Group questions

1. Group questions • What is the difference between rock ‘n’ roll and rock? • How has the role of recordings and performance changed with rock in comparison to other styles? • Make a list of rock music subject matter. Can you name any examples of altruism? • Describe the basic makeup of the rock band. Instruments/voices…. • Describe the vocal styles of rock singers.

2. What is the difference between rock ‘n’ roll and rock? • rock ‘n’ roll • essentially white music coming out of black rhythm-and-blues • essentially music to dance to • early-mid 1950s to late 1960s • rock • umbrella term covering many types of music • encompasses a broad spectrum of performing and arranging styles • outgrowth and expression of urban life and values [as country is of rural life and values]

3. How has the role of recordings and performance changed with rock in comparison to other styles? • Recording has taken precedence over the performance of the work. • Performances are now used to promote the recording. • The recording itself becomes the end product, the work of art.

4. Rock Subject Matter • Love, Romantic, Real-Life, and Altruistic • What are some examples of altruism in rock that have occurred since the 1980s? • Band Aid (1984) to raise money for the starving in Ethiopia • We Are the World album (1985) for the starving in Africa • “The Concert for New York City” (October 20, 2001) for the victims of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks • Others?

5. Other subject matter… Sex • censored and disguised in early rock ‘n’ roll • Overtly sexual lyrics were reintroduced by young British groups (e.g. Rolling Stones) in the 1960s, groups heavily influenced by American blues music and lyrics. Dissent • expressions of revolt not uncommon • identity as a vehicle of protest • Vietnam War songs of the 1960s and early 1970s • conditions of ghetto life

6. The Basic Makeup of the Rock Band • What three components make up rock’s signature sound? • human voice (amplified with microphone) • guitar(s) (nearly always electric); electric bass guitar • drum set • Optional: keyboard, saxophone, other

7. Vocal Styles • Rock singing is highly individual, but the heritage of the blues can be heard in the following vocal styles. • the shout • the cry • the groan • the use of falsetto • the mumbled slur

8. Rock’s Ties to Rhythm and Blues • “Good Rockin’ Tonight” performed by Wynonie “Blues” Harris (vocal) and his group. • an example of rhythm-and-blues that would have been played on black radio stations in large cities • recorded in 1947

9. What rhythm and blues elements can you identify in “Good Rockin’ Tonight”? • boogie-woogie bass • honking blues saxophone • shouting style of singing • backbeat (marked here with the clapping hands) • What is a backbeat? • heavy emphasis on beats two and four of every measure

10. Comparison • Compare “Good Rockin’ Tonight” (rhythm and blues) and “Rock Around the Clock” (rock and roll) • In both: rhythm and blues elements, twelve-bar blues form, boogie-woogie bass, backbeat, and saxophone • Who first recorded “Rock Around the Clock”? • Bill Haley and His Comets in 1954

11. What makes one song rhythm and blues and another rock ‘n’ roll? • audience • R&B: marketed to a black audience • R&R: marketed to a white audience

12. evolution from rhythm-and-blues to rock • Pre-1946 • Rock and roll is a common slang term in blues lyrics to refer to sexual intercourse. • 1946 • Billboard used the term to describe a record by Joe Liggins and His Honeydrippers, a Los Angeles rhythm-and-blues band. • 1951 • Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed began programming black rhythm-and-blues among white adolescents. • His early radio program was called “Moondog and the Rock and Roll Party.” • 1954 • Freed moved to New York. He begins referring to the music itself as rock ‘n’ roll. • By 1954 white groups were covering popular black rhythm-and-blues recordings. • White group Bill Haley and His Comets first record “Rock Around the Clock” in April. • Elvis Presley records “That’s Alright Mama,” covering black musician Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s song. Elvis’s version combined country with rhythm-and-blues contributing to the development of the rockabilly sound. • 1955 • Hollywood film Blackboard Jungle opened with “Rock Around the Clock” helping Haley to sell 17 million copies of the single. The song became a symbol of teenage rebellion. • 1956 • Elvis Presley covers “Hound Dog,” a Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton song. • Texan, Roy Orbison has an early hit with “Ooby Dooby.” • 1957 • Texan, Buddy Holly and the Crickets have their first of a string of hits with “That’ll Be the Day.” • 1964 • February 9, Beatles appear on the Ed Sullivan Show.

13. Reaching White Audiences Which two important mediums brought the music of largely segregated black Americans to white Americans? • radio • television Who was Allan Freed? • white disc jockey on Cleveland radio station WJW • credited as the first person to use the term “rock and roll” for music that was essentially rhythm and blues • brought the music of black Americans into the homes of white audiences What was the name of Freed’s radio show? • Moondog Rock ‘n’ Roll Party By 1956 there were 400 “black appeal radio stations.” Two of the most famous were: • WDIA (Memphis) • WLAC (Nashville)

14. The Influence of Country Music Early rock ‘n’ roll was virtually synonymous with rhythm and blues. What influences added to rock ‘n’ roll around the mid-1950s contributed to its emerging distinctiveness? • White country music What country music influences can be heard in Elvis Presley’s early recordings? • All five of his first releases on Sun Records (1954-1955) all combined one rhythm and blues song with one country song. • In the country songs, Elvis added rhythm and blues elements • In the rhythm and blues songs he added country and pop elements. • simple, unobtrusive strumming • absence of a heavy backbeat and rhythmic complexity

15. “That’s All Right” - a country-inflected rhythm and blues number. • What are the rhythm and blues elements? • the emotion-laden bluesy inflections in the voice • the occasional flourish on the electric guitar • the hint of a boogie-woogie bass in the background

16. Trends from the 1960s to the Present • Rock becomes an umbrella term for a broad variety of amplified musics marketed for young white audiences. What are some examples? • Folk rock, bubblegum rock, psychedelic rock, punk rock The Early 1960s • Emergence of “teen idols” exemplifying a groomed and packaged, wholesome, clean-cut look promoted or marketed as the new face of rock

17. What was the “British Invasion”? • American blues and rhythm-and-blues were cultivated by British youth and essentially reintroduced to America. • Beatles • February 1964: appearance on Ed Sullivan Television Show • Influences: • Chuck Berry • Carl Perkins • Buddy Holly • Rolling Stones • The survivors. • Influences: • Bluesmen Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf

18. The Beach Boys • Who formed the Beach Boys? • Brian Wilson (b. 1942) • What evidence suggests that the Beach Boys were one of the most experimental groups of the 1960s? • Pet Sounds (1966) • may be rock’s first concept album • an album conceived as an interrelated whole • “Good Vibrations” (1966) • has been called “one of rock music’s greatest masterpieces” contrasting soundscapes (NOT twelve-bar blues form) • instrumentation atypical of pop or rock: • organ, flutes, and theremin

19. What is a theremin? • electronic instrument invented by the Russian Leon Theremin (1896-1993) • a box with projecting antennas that are “played” by moving the hands closer or farther away, but never touching them The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” contrasting soundscapes polished vocal harmonies theremin