the history of rock n’ roll: the beginnings (1950-1962)

In 1947 Wynonie Harris recorded “Good Rockin Tonight”. In 1950 Leo Fender released the first mass-produced, solid-body electric guitar enabling guitarists to play louder hornlike solos. In 1951 Todd Storz and Bill Stewart turned around Nebraska-based radio station KOWH by establishing the Top 40 format. In 1952 Alan Freed hosted the “Coronation Ball” and in 1953 Elvis Presley walked into the Memphis Recording Service. Many argue over when exactly rock n’ roll was born but there are definitive people and events that were irrefutably crucial to its development.

The atmosphere in America during the early 1950’s after World War II was one of promise and economic boom. Teenagers had money to spend and what caught their attention was music. Specifically, it was the music of African American artists though often their race was unbeknownst to the listeners. Ahmet Ertegun’s Atlantic Records “juggled the artistic finesse of jazz, the elemental backbeat of jump blues, and the slick arrangements of postwar pop” to create what Norman Mailer notoriously called “white Negro” music (Miller 1999, p. 51). One such hit was Ruth Brown’s “Teardrops From My Eyes” and records such as Jakie Brenston’s “Rocket 88” (1951) and Fats Domino’s “The Fat Man” (1949) typified this movement. At the same time, white artists were responding to the trend and Bill Hayley and the Comets’ release of “Crazy Man Crazy” (1951) is also considered a contender for the first rock n’ roll record (Gillette, 1984).

A new style was indeed forming but each of its artists were bringing to the scene the roots of their musical experience. Bill Hayley and the Comets were Northern Band rock n’ roll, Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis were Memphis Country Rock (Rockabilly) and Fats Domino and Little Richard were New Orleans Dance Blues. This was coupled with artists like Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley who were Chicago Rhythm and Blues, and The Penguins, The Platters and The Everly Brothers known as Vocal Groups (Gillette, 1984). At the same time, recent technological advances by the likes of Les Paul and Leo Fender had altered the sound of music. The country and jump blues genres of the late forties had been typified by elaboration through percussive riffing styles. However, the music “still wasn’t loose enough, or loud enough, to be rock and roll. For that, something else was needed – instruments able to make bigger noise” (Millar 1999, p. 39). The year 1950 saw the arrival of the first mass-produced, solid body electric guitar, the Fender Esquire. Amplification was suddenly allowing guitars to step out as lead instruments in music and artists now had the ability to play both fluid and wailing solos.

Given the racial tensions of the period however, rhythm and blues music was not readily accessible to white adolescents via jukeboxes yet, since they tended to be stocked differently depending on the clientele’s race. Radio was thus the medium by which teenagers were able to hear this new sound. Television was increasingly popular and this meant changes in radio programming as its listeners declined. Most commercial stations had tried to air a wide variety of programs, featuring different kinds of, often live, music. Todd Storz and Bill Stewart who were hired to help the struggling station KOWH in Nebraska had noticed that when people went to a jukebox, it was always the same songs that were being selected. This led them to create the format of repeating hit songs over and again while reducing the amount of non-music airtime, which became the popular Top 40 arrangement (Miller 1999, p. 54). It would change the way music was made and played forever. As Top 40 radio spread “melodies gave way to riffs, riffs became jingles, jingles became ‘hooks’ – instantly recognizable sound patterns, either melodic or rhythmic, designated to snare a listener’s attention” (Miller 1999, p.56). This coupled with teenagers’ access transistor radios meant they could choose what to listen to.

A song could not be hit however, unless it made it to the radio since people bought what they heard. DJs were thus crucial and willing to accept payola to ensure record companies sold their records. The industry was growing and from 1950 to 1962, record sales in the United States rose from 189 million units to an astonishing 687 million units (Rachlin 1981, p. 316). Movies were starting to play their role too, as was well proven with the release of the movie “Blackboard Jungle” in 1955, which made famous the Bill Hayley and the Comets’ song “Rock Around The Clock”. This music was now being featured in films and helping to spread the effects. 1956 saw the release of Elvis Presley’s first movie, “Love Me Tender” as well as the record “Heartbreak Hotel”. It was the first of fourteen consecutive Elvis albums to sell over a million copies. With tens of millions of TV sets in the United States and shows like that of Ed Sullivan Arthur Godfrey streaming into homes, suddenly this new sound was part of the backdrop to American teenage life (Gillette 1984).

