Rock in the 1950’s – Rock and Roll
Rock and Roll was born through the mixing of numerous styles, the most influential
being the African American rhythm and blues music and the white American style of
country. Country music was a rural style derived from southern and southwestern
folk song, emphasizing acoustic guitar, fiddle, and voice. Rhythm and blues was an
urban variation of earlier blues, marked by more pronounced, driving rhythms and
electric guitar accompaniment.
Together they created the first rock’n’roll style, rockabilly, and the first superstar of
rock’n’roll, Elvis Presley. His amazing string of hits in the late 1950s (“Heartbreak
Hotel,” “Love Me Tender,” and many others) combined a lyrical style derived from
white popular singers with the strong beat and passionate, throaty vocal delivery of
rockabilly. Many of these hits (for example, “Hound Dog”) were Elvis’s versions of
songs originally recorded by African American artists.
Across the late 1950s a string of musicians, both white American (Jerry Lee Lewis,
Buddy Holly) and African American (Fats Domino, Little Richard, Chuck Berry),
followed Elvis up the charts — and soon it was “Rock around the Clock,” as Bill
Haley had declared in his 1955 hit. Radio stations and record companies alike
realized there was a lasting market for the new sound.
In the earliest rock and roll styles of the late 1940s and early 1950s, either the piano
or saxophone was often the lead instrument, but these were generally replaced or
supplemented by guitar in the middle to late 1950s. The beat is essentially a blues
rhythm with an accentuated backbeat, the latter almost always provided by a snare
drum.
Questions
1. What are the two main styles from which rock and roll was created?
2.What was the first style of rock and roll called?
3. Who was the first superstar of rock and roll? Can you name some others?
4. What usually provides the back beat for rock and roll music?
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early
1950s in the United States, especially the South. Defining features of the rockabilly
sound included strong rhythms, vocal twangs and common use of the tape echo
(delay effect).
Tape Echo
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3u25Ar51iTY
Backbeat
A backbeat, is a syncopated accentuation on the "off" beat. In a simple 4/4 rhythm
these are beats 2 and 4. In rock music this accent is usually played by the snare
drum.
Elvis Presley - Jailhouse Rock
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gj0Rz-uP4Mk
Questions
1. Discuss the tone colour of this piece? (e.g. what instruments are used? Are
they acoustic or amplified?)
2. What is the texture of this piece - monophonic, homophonic or polyphonic?
3. What is the time signature of this song? Is the tempo slow (adagio), medium
(moderato) or fast (allegro)?
4. In the rhythm the accents are on beats 2 and 4- what do we call this type of
beat?
5. Discuss the structure of this song. How many sections are there?
6. Is the texture different for each section? If so, how?
7. How is pitch used in this song?
The 12-bar blues or blues changes is one of the most prominent chord progressions
in popular music. The blues progression has a distinctive form in lyrics, phrase,
chord structure, and duration. In its basic form, it is predominantly based on the IIV-V chords of a key.
12 Bar Blues
12 Bar
Blues
variations
Examples of 12 bar blues
Chuck Berry – Johnny B. Goode
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZFo8-JqzSCM
Led Zeppelin - Rock And Roll
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c1Hb9ABpyts