This course, part 1 of a 2-course sequence, examines the history of rock, primarily as it unfolded in the United States, from the days before rock (pre-1955) to the end of the 1960s. This course covers the music of Elvis Presley, Chuck Berry, Phil Spector, Bob Dylan, the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, Jimi Hendrix, Cream, and many more artists, with an emphasis both on cultural context and on the music itself. We will also explore how developments in the music business and in technology helped shape the ways in which styles developed. Rock emerged in the mid 1950s as a blending of mainstream pop, rhythm and blues, and country and western--styles that previously had remained relatively separate. This new style became the music of the emerging youth culture and was often associated with teen rebellion. We will follow the story of how this rowdy first wave of rock and roll (1955-59) was tamed in the early 60s but came roaring back with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones and then went psychedelic by the end of the decade.
Sweet Soul
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From the course by University of Rochester
History of Rock, Part One
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From the lesson
The Demise of Rock and the Promise of Soul (1959-63)
Was this era the dark ages for rock music or was it a golden era cut short by the British invasion? The music of teen idols, the folk revival, early surf music, sweet soul, rockabilly pop, and girl groups. The Brill Building songwriters and the rise of the producer. Playlets and splatter platters.
Meet the Instructors
John CovachProfessor of Music and Director
Institute for Popular Music
When I said before that there were people who, there are people who believe that
this period from 1960 to 1963 is a kind of a golden period.
Those people usually argue for the genius of Phil Spector as a producer, and what
he was able to do with creating these big kinds of sounds in the recording studio
that were bigger than anything you could get live.
They, they used the recording studio as it's own kind of instrument and they see
that as a fantastic you know move forward for the business.
Now, it wouldn't be fair to say that gets cut short by the British Invasion,
because if anything when Brian Wilson and the Beatles started to get a hold of the
recording studio, and have the ability to start trying to do some of the kinds of
things they, they wanted to be able to do, if anything, they built on Phil
Spector's work and, and become sort of students and and followers of Phil
Spector in sort of using the recording studio as an instrument.
But another style that people will often say that cut short by the arrival of the
British invasion is the style called sweet soul.
and the argument usually runs, that if you had something that was going on that
was great there it was a form of African American music that was crossing over big
time onto the pop charts. It had a lot of subtlety.
It had a lot of sophistication. And in come these British guys with the
matching haircuts, and the matching suits, and the accents, and the guitars,
banging around with She Loves You, and I want to Hold Your Hand.
And that was just much cruder than, than what some of these sweet soul artists
were doing. And you decide for yourself what you
think about that, but what I want to do is just give you an idea of what was
going on with sweet soul, and how that whole style fits together.
the roots of sweet soul probably go back to people like Nat King Cole and Johnny
Mathis. That is kind of crooner type Black
singers who were singing songs that were more sort of adult romantic kind of tunes
than teen teen kinds of songs. So good examples of that maybe, might be
Nat King Cole's track from 1958 called Looking Back or Johnny Mathis from 1957
singing Chances Are or Misty from 1959. Beautiful ballads, very much in the old
kind of, probably very much more in the old kind a sort of Frank Sinatra, Dean
Martin, song stylist tradition but without the big band instead maybe with
more of a kind of a orchestral backing. We also want to look at somebody like Sam
Cook. Sam Cook's an interesting guy because
his, his, his roots were in Gospel music and he's a, he's a good example of
somebody who, who moved from gospel to pop, but felt very conflicted about it
and it was kind of a controversial thing for him to do.
For a lot of the reasons last week we talked about Little Richard, gospel being
God's music and rock and roll or pop being the devil's music.
It draws people away from the church and into saloons and bars and this kind of
thing. But he, he did make the transition away
from gospel and in 1957 had a number one hit with You Send Me, continued to have
hits in to the early 1960's. Another Saturday Night was a number nine
hit for him in 1963. But he died tragically in a was a, was
murdered in fact in 1964 in a, in a, in a motel some kind of a dispute over a woman
or some kind of thing like that never been entirely clear to me.
There was a lot of, shrouded in a little bit of mystery for a while there.
But whatever, he died, he died too young, but was a fantastic voice that that, that
was really one of the sort of pioneers in this sweet soul sound.
But, the sweet soul sound really starts to come together as a genre when Leiber
and Stoller get a hold of it and start to blend R&B music with classical strings
and Latin rhythms. The first one of these, I promised in the
last video that we would talk about, is There Goes My Baby, a number two hit in
1959. You know, When There, when There Go,
There Goes My Baby was finished and Leiber and Stoller brought it to Jerry
Wexler, who, at that time, was, running the show at Atlantic Records.
Or, well, running a lot of the show at Atlantic Records at the time, Wexler
didn't think they should release it. Because it sound, it had these R&B things
going on in it that sounded very, sort of, doo wop.
And then it had these classical. And not only classical strings, but
little sort of melodic figures in the center of it that sound like they could
be coming from late 19th century Russian nationalist music by somebody Mussorgsky
or Borodin or Tchaikovsky or somebody like that.
And he thought, you know, he, he, he thought it was such a blend of two
different styles that it was, it would be, nobody would like it.
The classical fans wouldn't like it, and the R&B fans wouldn't like it, and so he,
his famous remark was, as far as he was concerned, There Goes My Baby sounded
like a radio that was stuck between two channels.
A classical channel and an R&B channel. He didn't like it at all.
but Lebron Stoler said listen, you know, this is the song, release it, and they
were right. It was a number two hit and a big, big
hit not only for the Drifters but also sort of launched the career of Benny King
who was a lead singer in the group at that time.
You can probably, over the course of the time that we're studying the history of
rock, we're going to see a growing of musical ambition.
We're going to see musicians increasingly wanting to do more ambitious things with
the music, make it into better music. Maybe become less and less satisfied with
the idea that pop is disposable music that they want to create something more
of lasting value. And you can start to see the beginnings
of this ambitions in There Goes My Baby. And we'll follow this story forward over
the next several weeks as we, as we talk about the development of Rock and Roll
through the 60s. And then in part two into the 70s and
80s. I mentioned before Ben E King.
Ben E King sang with the Drifters for a little while longer after There Goes My
Baby but then he split off to be a solo act and was replaced by a fellow named
Rudy Lewis with the Drifters. So there were really two acts that Leiber
and Stoller were, were working with. They were working with Ben E King as a
solo act and the Drifters, as a group act.
With, with Ben E King they had hits with Spanish Harlem which was a number ten hit
in 1961 and Stand By Me, a number four hit in 1961, both of those having a
little bit of that kind of Latin vibe. So, it's kind of R&B meets Latin music
meets sort of classical strings. The Drifters Up On the Roof from 1962 a,
a number five hit on the pop charts, On Broadway from 1963 a number nine hit on
the pop charts and that again with Rudy Lewis singing lead.
So as I said before, if you're an advocate of this period it's probably
because you think this style of sweet soul was such a, such a fantastic
blending of R&B with a kind of classical sophistication with some Latin elements.
It was sort of sophisticated, understated perhaps but very expressive.
So, you decide for yourself what you think about that.
In the meantime, let's move on to TV, the movies, and dance crazes during this
period.
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