Monday, October 29, 2007

TELL TCHAIKOVSKY THE NEWS: The heyday of "rock 'n' roll," strictly defined, was surprisingly short -- just a few years in the mid-1950s -- but what a time it was. Rock 'n' roll took the teenage rebellion that had been percolating in movies and comic books, blended it with the integrationist fervor of the early civil rights movement, and created a pop-culture phenomenon with genuinely transformative impact, both socially and musically. (Needless to say, there's a staggering amount of writing on early rock 'n' roll; for two good historical overviews, see Charlie Gillett's The Sound of the City, for the music and business sides of the story, and Glenn Altschuler's All Shook Up, for the broader social-political context.)

Rock 'n' roll drew on several musical styles that had enjoyed success outside of the musical mainstream. Rhythm and blues (or "race music") furnished danceable beats, suggestive lyrics, and doo-wop harmonies, as in the Dominoes' "Sixty Minute Man" (1951). From country and western (or "hillbilly music") came chugging guitars, reedy vocals, and a prominent backbeat, heard in Hank Williams' "Hey Good Lookin'" (1951). Through the early 'fifties, performers, producers, and disc jockeys helped to spread these musical influences from city to city, from South to North, and across the color line, gradually creating a musical genre beholden to its predecessors yet unmistakably new.

Between 1955 and 1957, the dam burst, as a whole slew of first-ballot Hall of Famers launched their careers: Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly, and of course Elvis Presley (who'll get a post of his own on Wednesday). Rather than blather on about these artists, I'd urge you to follow some of those links and check out the performance clips. The energy, exuberance, and wit of those singers still leaps off the screen, over fifty years later. Now just imagine how revolutionary those performances must have felt at a time when songs like this ruled the pop charts.

And yet almost as soon as rock 'n' roll made its raucous entrance, it was transformed into something different. Like ragtime and jazz, rock 'n' roll was gradually softened for middle-class white audiences. Within just a couple of years, the stage belonged to teen idols like Neil Sedaka and Fabian and dance fads like the Twist, all promoted in more corporate and polished settings, like Dick Clark's American Bandstand. A series of unfortunate events also pulled several leading rockers away from the spotlight in the late '50s and early '60s. To be sure, plenty of fabulous music appeared during those post-Buddy-pre-Beatles years -- but it wasn't rock 'n' roll.

To many of today's listeners, raised on punk, grunge, hip hop, and hair bands, early rock 'n' roll sounds quaint and innocent, hardly the stuff of cultural and musical revolt. How about you? Do you listen to early rock 'n' roll? Why or why not?

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