The History Of Rock And Roll Music And Its Effect On American Society

In the United States in the 1950’s, a new genre of music was beginning to emerge and effect the way we view culture and society to this day through its influence on youth and the breaking of racial barriers. It was born out of the other six other streams, comprising of pop, black pop, country pop, jazz folk and gospel to produce rock 'n' roll and by 1965, it had become a stream of its own in American Popular Music. It is hard to determine when rock 'n' roll officially started; the name had been used in blues songs to describe love making long before it came to have the meaning that we know today. But the roots of rock 'n' roll can really go back as far as one person with a guitar singing about hard times as an outlet.

We can see that the influences of rock 'n' roll mainly derive from rhythm and blues and country, both products of the Deep South. This can be seen in Bill Haley and His Commits single 'Rock Around the Clock' which has since been described as the first rock ’n’ roll record; although, it is still a widely disputed topic. In the early 1950’s, in a time of severe racial tension, mainstream music revolved around wholesome white performers such as Dorris Day, Perry Como and Gail Storm. The objective of their music was to be as innocent and unthreatening as possible to appeal to a wide demographic.

As time gradually moved on, with the help of the jukebox and white DJ’s; black artists began to be heard and appreciated, in particular by a white teenage audience. However, with black segregation at a high, the process of black musicians being recognised in their own right was still agonisingly slow. Even before 1950, black artists such as Bert Williams had been making records for major record companies such as Columbia, but the companies never imagined that there would be a market for 'Negro records'. They also tried to hide the fact coloured singers were being used through fear of what the white population would think. Major record companies also found that rather promoting unknown black groups, they could sell more records if they re-recorded the songs by established white groups. “Hip disc jockeys - white guys who talked black” had started to play black music to a growing white audience. The DJ’s at the forefront of this movement included Zenas 'Daddy' Sears, George 'Hound Dog' Lorenz, Hunter Hancock and most famously Alan 'Moondog' Freed. They spoke with 'the timing and rhyming of the ghetto' and were described as 'White Negroes'.

Alan Freed was credited with the naming of rock 'n' roll in 1952 on his radio show. He applied the term to the music he was playing in an attempt to disguise the blackness of it. In the 1950’s, rhythm and blues, like 'negro' referred to black musicians, so by calling it rock 'n' roll it dulled the racial identification and made the young white population of America feel more comfortable with what they were listening to. As rhythm and blues was known as ghetto music, rock ’n’ roll was perceived to be universal music which made it acceptable for whites to play the music by removing the aura of inaccessibility. Brackett (2005), explains that the significance of these DJ’s cannot be overemphasised. They helped bridge the gap of segregation by introducing a white teenage audience to African American artists. 'The black style represented a diverting departure from the mid-fifties blahs... Radio could not resist the music’s universality - its intrinsic charm, its empathy for human foibles, its direct application to the teen-age condition'. This began to show that the lines between black and white were starting to fade and it was as a result of rock 'n' roll.

Fats Domino, a New Orleans African American, was one of the first successful musicians to cross over rhythm and blues with pop. Dave Bartholomew, who discovered Fats playing a gig at the Hideaway Club in New Orleans, took his classic New Orleans sound of piano and sax and rearranged it for teenagers as an introduction to the world of black music. 'Ain’t That a Shame' released in 1955 charted number 1 on the Billboard R&B chart and number 10 on the Pop chart. In the mid-fifties, Little Richard, a flamboyant young singer from Macon, Georgia, was given the opportunity to record in a New Orleans studio following the commercial success of Fats Domino. Originating from a very poor and religious background, Little Richard’s early signs of homosexuality were not accepted by his father and subsequently meant he was forced to move out of his family home at the age of thirteen. Upon leaving, Richard found himself taken in by a white family that owned a club in Macon; where he developed his performing talent. Once he later arrived in New Orleans, he took the city by storm. His flamboyant, innovative style of performance had never been seen before this time. His first track to gain commercial success was 'Tutti-Frutti' released in 1955. It demonstrates his signature vocal style of wailing and screaming and includes a lot of rock 'n' rolls characteristic features such as the distinctive beat and rhythm and the driving force of the vocals. It became an instant Billboard hit reaching number 17 and paved the way for his following hits including 'Long Tall Sally' 'Good Golly Miss Molly' and 'Send Me Some Lovin'. Whereas Fats had achieved success through being non-threatening, Little Richard pushed the boundaries of rock 'n' roll and built the foundations of the genre we know to this day. The success achieved on the Pop chart by Fats Domino and Little Richard signify an important moment within the evolution of rock 'n' roll music for black artists, as prior to this, black musicians were kept on a separate R&B chart and the records were only released by small indie labels; Fats Domino was one of the first black musicians to cross over. This in turn enabled black musicians in the future to gain access to the pop charts. This highlights how race helped to differentiate rock 'n' roll from the mainstream music that preceded it, as the commercial success of a black musician had never been seen before then.

