screaming and throwing on stage various articles of clothing without that element. As I understand it, Elvis wasn't the first. Bing Crosby elicited similar responses in the 1940s. Maybe it's generational?

I agree with the idea of superficial or sanitized counter-cultural involvement.  People want to feel connected, but not pay the piper.  Some time ago, a guy here went on and on how he loved John Lennon's Imagine. When I pointed out that Imagine, in Lennon's own words, was a musical Communist manifesto, he got mad and left after directing some hateful barbs towards me.  I'm not sure many people even listen to what they're singing in the shower. 

I don't know enough about modern pop music to make any pronouncements. The ones I listen to such as the Indigo Girls, Jewel or Sheryl Crow have been around for a long time and they have/had a lot to say that is meaningful and poignant.   

Who doesn't like Southern rock (other than Neil Young)?

Nice post. A couple days ago I did an online jigsaw puzzle of B. B. King very similar to the one on your video. I was lucky enough to see him in concert twice. He would play some and then tell anecdotes about his life. I would gladly have paid admission if he never even picked up his guitar. He had a long and eventful life and was a wonderful storyteller. On a side note, I prefer the tone of those semi-hollow body Gibson ES-335 and ES-355 guitars over any other electric guitar.

There's a lot of debate about who is the father of R&R. Some say Chuck Berry, some say Bill Haley, some choose others. It's tough to argue for or against many of the artists of that time. One thing almost everyone agrees on is that, as you said in your post, R&R was born when Black beats and rhythms were presented in an acceptable manner to White audiences.

I believe (possibly in error) that the world wars and the Korean Conflict created the environment for great social change. People felt a freedom they hadn't felt for years, some for the first time. The psychological after effects of war caused many returning soldiers to feel like displaced persons in their own homes. (That's still the case for many veterans of the wars in the Middle East.) All this combined to create an environment of exploration, not just in music but in other areas society. After WWI there was the Roaring Twenties with its accompanying social excesses. There wasn't time between WWII and the Korean Conflict for much change to occur. After Korea, and coupled with the new forms of mass communication, great social changes came again. There was still segregation during WWII but Blacks and Whites were working together and relying on each other in ways they never had before. In Korea the Army was largely integrated. I believe those closer ties (integration in its infancy) helped with the combining of Black and White music to form R&R.

Some months ago I thought about creating a short essay on the origin of the term Rock & Roll. That was about the time the forums went too far south to be enjoyable so I shelved the idea. The term was originally a 17th century naval expression referring to how a ship rocked and rolled on the ocean. I had found lyrics containing phrases similar to  rockin' and rollin' going back to the later 1800s but couldn't find them just now. From there it became a term for both wild dancing gyrations and the act of sex. In the early 20th century it settled more comfortably into the musical reference describing dance motions. In the 1950s it was used to describe dancing to the new, wild music and the rest is well known.

Thank you so much.

I never tried to trace the term "Rock and Roll" but I am quite aware of the sexual context and assumed that's the immediate origin of the term. In 1952, the Ravens put out a nice song called "Rock Me All Night Long" and from the lyrics the euphemism is quite evident:

Then in 1956, Shirley and Lee released the better-known, "Let the Good Time Roll" where you 'roll me all night long'...then 'rock me all night long';... there's nothing too oblique in that.

In 1957 Chuck Berry was "hail, hailing' Rock and Roll:

and in  1958 Chuck Berry was blatantly extolling Rock and Roll Music

This makes me thing Chuck Berry himself, if he didn't coin the phrase, at least popularized it. 

I believe the children of the WWII generation .. baby boomers, that is.... where the catalysts for Rock and Roll. Their parents, those who fought in that war, then the Korean Conflict. gave their kids unapparelled freedom and financial support ... something they never had ....  to be honest, it's hard to envision exactly what these kids felt they need to rebel against. The folkies were involved in the political and social issues, things rock and roll never addressed, so this "rebellion'' seems somewhat pretentious.  Or maybe I'm just too far removed to envision it. 

Dang i read the title wrong. It though it was "the history of Rickroll"

I just got anti-rickrolled

See my previous thread about getting an education. 

Well excuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuse me

I read really fast (too fast) so i commonly mix things up