Rock 'n' Roll in the 1950s: A Period of Cross Pollination

The decade of the 1950s was the period of the birth of rock 'n' roll, but it was also one os such intense cross pollination that it is often difficult to stylistically distinguish, even within the genre of rock 'n' roll, one music from another. Early rockers all imbued their music with a certain spirit that makes the music immediately identifiable as rock 'n' roll but, in fact, elements of many existing and diverse styles are embodied in the music. The 1950s and early 1960s is a period in which the work of white and black musicians is often stylisitically indistinguishable. Among the stylistic influences in the music are Blues, Swing, Rhythm and Blues, Latin, Country, and Gospel, among others. Not only is this admixing of stylistic traits found in rock 'n' roll, but across all the contemporary popular styles!

The Transition from Blues and Jump Band Swing to Rock 'n' Roll: Bill Haley, Chuck Berry, et al
Some authors on rock 'n' roll define thye two basic characteristics of rock 'n' roll as being the relentless background eighth-note pulse and topics that address some aspect of life other than love. Or, if they address love, it is as a secondary topic. In Chuck Berry's "Maybelline," for example, his cheating girlfriend is in the other man's car, but the real story is found in his pitting his 'common-man's' Ford against the rich man's Cadillac. It is a story of class warfare, and the girlfriend is an aside, simply as the spoils of class warfare.

These characteristics are certainly important components of rock 'n' roll, but there are many other influences that would seem to contradict, or partially contradict, the text-book definition. In fact, spirit or attitude can be as important in identifying rock 'n' roll as any single musical characteristic. In a nutshell adressed to society, "I'm not going to do what you want me to..."

The perception of a piece of music as being in the rock 'n' roll style can also depend in part upon the original marketing of the product or a later assessment by a music critic. Hence a piece that is actually more Blues than anything else is labled as rock 'n' roll, music that is clearly in the rock 'n' roll style might be considered in some forums a Blues piece, a rock 'n' roll piece that is otherwise indistinguishable from another migth be called "rockabilly," a rock 'n' roll or Blues piece might be pidgeon-holed as Country, or a piece in a popular style which contains more Latin influence than any other might be labeled as a rock 'n' roll piece.

One characteristic of rock 'n' roll music that seems to cut across the stylistic differences is energy. Energy figured as an important component in the jump bands that began to emerge at the end of World War II. The jump band was Swing's reaction to the economic realities of modern times and the incursion made upon the economic viability of the Swing band by the recording industry. Jump bands retained the same instrumentation as the Swing band, but in fewer numbers of players. Instead of a section of horns, only one horn player was retained.

Later bands, in the transition to rock 'n' roll, would embrace the instrumentation of urban Blues, guitar(s), upright bass and later electric bass, drum set, and sometimes piano or harmonica. The period of the 1950s saw an intense cross-pollination, and pidgeon-holing any piece of music from the period becomes difficult if not meaningless. Almost any song could be identified at once as belonging to more than one catagory, so that a "blues" song could also be equated with "rockabilly," "rock 'n' roll," or, in some cases, even "Doo wop." Almost all the music retained blues characteristics though across the board energized as the blues had not been, by the in-your-face attack of the jump bands.

The guitar parts of the 1950s music were clearly derived from Blues, but began to change in character. The guitar parts started to lose the bluesy field-holler structure and instead began to present a kind of more formal yet somewhat nonsensical and joyous, at least in terms of the field holler or traditional European concepts of melody, concept of mayhem. This change started to become evident as early as the lead work of Junior Barnard, one of Bob Will's Texas-swing band members, and was common enough in many Blues pieces by black artists in the 1950s, as well. By the appearance Bill Haley and Chuck Berry, the new lead work had become almost an institution. Berry, of course, developed his own distinctive and imitated rendition of the guitar lick. Haley and Berry also sang about other topics than love, rejoicing in the new anarchy of their music.

Chuck Berry

Bass Devices in Jump Band Music, Rock 'n' Roll, and Country: Barrelhouse Walks and Ostinati
"Barrelhouse walks" and ostinati have been an important component of American popular music from the late 1930s to the present. The ostinato is a simple, secondary melody that is repeated in the bass part over which another, primary melody is sung or played. The "barrelhouse" walk is actually a very American osinato so named for the place of its inception, makeshift African American bar rooms in which the bar was made by placing a plank of wood across two barrels.

The first barrelhouse walk on the audio example is the granddaddy of them all. It appeared in the Blues in the late 1930s, just before Muddy Waters brought his ideas about urban Blues to fruition. This walk, found as the second example on the aduo track, was simplified and absorbed into Country music, where it is still very much alive. Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces" utilizes this walk.

The third walk is another Blues walk, but the listener with keen ears can relate it immediately as something one might find in the music of Led Zeppelin. The last tracks are also Blues walks, but we equate them today more with rock 'n' roll than Blues, as in the Chuck Berry tracks on your CDs. A primary difference between Blues and Rock 'n' roll is, of course, the supercharged energy level of the latter. This energy as well as some use of ostinati was absorbed from the jump bands at the end of the Swing era. Jump band music might very well be the birth-spark of rock 'n' roll.

Although ostinati have been in use since the early 1600s and the principle of it dates to the ninth century, more mature ostinati did not appear in American popular music until the 1950s and 60s. You'll recognize them all. The second track is actually a modified version of the first! "In-a-Godda-da-Vida" is probably the jump off point for heavy metal.

