5.07 Conclusion – Content

Overview

In the early 1950s, many different threads came together to create the earliest rock and roll. Blending elements of gospel music, blues, popular song, hillbilly music, and rhythm and blues, artists such as Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, and Fats Domino wrote and recorded some of the earliest crossover hits. Soon, white artists such as Bill Haley and His Comets and Pat Boone began recording cover versions of black artists’ songs, most of which were more commercially successful than their black counterparts.

Objectives

Examine some of the musical characteristics of the earliest rock and roll hits and how these musical genres relate to earlier genres studied in the previous lessons such as blues, gospel music, rhythm and blues, and hillbilly music
Describe the technological changes and its impact in the music industry
Examine the influence of disc jockey Alan Freed
Identify various rhythm and blues artists
Examine some of the ways that white artists modified the music of black artists in their cover versions

Conclusion

Chuck Berry

Disc jockey Alan Freed began using the term "rock and roll" in the 1950s as a way to market rhythm and blues to a white audience. The invention of Top 40 radio and the increased availability of radios expanded the listening audience for rock and roll. Early rock and roll artists such as Chuck Berry, Ray Charles, Fats Domino, Big Joe Turner, and Little Richard combined elements of earlier rhythm and blues with country and western music, the 12-bar blues, and new advances in instrument amplification. Although some of these artists did achieve commercial success, their sales were dwarfed by white artists’ cover versions of their songs. In the next lesson, we will look at the most legendary rock and roll artist of all: Elvis Presley.

“Rock and roll was white kids trying to make black music and failing, gloriously!”

-Steven Van Zandt

“I had written a tune called 'Shake, Rattle and Roll,' but the white stations refused to play it - they thought it was low-class black music. We thought what we needed was a new name. But a white disc jockey named Alan Freed laid on it, and he thought up the name 'rock n' roll'.”

-Jesse Stone

"Bill Haley's cover of "Rock Around The Clock" was the original opening theme song for the TV show Happy Days from 1974 until 1976 when the theme was changed to "Happy Days.""

songfacts