AFRICAN-AMERICANS CREATED ROCK & ROLL It is hard to believe, but there was once a time when there was no rock music. Most historians trace the beginning rock back to the year 1954, when a new type of music, then called Rock and Roll, appeared and revolutionized musical tastes, at least among young people, and pretty much changed the world. This new music, of course did not develop in a vacuum, but resulted from the convergence of two musical styles, Rhythm and Blues and Country, as well as a series of technological developments that created a new market for music. Like Jazz, Rhythm and Blues developed from the music called the Blues. The Blues, to review what you have already learned in the Jazz unit, grew out of African spirituals and work songs sung by African-Americans in the South. Many of these people had been brought to the United States as slaves, and before the Civil war they labored in difficult situations on the Southern plantations. Call and response was often used as a means of communication by the workers in the fields, who fooled the plantation owners into thinking that their music was the happy music of hard working slaves. Rhythm and Blues developed from the Blues, and Rock and Roll developed from Rhythm and Blues (R&B). Little Richard, one of the great innovators in 1950s rock music, has often said that Rhythm and Blues had a baby and somebody named it rock and roll. He, of course is absolutely right, and a number of important R&B artists were part of the beginning of Rock and Roll. Among them were Muddy Waters, Willie Mae Thornton, Joe Turner and Ray Charles.
Posted on: Mon, 15 Dec 2014 06:56:42 +0000
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