Coming out in the mid 1950’s the genre of Rock and Roll had featured in the United States. Being a combination of “black culture and white spending power” the sounds we all know and love had come to form. The hard-driving, blues rhythmic of rock and roll was notably claimed by Alan Freed, he was amongst the few to say their music on the radio was rock and roll. But lets be real, we all know who was the face of rock and roll, none other than The King himself, Elvis Presley.
Now Rock and roll always had a sense of sexuality, and Presley the handsome young man he was sure had some of that sense in his music. But it wasn’t merely his devilish looks and seductivemusic that helped rock and roll become what it is, it was that he was the merger for both black and white people to go past their, problems and issues, and just rock out and listen to music. It also helped black singers fit with “rockabilly” performers, who were generally white. The unique merger also went off to appeal to one great audience, American teenagers, because let’s face it parents and adults didn’t really listen to music then, like really, really listened.
As Rock and Roll began to hit the big screen, being played in movies; that had key characters that marked defiance, it started becoming something new for these teenagers. It started to become a s symbol of rebellion, and defiance. With this newfound attitude, many parents, and religious folk began calling it the “devils music”.
Needing to find a way to amend the backlash to what Rock and Roll gotten, the music industry chose to have less risqué versions of previous songs re-recorded but they were done so by different artists. This led to a change of Rock and Roll, because by now it was closer to the end of the 50’s and Presley was in the army and other artists either died or changed their genres. The once was feeling of rock and roll changed into something different, the music seemed more planned and more thought out. Now it is more considerably known as just Rock, and not so much with the roll.
To listen to some tunes click HERE to see the Spotify playlist with many popular songs from the beginning of rock and roll. (feel free to add some songs too)
Cliffs 