Week 2 lecture - John Eros PDF

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John Eros...

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An important term and concept to get from this week is the idea of "crossovers"

also known as "crossing over."

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Primarily, this is a matter of who is listening to a song: black listeners or white

listeners?

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And, from that, who is most likely to pay to listen to the music, via the radio,

jukeboxes, or record sales? Who is buying? No sales = no music. In order to keep

track of these trends, and to decide what to play in what areas, music was rated

according to three sets of charts: 1) pop charts, 2) rhythm and blues charts, and 3)

country and western charts. It was thought that the charts measured what different

groups of people were listening to. In a general sense:

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Pop charts showed what kind of music affluent white listeners were listening to and buying

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Rhythm and Blues (R&B) charts = black listeners

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Country and Western (C/W) charts = low-income white listeners

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This is what people thought. But, was it really this simple? Is this what each group of

listeners was listening to, and paying money for? Would affluent white listeners only

buy music on the pop charts, and never on the R&B charts? Would black listeners

only listen to R&B records, but never show interest in the other two areas of music?

What do you think?

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Crossing Over

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Crossing over means that a song was doing well on more than one chart. So,

if an R&B song began to sell well and to have higher ratings on the pop

charts (for example), that song had "crossed over" into a different market. It

was successful in more than one market. During this time period, music

began to cross over, such as music by Fats Domino and Chuck Berry. Their

songs, which would have been identified as R&B, became hit songs on more

than one list. From there, rock and roll was up and running

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First wave of Rock and Roll -

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It is a source of argument as to when rock and roll began, and from who and

where it came. Some say Rock Around The Clock by Bill Haley and His

Comets, in 1954 was the beginning of rock. Others argue that Elvis Presley's

That's Alright Mama, also in 1954, was the first rock and roll song. The truth is

that rock and roll came from several styles and regions simultaneously. This

music wasn't invented in a laboratory. There is a word that you might have

encountered in some of your other history classes called zeitgeist. This word

refers to the cultural climate of an era, or a feel of something being in the 'air'

- the general thought or collective consciousness that's floating around at the

time. Rock was in the air during that era, and happened to resonate with a

large number of young people simultaneously around the country. Rock 'n

roll seemingly sprang up from many different sources, at the same time.

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Rock successfully fused different ethnic musical traditions with the pop music

of that time. Some of these ethnic traditions were:

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From the African-American tradition, Gospel, Rhythm and Blues, Blues.

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From the white Appalachian mountain tradition, Country music, Bluegrass.

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Many young musicians of this era were very eclectic in their listening tastes,

and willing to put together all the varied styles and sounds that they were

listening to. In certain towns around the country, musicians had access to all

these varied styles plus the popular music of the time. This combining was

the impetus for a brand new artform. It was a coming together of various

styles and sounds that had up to this point been separate. Rock was a hybrid

from the beginning, and this proved to be one of its most enduring points.

Like America itself, this music was a melting pot of sounds and styles and

proved that the whole could be greater than the sum of the parts. Even to

this day rock and roll is a hybrid artform, still combining many diverse

sounds and styles to create new and different offshoots.

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After World War II life changed pretty dramatically, and more Americans

achieved greater prosperity. This created a middle class with leisure time and

money, which in turn opened up a new market–America's youth. More

specifically: teenagers.

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Listen To:

■

Pat Boone. This is an example of pop music in the mid-50s., before

rock 'n roll hit. You can hear the mellowness and restraint in this

music. This is a very conservative era, and the pop music reflected

that. There was little in this sound that would resonate with a

teenager of that time. It is important to remember how important

music was for kids in that era. Many households didn't have television

sets, and of course teens didn't have the distractions we have today,

such as videogames and the internet. Therefore, music had much

more importance during that era. This gave the advent of rock 'n roll a

special importance for America's youth.

■

April Love Pat Boone

○ History of Rock and Roll -

■

The kids were looking for a new style and a new sound. What they

found was music with driving rhythm and raw excitement. They found

it in the popular music from the African-American community called

Rhythm And Blues( or R&B for short). This is the generic term for

African-American popular music during the 50's. Here, the prevailing

emotion was excitement! Rhythm and blues contradicted 50's pop

music in every way. It was loud, harsh, danceable, and sexual. The kids

loved it, and went crazy for this new sound.

■ Rhythm and Blues was spread into white, middle America much the

same way jazz had been 30 years earlier: by white college kids who

were exploring and looking for new sounds. Think of the movie

Animal House, where the college kids go into the nightclub and hear

this brand new, vibrant and exciting sound. These kids would then

pass the music on to their younger siblings, who would spread the

sound to their friends, and eventually the music spread around the

country.

