The Origins of Rock Music - Essay Example

The origins of Rock music can be explored through the attempts to understand the natural development of musical styles. A musical genre such as rock and roll does not simply come out of the music scene. It evolved from the moment a performance introduces a breakthrough which the audience perceived and admired due to its uniqueness. The best thing about rock music is that it is not limited to being a musical genre but some even consider it as a way of life, it is also known as a movement, a lifestyle, a culture and has the possibility of being an ideology. Rock and roll is a tradition and in its many faces can be considered a belief system. "Rock 'N Roll" is a musical genre whose 'golden age' is usually recognized as the decades of the 1950's and 1960's. This musical form had its beginnings in the blues tunes, gospel music, and jazz-influenced vocal music that became popular among African-American audiences after World War II. A new kind of blues, it featured electrically amplified guitars, harmonicas, and drummers that emphasized afterbeats. (Gillet, 62) At the same time, black gospel music grew in popularity. These forms of black popular music were given the label rhythm and blues (R and B) and were played on big-city radio stations. Radio spread this music's appeal from black communities to towns throughout all of the United States. By the mid-1950's such performers as Little Richard, Joe Turner, and Chuck Berry were becoming popular with white audiences. Radio disc jockeys began calling their music rock 'n roll. "Rock 'N Roll" is a musical genre whose 'golden age' is usually recognized as the decades of the 1950's and 1960's. This musical form had its beginnings in the blues tunes, gospel music, and jazz-influenced vocal music that became popular among African-American audiences after World War II. A new kind of blues, it featured electrically amplified guitars, harmonicas, and drummers that emphasized after beats. (Ennis, 77) By remembering those Classic rock days, one can imagine the early days of the newly introduced, then, rock and roll. Many revisited this time of classic rock through its depiction in movies, anthologies at publications. The early years of rock and roll is depicted by the jukebox in the fabulous fifties. Those were the days when life was plain and simple and the birth of a start named Elvis Presley and the emergence of the love songs that touched the hearts of women. The 50's remarkably gives us an overview of Classic Rock from this stems the succeeding versions and styles of rock and roll. There was a historic demarcation line to distinguish the 70's from the 50's. The musicians from the 70's were able to sing the song of Dylan and Elvis although most people preferred the song from the 70's than the "old" songs. The music of the fifties has very good rhythm although it lacks political and social themes which attracted the people during the 70's. The people during this decade failed to see the energy, vitality and originality of rock and roll which remains incomparable to the other types of music. The premise of this work is that rock 'n' roll matters, and that it means what it says. It seems that rock 'n' roll music has seldom been given its due as an art form, that it is somehow relegated to a category of less "mature" or "serious" artistic pursuits by the media and the intellectual community (whatever that is). Some critics use the generic term "Pop" to refer to any popular music, including all contemporary rock musicians, as if the fact of rock 'n' roll's immense commercial success implies that it cannot really be taken seriously alongside, say, classical music, or even Jazz. Beyond artistic circles, rock 'n' roll is usually given even less credibility; the ideas and feelings and beliefs expressed and reflected in rock songs tend to be dismissed by non-fans, by the Establishment as a whole, as quaintly naive at best, childish and irrelevant at worst. What's even more disturbing is that these attitudes often seem to be held by fans of rock music themselves. We may still listen to the radio stations, dance and sing along to the old favorites or the new hits, but when we gather in serious intellectual or political forums, to share our views on the great issues and ideas of the day, we leave rock 'n' roll behind, back in the closet where old baseball gloves and Barbie dolls gather dust. Especially for the Baby Boom generation, which grew up on rock 'n' roll, and certainly took it seriously in youth, this desertion, or embarrassment, or hesitation, or whatever it is, casts a sad pall over approaching middle age: sure, in our youth we believed in all those great ideals, but that was when we were young and carefree; now we've got responsibilities, and well, it's just not so simple as all that. In defiance of this trend, and in view of the apparent retreats from idealism that have permeated the past decade or two, this book celebrates rock 'n' roll as a legitimate art form, and more, as a strong current in American and world culture, which contains a central and coherent ideology, as viable as any other ideology competing for primacy on the world intellectual stage. I present these themes as justification, and excuse, for examining rock 'n' roll music, history, personalities, and ideas from the standpoint of the unifying ideas and trends that have remained with rock from the beginning. What we of the rock generations lack, then, is not a belief system, or a serious foundation for political, social, and creative expression, but simply a willingness to accept that what we have is good enough. Believers in Socialism or Conservatism or Buddhism have no more coherent, sophisticated, or relevant conceptual system of how humans should interact, should respond to common problems and needs, and should understand their place in the universe. It's just that there are a lot more solemn, tedious books written about those ideologies, and their promoters don't typically gross $15-million on a world tour. So this book tries to be slightly more of the solemn variety, although not tedious, and certainly entertaining, in the tradition of the genre, despite its serious intent. It traces the sources of rock 'n' roll's meaning, the paths which that meaning has taken over time and the performers and events that have shaped it, and how rock 'n' roll has confronted the many and potent challenges that have faced its millions of followers throughout the past four decades. The most recent idea o rock music serves as something of an epilogue, diverging from the heavy discussions of political and ideological issues, to return to the most basic rudiments of the music: how it makes people feel. Since the dawn of the rock age, this music has taken on a crucial role that may have no substitute in the modern era; formal religion has waned as a source of inspiration and comfort, especially for young people, and in many serious respects rock 'n' roll has filled the void, providing a forum for shared experience that approaches the spiritual, and for examining deeper thoughts and questions that the superficial material world seems not to address. Whether the theme is teenage love or the existence of God, this music offers its adherents perhaps their best opportunity to look within themselves while reaching beyond. Through examples from recordings and personal reflection, the author attempts to amplify this transcendant aspect of rock 'n' roll music and culture. Central to the entire idea of rock 'n' roll as something larger than music or entertainment is the recurring theme of "changing the world," a seemingly naive but at the same time profound and vitally important notion that permeates nearly all aspects of rock history and tradition. This chapter tries to explain that concept, and to justify its relevance to wider political and social contexts. REFERENCES: Gilmore, Michael. Tangled Up in the Bible: Bob Dylan and Scripture. Continuum, 2004. Heylin, Clinton. Bob Dylan: The Recording Sessions 1960-1994. New York: St Martin's Press, 1995. Ennis, Phillip H. The Seventh Stream: The Emergence of Rock 'n' Roll in American Popular Music. University Press of New England, 1992 Gillett, Charlie The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll. Da Capo Press, 1996. Read More