Teenage life had become a market to strive for. In a 1956 survey, Scholastic Magazine’s Institute of Student Opinion calculated that there were thirteen million teenagers in America with a total income of $7 billion a year (Miller 1999, p. 144). It is no surprise that on August 5, 1957, Dick Clark introduced a new daily show called American Bandstand, which within a few months had reached more viewers than any other daytime show. It readily introduced cleaned-up versions of cool new black dances and promoted them with new songs. In this way, the Bop, the Stroll, and the Twist were showcased through songs like “At The Hop” (Miller 1999, p. 147). Sentimental love ballads and songs about adolescent interests were replacing the more serious and personal emotions that had been the heart of country and blues. Songs like “Splish Splash” by Bobby Darin, “Teenager In Love” by Doc Pomus and Mort Shuman and “Calendar Girl” by Neil Sedaka showed the pop quality that had begun to fuse itself with part of rock n’ roll (Miller 1999, p. 160).

In an almost converse approach to this over calculated and commercialized form, the folk music fad was returning in America. Having died down after Leadbelly coverers The Weavers were mentioned in a 1951 FBI publication on communism, The Kingston Trio gained attention in 1958. In 1961, Robert Johnson’s release of “King Of The Delta Blues Swingers” became a pivotal inspiration to artists who would later reign supreme in rock n’ roll like Eric Clapton and Keith Richards. As folk began its resurgence, artists like Bob Dylan, Joan Baez and Peter, Paul and Mary would later carry the genre on into the 1960’s (Miller 1999, p. 193).

In 1961, across the Atlantic Ocean in Liverpool, record store manager Brian Epstein was discovering what was to become the future of rock n’ roll. There in England, The Beatles were playing covers of songs made famous by the likes of Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Elvis Presley. The sound coming out of the thriving local scene was their own, “playing American rock hard and fast, with a relentlessly pounding beat, jangling guitars, and keening vocal harmonies” (Miller 1999, p. 180). Lennon, McCartney and Harrison would get together and play music at the Liverpool College of Art where Lennon attended but intentionally avoided the new insipid hits that were making their way over. Instead they resurrected “original style rock n’ roll”, wrote with intelligence and defied the current business by treating rock and roll as an art. In January of 1963, they released their second single, “Please Please Me”, which was their first number one hit by February of that year (Miller 1999, p. 198).

It is these years between the beginning of the 1950s and the early 1960s, which are considered to be the foundation of rock n’ roll’s development. There was much that led to this point, specifically grassroots country and blues. It would be followed by a vastly changing and revolutionary musical world. Beatlemania, their release of “Rubber Soul” in 1965 and “Sgt Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band” in 1967, Andrew Loog’s discovery of The Rolling Stones in 1963, and Dylan going electric in 1965, were only some of the immediate occurrences. The Beach Boys with their surfer rock were getting ready to release “Pet Sounds” and the Monterey International Pop Festival and Woodstock were just around the corner. The early 1970s would spawn “The Dark Side of the Moon” and introduce Ziggy Stardust while the late 1970s gave us The Sex Pistols. “Inspired by the Beatles, a new generation of performers, from Bob Dylan to Jim Morrison and the Doors, helped choreograph a cultural revolution that turned rock and roll from a disparaged music for kids into a widely watched, frequently praised mode of serious cultural expression” (Miller 1999, p. 16). Through rock n’ roll there was an introduction to “a refreshing realism about sexuality”, it reinforced the rhythmic complexes first made popular by jazz, ragtime, and boogie-woogie and although imperfectly helped to bring the music of African-American performers to an audience wider than ever before (Miller 1999, p. 352).

These developments at the beginning of rock n’ roll are noticeable in music today without straining to make the connections. The genre splintered into offshoots which all have their roots firmly planted in the influences of their predecessors who were inspired by their predecessors. Alternative rock was inspired by the likes of The Sex Pistols and Velvet Underground and hard rock including grunge, is often inspired by the Rolling Stones, etc. There is little doubt that it will continue in this manner. New adaptations, approaches and styles are constantly going to arise but the roots remain the same.

Works Cited:

Gillette, Charlie The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll Pantheon. New York.

1984.

Miller, James Flowers In The Dustbin: The Rise of Rock N’ Roll 1947 – 1977 Fireside.