■ Parents were outraged by the new sound. Right from the beginning of

rock and roll, it seemed that the older generation discredited and

disliked the music, which inspired the kids to love it even more. At the

inception of rock, teens embraced the music as rebellion against their

parents. This created an 'us against them' mentality. The youth

bonded together through the music, and 'teens' became its own

culture group. The middle class was growing at a very rapid rate, and

middle class teens of this era had discretionary income to spend. They

chose to spend a large percentage of that income on music. Rock and

roll became big business!

■ Where did this music come from? The music sprang up in different

regions all around the country. Each of these different regions had

their own sound and style. Here are some of the most important

regions.

■ In Memphis in 1951, Sam Phillips, who would later record Elvis,

opened his studio and recorded bluesman like BB King and Ike

Turner. Phillips thought if he could find a 'white guy with the black

sound' he could make $1 million. Sam Phillips is the man that

discovered Elvis Presley.

■ In the North, rock and rollers were white musicians covering black

tunes. Jump blues was the primary source, with a heavy

boogie-woogie rhythm beat combined with a strong back beat.

■ Listen To: ● Louis Jordan–Caldonia. This is an example of boogie-woogie.

There are some elements of rock 'n roll here, but no backbeat.

This is a precursor to Rock.

● Caldonia / Louis Jordan

■ Bill Halley combined rhythm and blues from Louis Jordan, and

Western Swing, to create a hybrid–white R&B with a country twinge.

His biggest hits were covers of rhythm and blues tunes.

■ In the Deep South came Little Richard out of the church. He was

preaching and screaming in a possessed, hysterical manner. He set

the precedent and style for future rock and roll singers.

■ From Chicago a man named Leonard Chess founded the Chess record

label. He was a white guy who loved African-American blues, and

discovered famous bluesmen like Muddy Waters. A lot of the

African-American blues artists weren't able to make the jump from

African-American audiences to white teenage audiences. Some blues

artists were too old, or some couldn't relate to the kids. The first

bluesman to make this jump successfully was Chuck Berry. He

combined twangy guitar with a lively backbeat, and sang about stuff

kids could relate to, such as fast cars and high school angst.

■ This new music was spread from these various regions over the radio

waves by DJ’s, or disc jockeys. Rock and roll's super promoter and

number one DJ was Alan Freed. He worked ceaselessly to get the new

music heard. As far back as 1952 Freed had organized racially

integrated concerts in Cleveland. He befriended African-American

artists, and played their records out of New York City. Initially his

motivation was a pure love of the new music. He had such a fondness

for the style that he was colorblind, and only interested in getting as

many teenagers as possible to hear this new sound. Since New York

City is the biggest metropolitan area, Freed had the biggest pulpit of

any of the DJs of this era. He exerted tremendous influence on what

the kids would be listening to in the mid-50s and is therefore highly

responsible for spreading this new music to the greatest number of

people. Gradually, DJs around the country took up his calling, and

started to play rock. Initially rock could only be played late at night,

but eventually, as it became more popular with the kids, stations

started to play the music at all times of the day and night.

■ Helping the DJs at this time was a brand-new technology that

revolutionized the radio business- the transistor radio. Previous to

this, radios used tubes, which were heavy and large. It was common in

this era for an entire family to sit around the radio and listen to their

shows. Remember that the teenage kids liked a different sound than

their parents, so they wanted to get away from the family to go listen

to their own music. This is where the importance of transistor radios

came in. A transistor is much smaller and lighter than a tube, and

enabled the kids to take their radio and go hide under their covers in

their bedroom, or go out in the backyard, or anywhere where their

parents were not. This added to the rebellious attitude of rock and

roll, and helped the music spread much faster than it otherwise would

have.

■ Payola and the Payola Scandal–

■ The way the music business worked in this era was that DJs would

take money to play artist's music. A manager for an artist would

approach the DJ, pay him $100 or so, and get his artist's music on the

airwaves. The idea was that you would start in a small town, have your

music played many times, become popular in that area, take the

money from resulting record sales and go onto the next town. By

working your way up from small towns to larger towns around the

country, the artist would become known, and he would sell his

albums. This paying to get your music played, or payola, was a very

common part of the music business in this era and for many decades

previous. This practice was how the music business worked in the

50's.

