.comment-link {margin-left:.6em;}

Music Memories + Songs

Wednesday, March 23, 2005

Origins of Rock n Roll

I don't think it's any exageration to say that
the vast majority of grownups, especially the
World War 2 generation, looked down
on all rock and roll, teenage music.

Teenagers were a market, records were made for
them, but it was a relatively small part of the
overall market. In St Louis, out of all
the radio stations on the AM dial (no FM yet!),
there was exactly one which played rock and
roll -- and it also played young black, or soul
music.

Of course, this was progress since the early
50s when Alan Freed basically defined the emerging
music that was rock and roll. Exactly how such
separate artists as Bill Haley, Chuck Berry
and Elvis Presley came together, I'm not sure
if anybody knows.

Everybody agrees it is a mixture of black rhythm
and blues (really the type of barrelhouse blues
played in black bars) and white country.

I think it also came from swing -- The Andrews
Sisters singing "Beat Me Daddy 8 to the Bar",
Benny Goodman's "Swing Swing Swing" and Ivie
Anderson singing "All God's Children Got Rhythm" for
Duke Ellington.

The sort of music the World War 2 generation
danced the jitterbug too, combined with the type
of blues played on the piano by the left hand
pounding a beat with the bass keys while the
right hand makes a melody -- I'm sure Chuck
Berry's piano player, Johnny Johnson (who also
is from St Louis and was just recently recognized
for his contributions to Chuck's music and
inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame)
must have started out playing that way.

Bill Monroe created western swing by combining
it with country music.


Spanish travel

Music Industry Changes

Although people my age and older know about this,
I believe I should back up and explain to everybody
who did not experience the change from the 50s
(which lasted until about 1964) through the 70s
(which began about 1974), just how dramatically
things HAVE changed.

Even those of us who did go through those times
have to be reminded of the drastic changes. You
younguns have no clue as to what a dramatic culture
shock you would experience if you could be
transported back to 1958 in a time machine.

Those of you with green hair, tattoos and piercings
. . . it's hard to say how 1958 would view you.
You'd be such a freak, maybe you'd just be taken
for some strange kind of foreigner.

But let's start with just the music industry itself.

First, it was MUCH smaller. If there were Grammy
Awards, who cared? People bought and listened to
records, and there was lots of live music in clubs
etc but it was a much smaller industry than today.

The main pop music was the stuff the World War 2
generation enjoyed. From Frank Sinatra on down to
the boring "easy listening" stuff.

That's what was in TV shows and all major
entertainment.

Black music was mostly listened to by black
people, except the stuff that qualified as rock
and roll, which was listened to by white kids
but not black people. Only ordinary blacks
knew about the blues. Jazz was mostly for urban
blacks and elitist whites.


London travel

Birth of Beatlemania in USA

I have since seen a video clip of The Beatles on
Ed Sullivan that night, playing "I Want to Hold Your
Hand" -- which has always been
about my least favorite of their songs.

George Harrison's sister lives somewhere in Southern
Illinois, within radio listening distance of St Louis,
where I live. I heard her tell about one of the
(no doubt many) backstage dramas.

When The Beatles landed in America on Friday, George
had an extremely high 104 or 105 degree fever. A
doctor was called in as soon as they got into the
hotel, and immediately declared that he needed to go
into a hospital for days.

Told that was impossible -- George had to play on
Ed Sullivan in just two days, the doctor finally
agreed that he could stay in the
hotel as long as someone would look after him and
give him a complex series of antibiotics.

However, the doctor had to draft George's sister,
because she was the only woman available who was
not -- to use the vernacular of those times -- going
apeshit over The Beatles.

So his sister nursed him back to regain enough
strength to stand up and play on the Ed Sullivan
Show -- and so music, the music industry and even
history has never been the same.


Paris travel