Rock Music

Until the 1950’s, American popular music was divided into three separate styles. Each had its own performers, musical content, and audience. One style was called pop. Pop songs came from movies, Broadway musicals, and pop composers. The songs were mainly simple 32-bar melodies with lyrics about love. They were played by bands in dancehalls, restaurants, and nightclubs and on radio. The bands consisted of anywhere from six to more than twenty musicians playing combinations of trumpet, trombone, saxophone, and clarinet, with a rhythm section of drums, guitar, string bass, or piano. Soloists or small vocal groups generally accompanied the bands.

In the late 1930’s and 1940’s, there were hundreds of “big bands.” The most popular included the white bands of Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey, Harry James, and Woody Herman. There were also the more jazz-style black bands of Jimmie Lunceford, Fletcher Henderson, Count Basie, Duke Ellington, and Lionel Hampton. After World War II, individual singers such as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Nat (”King”) Cole, Doris Day, Patti Page, and Jo Stafford, most of whom had been band singers, became much more popular than the bands themselves.

The second style was rhythm and blues. It came from the blues sung by black performers, along with the fast dance music that had grown out of ragtime and boogie-woogie. It was the popular music of the black people of the United States. It was played and sung in taverns and clubs or listened to on records in jukeboxes. Later, it was called soul music. A few of the most popular rhythm and blues performers of the 1940’s and early 1950’s were Chuck Berry, Fats Domino, B. B. King, Dinah Washington, and Willie Mae Thornton. Both the white pop bands and the black rhythm and blues musicians were influenced by jazz and by black spirituals and gospel music.

The third style is now called country and western, or country music. But before World War II it was often called hillbilly music. It includes the commercialized folk music of the rural southern and southwestern parts of the United States. The main center of this music has always been Nashville, Tennessee.

How Rock Began

Rock and roll was the name given to the music that developed when these three separate styles came together in the early 1950’s. It is widely believed that the term “rock and roll” was first used by a Cleveland disk jockey, Alan Freed. He was one of the first persons to bring rhythm and blues to white audiences. He did this on his radio program and through concerts he produced, beginning in 1952. These presented both black and white performers to audiences of black and white teenagers. But not any one person created rock and roll. Rock was born as a result of changes in the music, broadcasting, advertising, and entertainment industries.

Before World War II the music industry was centered in New York. Music publishers printed the words and music of songs, and people all over the country bought this sheet music to play the songs on their guitars, pianos, or accordions. A hit song might sell 1 million copies. But most songs made little or no money. No one really knew what made a hit, but most people believed in a few rules. One was that success in the immediate past meant success in the immediate future. If last week’s hit was about apples, then next week’s songs would be about oranges or pears. If last week’s hit was sung by Perry Como, next week the music industry would have new songs for him. Or they would be looking for someone who sounded just like him. Another rule was just the opposite–find a new and different song; find a new and different performer.

But finally, only public response could make a hit. Enough of the public had to hear a song often enough to distinguish it from the rest and become familiar with it. So the publishers brought songs to bands playing in and around New York–especially bands that had radio programs. In that way, not only would more people hear the songs, but the newspapers of the entertainment industry could keep count of how often they were played. The publishers also arranged for as many recordings of their songs as possible. Sheet music was still more important than records. But by the early 1950’s several things had happened to change this.

First came the disk jockeys. Just before World War II, the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates United States broadcasting, authorized the licensing of new radio stations. These stations needed three things to be successful–inexpensive, interesting material; advertisers who would buy time from them; and a large audience. The answer was found in disk jockeys. They designed programs consisting of pop records with a playing time of about three minutes. They also read “spot” commercials and held the program together with talk.

The disk jockeys soon had local audiences loyal to their stations, products, and musical tastes. This weakened the control of the network stations and of the bandleaders over what songs became hits. The disk jockeys appealed mainly to young people in their teens. These teens were more interested in dancing and listening to music than playing it themselves.

The disk jockeys also held “record hops” (dances) in high schools and invited teenagers into radio studios to listen to new records. The teenagers made it clear which songs they liked and which they did not. Now the music industry could find out more quickly what kind of songs to do next. Now, too, records became more important than sheet music.

Several other things happened in the early 1950’s to set the stage for rock and roll. The big dance bands were losing popularity. Dancehalls were closing as record companies followed the charts and recorded individual singers and small groups. Television was replacing radio, and soon disk jockeys had television programs of their own.

Rhythm and blues was expanding, too. During and after World War II many black people moved to northern cities in search of jobs. Because the war improved their economic position, the music industry was responsive to their tastes. This led to an increase in the production of rhythm and blues records. Radio stations played more rhythm and blues and had black disk jockeys. But white teenagers also listened, even in the South, because there was no segregation of the radio audience.

Country and western music was also being more widely heard. At first, rhythm and blues and country and western hits were copied by white pop singers. They used black or hillbilly material, but they often changed the lyrics and smoothed out the “roughness” of the music.