Rock 'n' Roll's First Icon: Elvis
Rock 'n' roll's best-known and important icon is, of course, Elvis Presley. Rather than recite Elvis' biographical information, which is readily available, I would rather conduct a brief survey of some of his music for the influences it contains, and perhaps to demonstrate why he was "the King." There is an antedote "before anyone else did it, Elvis did it." This assessment is probably accurate if the one adds the qualifier "on a commercial level" to it. Elvis is not the roots of rock 'n' roll; rather the barriers he overcame were social. The earlier music is more authentic and vital than later releases, and this fact is the function of both the social context and the evolution of the money machine. Like Louis Armstrong, the living Elvis would go from being the icon of a time to being the living icon of the icon past. The stint in the Army and British invasion cut short the period of Elvis' musical vitality, but the quality of early work before military service and immediately after it deserves the accolades it still collects. And unlike other celebrities, Elvis earned his place as 'King' and did not have to die prematurely to be considered as one of the true greats.

Elvis

Evident in nearly all of the early music is, not surprisingly, the influence of the Blues. Sam Philips, who owned a small recording studio in Memphis called Sun Records, had an instinct that the world of popular music was ready for a white singer "who could sing like a black [singer]." Elvis fit the bill. Philips had other visions, as well, and they included Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Roy Orbison, and Johnny Cash. Very few early entrepreneurs or music studios can boast a similar success rate.

In the early Elvis songs, there are also strong features drawn from other contemporary styles of music or earlier times. The hybridiztion is evidence of the lesson that all segments of the music industry was learning as it grew: slick sells. Elvis' producers gave careful consideration to the product and its handling. The incorporation and hydribization of elements from across the popular music spectrum guaranteed that the songs would be mainstream, as appealing as possible to as large a young audience as possible, and stylistically neutral except with regard to Elvis' singing. Despite the efforts to homogenize the music, Elvis' greatness shines thorugh in the early works. He would later fall victim to the process as, in the later years, he sang truly forgettable, cute, production-line songs produced by the studios in movies that are truly forgettable to all but Elvis worshipers. The authorship of the early songs is quite diverse and ranges from revamped American folksongs ("Aura Lee") to songs composed in the Tin Pan Alley tradition (Leiber and Stoller's "Hound Dog").

Comments on Some of Elvis' Music
"Heartbreak Hotel" is a Blues that features that features two strong jazz elements--the stop-time singing in the first part of the stanza and the walking jazz bass, played on acoustic stand-up bass, in the second. The guitarist on the track was not Elvis' trusted early accompanist Scooty Moore, but rather Chet Atkins playing is a style that sounds more like Moore than the styles we have come to associate with Atkins!

"Hound Dog" and "It's Now or Never"were recorded with quite a few years separating them. "Hound Dog" is clearly a Blues, and "Now or Never" is a more formal and dleiberate pop piece. The character of the latter is not a surprise: it was composed and recorded during the Elvis-movies period. Despite the differences in surface characteristics, both songs are supported by the Cuban rumba. The Latin influences are immediately apparent in "It's Now or Never," and they were intented to add to the song's appeal, especially since tropical places were viewed at the time as dream locations where one could mingle with the jet-set hip. The Latin influences also gave needed variety among the releases of Elvis' singles. The ending of "It's Now or Never" is theatrical, bordering almost on operatic! The presence of the clave rhythm in the bass line of "Hound Dog" is the real surprise, since there is no other characteristic in the music that relates in any way to Cuban or Latin music!

"Love Me Tender" is a folk song related to American music of the nineteenth century. In fact, the melody is taken from a folk song called "Aura Lee," a song about, what else, unfulfilled love.

"Are you Lonesome Tonight?" gives the first impression of being another folk song, but the meter and the guitar accompaniment give away its true origins, the popular waltz song of the 1920s (i.e. "Take Me Out to the Ball Game").

"Hard-Headed Woman" is also a Blues, complete with blues and jazz-style stop time. The vocal delivery, however, is the machine-gun staccato of the "patter song" found in Sondheim's "Another Hundred People." Upon listening, one gets the impression that the song goes just a little faster than Elvis can enunciate.

"Good Luck Charm" owes its bass line to the "barrelhouse walks" found in the music of jump-band (Louis Jordan) and early urban blues Blues (Tampa Red). The borrowing is not direct, however, and the bass line's drive and meldoic structure has been softened in its use in contemporary "Nashville sound" country music. Patsy Cline's "I Fall to Pieces" uses the same type of walking bass, and contemporary examples are found in Vince Gill's "Take Your Memory with You" and the Dixie Chicks' "Tonight the Heartache's on Me."

"Wooden Heart" falls into the category of immigrant-influences popular song, the same music that furnished the model for the "waltz" song. "Wooden Heart" is clearly not a waltz, but it does have a decidedly deliberate German accent. Elvis might have been inspired by the time spent in Germany as a guest of the U.S. Army, but it is more likely a continuation of a type of "German" song that enjoyed peripeheral popularity in the 1950s. This type of song, and the use of the accordian, imparted along with the yodel into country music, as well as supplied the starting point for Tejano music. To this end, "In Heaven There is No Beer," a song most Pennsylvanians believe is the product of the best of Pennsylvania-Dutch culture but which is actually a Tejano anthem, exemplifies the blending of German and Mexican styles.

Elvis Presley performing in 1956