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.
Rhythm and Blues (Pre 1945)
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From the course by University of Rochester
History of Rock, Part One
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From the lesson
The World Before Rock and Roll (1900-1955)
The Role of Tin Pan Alley in mainstream pop, the formation of a national audience through radio and the rise of television, the pre-rock pop of Frank Sinatra, Patti Page, and Les Paul and Mary Ford; rhythm and blues in the years before rock and roll; country and western and the rise of Nashville.
Meet the Instructors
John CovachProfessor of Music and Director
Institute for Popular Music
Up to this point we've talked about the growth of mainstream pop music in the
period up to 1955. And we've talked about the development of
country music up to 1955 as well and the establishment of Nashville, Tennessee as
as the home of country and western music. Bringing together country and western,
and launching one of the first big stars of country music.
Hank Williams in the early, late 1940s, early 1950s.
We now turn to the third style that I promised at the very beginning of this
series, and that is the music of rhythm and blues.
Now, the first thing I think it's important to say about rhythm and blues
is that Rhythm and blues is a way of describing a market category.
It's a way of describing a demographic. Rhythm and blues was thought of as music
made by, and consumed by, African Americans.
It was music from and for black listeners and musicians.
but inside rhythm and blues, there are there's a lot of different kind of music
going on. So, you know, as a, as a sort of, you
know, musicologist it isn't so much a it, it is a stylistic label, but it's a
troubled one because its, its first definition seems to have to do with who's
making it and who's consuming it, as opposed to the musical qualities that it
has. Now of course, the musical qualities are,
are consistent and it is kind of stylistic, but it's just important to say
that that's a lot broader category than you might think just by looking at them.
Now, we've talked about the different charts and the different markets.
And when we get into 1945 and forward, we're going to think a lot about how
there were different charts that were for rhythm and blues music, for country and
Western music, and for mainstream pop. Mainstream pop being, by far the biggest
market sort of the, sort of the kind of the normative market, mainstream pop, and
these two other niche markets. country and western music, which was
originally called Hillbilly Records and rhythm and blues, which were really
called, which were originally called Race Records.
and, it's important, I think, to point out that people will say well, there's,
there's a certain amount of racism involved in this, and the truth is, I
think, that in fact there was, there was a lot of racism going on in the country,
but my experience is that people in the music business don't care so much about
white, or black, or brown, what they care about is green.
They will take anybody's money, and they'll make it wherever they can.
And so I don't think the music business is responsible for fostering this racism.
But it certainly is accepting it and trying to exploit it for all it's worth
by separating these charts out. And so rhythm and blues is, is separated
out, maybe a little bit more, well, probably a lot more drastically than
country and western is that we were talking about just now.
But, it is important to understand that these charts were divided for the
merchant's use and not really for the fans.
That is, when we start to talk originally about magazines like Billboard and
Cashbox, those weren't designed for fans to sort of buy and sort of see what the
big hits were. They were designed for people who ran
jukeboxes or eventually, for people who ran radio stations, for people who ran
record stores, so they could know what records were hot, so they could make sure
they had the records that everybody seemed to want to buy.
Had plenty of those on hand, but weren't stuck with a bunch of ones that nobody
wanted anymore. And so you had a service that tried to
provide a kind of a predictor, almost like a kind of a weather service for
sales and that's really what that was about.
And so, you know, from a pragmatic point of view, if you're, if you're in a black
neighborhood and you're selling R&B records and you, there's probably no
likelihood that white musicians and white customers are going to come in to buy
records from you, you don't really need to know what it is their going to like
because you don't need to have that product on hand and vice verse.
As rhythm and blues starts to emerge from our, in our historical consciousnesses in
the early 20th century, maybe one of the first important figures we're going to
think about is a guy by the name of WC Handy who sold a lot of sheet music
pre-World War One with songs like Memphis Blues and Saint Louis Blues.
But the first blues recordings we have date from the 1920s and the biggest star
of the 1920s, it's clear in blues music is a singer by the name of Bessie Smith.
Her Down Hearted Blues From 1923 sold over a million records.
Bessie's performances are maybe, if you don't know her music, they're a little
bit more polished than you might think would come from blues artists of the
1920s. We're so used to thinking of Delta Blues
and those, those, those recordings being a lot more sort of raw and rugged.
But these are, these are these are very and there is some very sophisticated
singing, and there's, you know, not much of the usual sort of guitar playing stuff
on it. But in the wake of, of Bessie Smith's
tremendous success people sort of think we'll let's, let's go out in the country
and see if we can find people who, who can do this blues music, and we can maybe
sell some records. and so, one of the most famous of these
musicians who's discovered during this period is Robert Johnson, another one of
these guys who died very young. died in 1938 at a at a very young age.
He's mostly associated with Delta or Rural blues.
Blues that came from the Mississippi Delta era, area, or, or, or from places
in the South that were not particularly built up or urban.
the music will often feature one singer, maybe there will be another person along,
with that, that singer, playing the guitar, maybe playing another instrument,
or banging, tapping their foot on the floor.
And so, that music tends to be very loose.
If a singer wants to add an extra beat or an extra measure or whatever like that.
No problem, they can just do it, as as the spirit moves them.
They don't have to worry about coordinating with other musicians.
So it's a very, expressive, sometimes very raw, sound,
And so Robert Johnson is really the, the true master of that.
Probably the song you need to know, at least the one that hooks up mostly with
what we're going to talk about in the history of rock, is his Cross Roads Blues
of 1936. Eric Clapton and Cream covered that tune
in the late 1960s. And Eric Clapton in many ways is
responsible for bringing to our attention the fantastic recordings of, of Robert
Johnson. Most of them that were done in a couple
of years. Right there, around 1936, there's also
kind of a fun story, which is almost certainly not true, that Robert Johnson
sold his soul to the Devil, to get his fantastic guitar playing skills, he met
him at the crossroads and made a deal with the Devil.
Anyway, colorful story but I don't think, it probably worked out like that.
At least, we have no historical evidence to prove that it's true.
As we go onto the 1940's and the war years.
Jump Blues starts to come in. Jump Blues is a form of big band jazz.
This, what's happens when you can't afford to bring all those horn players
around on the road anymore and you break it down to just a couple of horn players.
and you get this sort of Jump Blues style.
And nobody was better at jump blues during the 1940's than Louie Jordan and
His Tympani Five. And here's another case of a black artist
crossing over onto mainstream pop charts. those records of his Caldonia from 1945
and Choo Choo Ch'boogie from 1946 were big hits not only on the R&B charts but
also on the mainstream pop charts. Well, in the next video, we'll see what
happened with R&B in the time after World War II.
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