How Rock Developed

In 1955, records by a young singer from Tennessee, Elvis Presley, were heard across the country. After he appeared on nationwide television, Elvis Presley’s singing–a combination of rhythm and blues and country and western–and his performing style came to mean “rock and roll” all over the United States. Presley’s many hits include “Heartbreak Hotel” and “Hound Dog.” They made him an all-time star of pop music. Bill Haley and the Comets–with songs like “Rock Around the Clock”–were a country and western group that also became a rock pacesetter.

At first it was mainly the fast, strong beat of rock songs that appealed to young audiences. Musically, the songs were simple, too. They followed a one-four-five chord pattern similar to that used in the blues, with chords based on the first, fourth, and fifth notes of the scale. For example, in a song written in the key of C, the first chord would consist of the notes C, E, G, and C; the second of F, A, C, and F; and the third of G, B, D, and G.

Young people identified with the music. Soon songs were were being written that were aimed at the lives and problems of teenagers. These included such hits as Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” and “Teen Age Prayer” by Gale Storm. Within a short time, young singers began to replace older entertainers. Ricky Nelson, Paul Anka, Lesley Gore, Bobby Darin, and Dion and the Belmonts were just some of these. New black groups also became successful. The Drifters, the Platters, and the Clovers were typical examples. But older performers such as Dinah Washington, Bo Diddley, and Fats Domino were also popular.

Rock became mainly the music of the young. They understood its beat and sound. Its lyrics spoke to them. By the early 1960’s, rock had spread across the Atlantic to England. New groups began to emerge there as well. The one that rapidly became most popular was made up of four boys from the industrial port city of Liverpool, on England’s west coast. Calling themselves the Beatles, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, and Ringo Starr had been playing together since 1962. At first they did songs by other composers. But John and Paul soon began to write the Beatles’ songs. By 1964, when the Beatles were introduced to U.S. audiences, they had revolutionized pop music. For more information see Beatles, The.

Rock in the 1960’s

In the mid-1960’s, rock music began to be influenced by certain new and surprising forces. Folk rock brought the gentler sounds of folk ballads into rock. Bob Dylan is generally acknowledged to have sparked folk rock when his song “Mr. Tambourine Man,” recorded by the Byrds, became a tremendous hit. This was followed by the release of Dylan’s own album, Bringing It All Back Home. Other folk rock artists included Donovan and the Mamas and the Papas.

Among black musicians, the 1960’s brought about a polishing and speeding up of old rhythm and blues forms. The Supremes, the Temptations, and Stevie Wonder were among the best and most popular of soul music artists.

Major British groups confirmed their earlier promise by producing mature, reflective music. These groups included the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and the Who. In the United States, bands on the West Coast, such as the Grateful Dead and the Jefferson Airplane (later Jefferson Starship), were influenced by the free-form techniques of jazz.

In the 1960’s, too, young people began to think of themselves as a new and different generation because they were the first to grow up with rock and roll. Rock concerts and festivals–such as the one in Woodstock, New York, in 1969–were part of this trend.

Rock went into musical theater with such shows as Hair (1968) and Jesus Christ, Superstar (1971). Rock musicians also became interested in experimental music, notably electronic music, and in the sound language of modern composers. Rock was moving in new directions. There was no longer any way of telling what was rock except by the community it served.

Rock Today

The 1970’s were a time of tremendous expansion within the rock industry. Rock became a very big business. It earned more money annually than any other form of entertainment, including the film industry. One reason was that the number of rock music fans grew larger all the time. People who were originally excited by it in the 1950’s and 1960’s continued to buy records and attend concerts. Their children, in turn, were also attracted to this music of youth.

Until the 1970’s, a rock performer would have been proud to earn a “gold record.” This was an album that sold 500,000 copies or earned $1 million in sales. Today a performer can also earn a platinum record when a record sells 1 million copies. A multi-platinum record is earned when 2 million or more copies are sold. Among performers who have earned multi-platinum records are Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen, and Madonna.

The late 1970’s saw the rise of disco, an offshoot of the soul music of the 1960’s. It had a steady, almost mechanical beat that was easy to dance to. The most important instrument in the development of disco was the electronic synthesizer.

The increasing sophistication of rock music sparked a cry of protest within the rock world itself. Many struggling rock bands believed that the smoothness and polish of modern recording techniques had drained rock of much of its vigor and daring.

These musicians formed rock bands that rejected extensive musical knowledge and elaborate equipment. Their music was harsh and direct in sound. It became known as punk music. Punk, in turn, inspired other musical styles, which together were called new wave. The new music was played by such English bands as the Clash and the Police, and by U.S. groups such as the Ramones, Blondie, and Talking Heads.

The rise of music videos in the 1980’s added another dimension to rock music. They provided a way for new artists to win almost instant recognition. Other trends of 1980’s and 1990’s rock included increasing interest in the music of other cultures and the emergence of “alternative” rock. This was played by younger bands united mainly by their rejection of the commercialism of mainstream rock.

Rock’s energy, its expression of the concerns of young people, and its ability to speak through many musical forms make it a living part of our musical world.