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Rock and Roll as Music, Rock and Roll as Culture
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17588 |
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MODERN THOUGHT
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7 / 1990 |
4,735 Words |
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Jack Santino
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Here we are, in the 1990s, and rock and roll music, in some form or other, is still the dominant popular musical form in the USA, and maybe the world. Who would have thought, almost forty years ago, when Big Joe Turner, Fats Domino, and Bo Diddley began having hit records that crossed over to the white charts, that rock and roll music would become the business and cultural force that it is today? Who would have thought, when Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock," or Hank Ballard and the Midnighters' "Work With Me Annie" were attacked for their supposed ill effects on youth, that a similar debate would be raging almost forty years later about songs and music that evolved and developed out of their efforts?
Rock and roll was seen as a menace to society by many in the fifties. Much of the reaction to the early crossover and cover hits was overtly racist. When a song intended for one market, such as blacks, becomes popular with another market, such as whites, it is called a crossover hit. When a song that has been recorded by one artist, for example, Little Richard, is rerecorded by another - for instance, Pat Boone - the re-recording is called a cover record. There were crossovers and covers of country and western material, but most of the early rock and roll crossovers did in fact go from the "race" or rhythm and blues charts to the pop charts. This meant an influx of black music on popular radio. Likewise, the cover records tended to be by whites of black artists' work. During the wave of rock and roll bashing and record smashing that began almost simultaneously with the music's sudden popularity, the very fact that much of the music was derived from black tradition was frequently raised as an issue. That the music had a beat, and that his syncopation was African American in origin, was pointed to as self-evident proof that the music was both inferior and corrupting.
On the other hand, rock and roll was also considered by many to be simply a fad, the latest in a long line of trivialities embraced by whimsical youth. This attitude continued well into the 1960s. The Beatles, for instance, were dismissed for years before it dawned on people that they were (1) not a fad, (2) important, and (3) good. It look a long time before adults figured out what the kids knew all along - rock and roll is here to stay.
The Origins of Rock and Roll
I remember seeing Elvis Presley on the Ed Sullivan Show in 1956. Although I was young, I knew who he was because my two older sisters had told me all about him. They were very interested in seeing him, and so was I. Watching him on television, I was fascinated by the performance and my sisters loved him, but my parents decided he was "on dope." "Look at his eyes!" my mother said, as if offering proof. Recently I was discussing Elvis with a colleague who also remembered seeing him on television for the first time. His story was identical to mine, right down to his mother's exclamation: "He must be on dope. Look at his eyes!" Actually, despite Presley's later addiction to drugs, at that time he was not "on" anything. But he managed to divide parents from children with his looks, his singing, and his stage movements. At that moment I 1956, a generation gap was created.
A similar thing happened in 1964, when the Beatles performed on the Ed Sullivan Show. Kids loved them and parents hated them - both their music and their appearance. In 1982, however, when Michael
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