■ When rock and roll started to take off and become a million dollar

business, it was a huge surprise to many of the established music

record executives of this era. Most of these elder gentlemen despised

everything about rock and roll. They didn't like the sound or the style.

They thought it was bad for the youth of America. Because of this,

and because of the African American influence that was so prevalent

in this new music, the record executives ignored this music. They were

hoping it would just go away quickly, like a fad. To their surprise, the

music did not fade away quickly, and as a matter fact gathered more

steam as the era went on. They also neglected to see the teenage

youth of this time as its own consumer group with money to burn, so

they underestimated this part of the business as well. The result was

the record companies found themselves on the outside of this

incredibly lucrative new art form. They themselves had made the bed,

and now they were forced to sleep in it. When they realized that they

were losing millions and millions of dollars, the record executives got

together and decided they needed to take action, They started looking

at many different angles of the music business, and grabbed onto this

practice of payola as a way to regain control of the music business .

One thing that the executives decided was that the music was so

terrible, certainly the only way a DJ would play it was if somebody was

paying them to! They also thought that there was nobody to control

what ‘good music’ was. The fact that anyone can get their music on

the airwaves by paying for it must be illegal, they said, or if not, 'we'll

make it illegal'.

■ What they came up with was the Payola Scandal, a congressional

investigation into this act of DJs taking money for playing music on the

radio. After months and months of investigation, the committee that

was set up to research this discovered approximately $200,000 had

been paid to DJs. For a nationwide investigation, this is a miniscule

amount of money. However, Alan Freed became the fall guy. Not only

was he the most popular DJ of the era, but he had also made a deal

with some of his artists to not just take money, but also put his name

down as co-writer of some songs. When Congress investigated him,

he couldn't deny wrongdoing, because his name was there in print.

This investigation completely derailed Freed's career, to the point

where a few years later he became a drunk in the gutter, and died

shortly thereafter. Read your book for a more detailed explanation on

the payola scandal.

■

The Artists -

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Bill Haley and His Comets–

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Bill Haley emerged from country music to capture the

imagination of the youth of America in the mid-50s and this

made him a star.

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Bill Haley was rock and roll's 1st superstar.

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Bill Haley was out of Detroit and he had a mildly successful

career as a country western singer. He had toured around for

many years, and was looking for a new sound and a new style.

When he was home in Detroit, he took a job as a DJ for a radio

station that played rhythm and blues music. He started to take

some of these songs and play them on his country gigs. He

found the kids really enjoyed his new music, and would dance

much more to the R&B music compared to the country music.

He had the idea of combining boogie-woogie beat, with the

country beat, and R&B. This was the combination that made

him a star.

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R&B plus country= rock!

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This new sound made Haley a star. He was the first rock and

roller to make the Billboard pop chart, though for only a brief

time. He released Rock Around The Clock, and not much

happened. Eventually this song was picked up by a movie

called Blackboard Jungle, and this exposure propelled him to

stardom. The movie was about juvenile delinquents, and so

from the beginning of rock and roll, the music was tied in to

something dangerous, forbidden, and certain to anger

parents. His release of Shake Rattle and Roll was also a huge

hit.

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In 1955 and 1956 Bill Haley was the most popular rocker in the

world. Not only was he big on the American charts, but he was

the first rock star to tour England, thus exposing them to the

brand-new sound and style. As we'll see shortly, England will

be the hotbed for rock and roll for years to come.

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Bill Haley's career however, was short-lived. This music was

music of rebellion, and music of teenagers. By the time Bill

Haley hit it big, he was already in his 30s, a father, balding, and

pudgy. Hardly the delinquent teen that kids associated with his

music. As soon as the kids saw what he looked like and who he

was, they lost interest, and moved on to musicians their own

age. After the first years of his success, Bill Haley made a living

playing in retro shows and county fairs. He was one of the first

musicians inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, and is

very important as one of the forefathers of the new music.

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Listen To -

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Rock Around The Clock

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Shake Rattle And Roll

○

See You Later Alligator

○

Bill Haley - Rock Around The Clock (1956)

○ Bill Haley & The Comets - See you later alligator

○ Shake, Rattle and Roll - Bill Haley and his Comets

■ Chuck Berry -

● African American musician Chuck Berry combined rhythm and

blues with elements of country music. That, in the most simple

terms, is the combination that yielded rock and roll. In addition

to his music, he added a witty, defiant teen outlook and

attitude that influenced virtually every rock musician that came

after him.

● Chuck Berry came out of St. Louis where he was a beautician,

and played blues gigs in the evenings. ...