Rock & Roll Defined

Rock & Roll music vs. Rock music

First, I’d like to define rock & roll as I use the term. Rock & roll to me, is different from “rock music”. To me rock & roll is specific to a time period starting roughly in the late 1940s, growing throughout the early fifties and peaking in the years 1955 to 1959, a “Golden Age of Rock & Roll” if you will, and then peaking again 1962-64 and then slowly giving way to the newer sounds of the mid-sixties.

There is a specific sound that the rock & roll period has exclusive to the 50s and early 60s. This period has a certain sound because of a combination of the vintage recording technology of the period, the way the band was recorded (using few and simple mike arrangements and baffles), the easy quick song structure (usually under three minutes)  and the upbeat tempos.

Rock & Roll lasted, starting roughly in 1949, lasting a good 15 to 20 years if you count the “doo-wop” (Vocal R&B) wing of rock & roll, which later peaked in 1961 to 1963 before morphing into “soul”. The resurgence of rock & roll brought out by the British Invasion in 1964 both helped and hurt the existence of good “old time” rock & roll. Then in 1965 true “old time” rock & roll gave way to the many new forms of “rock music” (like folk rock, garage rock and blues rock, etc.)

Rock music, as I know it, is a new genre coming out of rock & roll starting around 1965. A further distinction between rock music starting in the mid-sixties and rock & roll music of the late fifties is that the music is much happier and peppier, you can’t help but be happy or at least distracted by the catchiness of the sound. In most cases, it is hard to maintain sadness with a 50’s style rock & roll song,

 

The Term: Rock & Roll

The term, rock & roll, or rocking and rolling originally was a euphemism which meant engaging in sex. Or it could have also meant the movement of the members of a gospel church when it is in full swing, rocking and rolling from side to side or a dance movement during an upbeat R&B tune, whatever makes you comfortable, right?

The term turns up in a lot of other musical genres like R&B, gospel, blues and swing jazz going back to the 20’s. The term rock & roll turns up as a song title for the Boswell Sisters in 1937, and a Sister Rosetta Tharpe song called “Rock Me”,  and also “The Rock & Roll Inn”. Rock & roll was also the name of a music venue in New Jersey,  in Cleveland radio disc jockey Alan Freed coined the phrase “Rock & Roll” to describe a backbeat type music popular in the black community called rhythm & blues (R&B) music.

It is generally accepted that rock & roll had its “roots” in rhythm and blues or what was called “race music” (before Billboard Magazine started a category called “R&B” in 1948). However, rock and roll is really a big mix of music encompassing rhythm & blues (R&B) which contains “Rural blues” (Delta & Mississippi blues); “Urban blues” (Chicago & Electric blues); “Jump blues” (a la Louis Jordan);  Doo Wop or Vocal R&B;  “Gospel music” (specially Urban Contemporary Gospel and Southern Gospel) all mixed up and garnished with Rockabilly or elements of “hillbilly” folk music;  “Country & Western” (C&W) music; “Boogie Woogie” jazz and “Swing” Jazz, all rolled up in to one.

 

 

The Rock & Roll Band

Rock & roll was primarily made up of a band consisting of, but not limited to: a well coordinated vocal group or sometimes just an outrageous solo lead vocalist; a tinkling boogie-woogie and blues styled piano, sometimes as a lead instrument sometimes a rhythm instrument; a swinging  upright bass; an electric guitar, blues styled as a lead guitar or sometimes as a rhythm guitar;  a drummer,  using a definite backbeat rhythm accentuated by the snare drum; and the spicing on the cake one blaring tenor or alto saxophone usually as the lead instrument or with other horn instruments (trumpet, cornet, trombone, saxes) and rhythm instruments (conga, tambourine, maracas).

 

 The First Rock & Roll song

It is very hard to discern what was the first rock & roll record, this issue is subject to fierce debate and arguments with no real generally accepted specific one song (except maybe Rocket 88). There are many candidates such as but not limited to:

• Arthur Crudup “That’s Alright Mama” – 1946
• Roy Brown “Good Rocking Tonight” – 1947
• Wild Bill Moore “We’re Gonna Rock, We’re Gonna Roll” -December 1947
• Muddy Waters “I Can’t Be Satisfied” 1948
• Amos Milburn “Chicken Shack Boogie” – 1948
• Stick McGhee and His Buddies “Drinkin’ Wine Spo-Dee-O-Dee” – 1949
• Wild Bill Moore “Rock and Roll” – 1949
• Goree Carter’s “Rock Awhile” -April 1949
• Jimmy Preston’s “Rock the Joint” – July 1949
• Fats Domino’s – “The Fat Man” – January 1950
• The Dominoes “Sixty Minute Man” – December 1950
• Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (which were really Ike Turner and The Kings of Rhythm) “Rocket 88” (which has a bit of consensus) -April 1951
• Fats Domino “Goin Home” – 1952
• Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thorton “Hound Dog” – 1952
• The Crows “Gee” – 1953
• Bill Haley and His Comets “Crazy Man Crazy” – 1953
• Ray Charles “Mess Around” – 1953
• Big Joe Turner – “Shake, Rattle & Roll” – 1954
• The Chords “Sh-Boom” – 1954
• Bill Haley & the Comets “Rock Around the Clock” -1954