'Rock ’n’ roll - the words alone evoke notions of hedonism, romantic wandering and pseudo rebellion akin to the blues'. These concepts made parents fear rock ’n’ roll and caused great conflict between the youth of the 1950’s and their elders. The older generation was accustomed to white mainstream music that had come prior to rock 'n' roll and felt concerned by the sexual connotations within the music. As they were born in an age where segregation was at its upmost; they felt more closed-minded towards black people. The youth however, embraced a very different attitude. Brackett (2005) explains that a new picture was beginning to emerge; kids in the south had started to take newly invented transistor radios to the beach and white Southern teenagers started the charge towards ballsy rhythm and blues. Teenagers had become a market of their own, 'their buying power was real, their emotional needs intimate, their libidinous drive no longer reflected by the dead-and-gone fox-trots of their parents'. Whilst adolescence is considered a normal time for rebellion against authority, nothing had been seen before in history that was 'quite as dramatic as the transformation of adolescents from an age group to a virtual class after the Second World War' which was partly to do with the large number of teenagers in America at this point.

Elvis Presley was a prime example of the threat that the older generation felt in regards to rock ’n’ roll. Famously referred to as The King of Rock 'n' Roll and regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, the Mississippi born man became an imperative figure to rock 'n' roll. Sam Phillips, a white record producer, famously opened 'Sun Studios', the first recording service in Memphis that allowed black artists to record. He spent most of his time recording blues singers but always dreamed of finding a white man who had the 'negro sound' and the 'negro feel'. Once Sam Phillips met Elvis at Sun Studios, he realised that he’d met his man. Elvis told him that he didn't sing like anyone else and he knew he was right. His feel for the blues and country were so deeply rooted into him in his childhood through the result of a poor upbringing that it gave him an advantage to other musicians at the time; and it was clear to see this through the expression in his voice. ‘That's All Right' released on July 19, 1954 became an instant hit and set him on the flying path towards stardom. His onstage presence however, which displayed the shaking and grinding of his hips and legs, was considered vulgar by the older population and they expressed their disdain towards their children watching it. 'The Ed Sullivan show' was America’s number one family favourite variety show in 1956 and Sullivan announced he would not allow Elvis to appear on the show as it was aimed at families. Ultimately, Elvis became too big for Ed to deny his appearance on the show and he did three performances over 1956 and 1957. It was agreed by the people in charge of the show that on his last performance he would be filmed from the waist up to censor his performance in order to make the worried parents feel more at ease. This bizarre act of censorship did not change the effect Elvis or rock ’n’ roll had on the younger generation, it only brought them closer to the music as they felt part of a new community that was forming. The driving force behind the movement that helped propel rock 'n' roll to the mainstream; was the youth of the 1950’s. This type of unity among the young of every social class, region and race through a genre of music had never been seen before in the nation's history and this helped to show how rock 'n' roll differed from the music that had preceded it.

The impact that rock 'n' roll had on American society is that of a far greater significance than any other style of music to exist. The main cultural and demographic factors to differentiate this genre to the music that arose before the 1950's, were race and youth. Through these factors; rock 'n' roll broke down the racial barriers that had been so prevalent in America before the 1950’s, through accepting black musicians to an industry that was controlled by a white middle class. It also soon enough became the first genre that the youth of America had ever connected to; through representing a stance against adult authority and being recognised as the music and dance of the young. The popular music that had previously flourished never questioned or pushed the boundaries of society the way that rock ’n’ roll did, and this is why, it is still viewed historically as such a significant period of time that influenced the culture and society of America in ways that could never have been anticipated.