JonnaLP

The first folk music was played by the native americans. The music was played with different techniques and styles, but had a lack of polyphony and harmonies. That's why the music didn't develop into different genrers until the missing parts were filled in by the knowledge of new, african and european, musical culture.

It was during the Civil War of America (1861-1865) that the first "real" american sounding music started to develop. It was then, when indigenous people were brought together in the army with immigrants and traded cultural experiences. It was not only the music, but also art and literature that grew in America during the Civil War and the time following it, because there was an awakening where the writers and composers focused on creating works with an american theme, exposing the pride of their nationality. The roots of popular music like jazz, gospel, blues and country were starting to take shape during this period, and later on they would develop into musical styles like RnB (Rythm and Blues), hip hop and rock'n'roll music.

In 1892 music became a big business and music publishers started to rent offices, especially in New York City, around 28th and 27th Street. This area was later named "Tin Pan Alley", but the origin of the name is unclear. This area contained music publishers and songwriters that dominated the popular music in the U.S.A during the late 19th century and the early 20th century. 106 million records were sold yearly by 1921 in the United States. Most of them were published on Tin Pan Alley, but you could already then notice that the market was shifting towards the record companies.

World War I did not, surprisingly enough, affect the record industry. Unfortunately, you can't say the same thing about the following time, the so called Great Depression, that devastated the record industry as people stopped spending because there was suddenly no interest in new ideas. The record sales collapsed, only 6 million records were sold in the U.S.A.

Recovery was on its way though. In 1939 the visual jukebox was invented, that played short films of records. You can say that the first music videos now were founded. A more important happening the same year was the beginning of World War II. The war fostered an economic boom that indirectly helped the music develop in different directions. The first disc jockeys followed the American troops abroad that lead to spreading of music. The first case of mass exposure by blues singers also took place during this period thanks to a radio station in Arkansas.

At the end of the war the United States was electrified, not only because of winning the war, but also by the new electric instruments. Peace prevailed, and wealth was spreading, which gave people a new mood that also helped and formed the popular music.

America is known for creating new methods of cultural expression by mixing influences from around the world. That's why the country often is called a cultural melting pot. Irish music arrived to the United States through immigration, and african music through slavery. It was when african slaves from different tribes who lived and worked together shared their musical traditions that things really started to happen. They brought the music out on the working-fields to make the tough slavery a bit lighter by singing about the pain that it caused, and singing spirituals, expressions of religious faith. Combined with shouts, this was the birth of a new musical style, blues. The lyrics of a blues song is often about the singers problems or unhappiness, and the name "blues" comes from the expressions in the blue mood, feeling blue, and blue notes that means sad.

Country is the white correspondence to blues. It's a mixture of different forms of music from the southstates, its roots are from celtic folk music, blues and gospel (that just like the blues is a development of the work-songs sung by the black slaves during the 19th century). By the second World War, country was still bound to the southstates, but two happenings in the middle of the 1940's increased the spreading dramatically. The first thing that happened was that the radiostations of the U.S.A had a conflict with an organisation called ASCAP (American Society for Composers) that until then had had the monopoly of looking after the rights of the composers. The members of ASCAP were "decent" composers like Irvin Berlin and Cole Porter for example, and country wasn't good enough for the organisation. The radiostations answered the requirements by founding BMI. This new organisation got heaps of members, especially musicians who composed country, and under the ten months long conflict the radiostations only played BMI music.

Right after the war, country had gained a real popularity among the people, and 65 record companies produced country music in the United States. One of the most important records that were produced was Move It On Over, the first record by Hank Williams, that often is said to be the gratest stylist when it comes to country. During his short, but very successful career, he wrote a lot of songs that became standards in country and later on also rock. He influenced country for good, and is said to be the link between country and white rock&roll.

In the beginning of the 50's the majority of the people listened to hit songs (schlager). The artists sang without feeling, like they had a lack of life experience, and the songs were greasy. Most of the songs were produced on the Tin Pan Alley, where they worked with creating "nice" songs to an audience as wide as possible. The lyrics about love were romantic like in magazines, and any sexual life didn't occur in these songs. You weren't able to dance to this music either, it wasn't possible. The hit songs of this time didn't touch body or soul, nor heart or brain. They absolutely didn't want to disturb the idyllic welfare that was developing in the white U.S.A.

There was one option though, Alan Freed, a white disc jockey from Cleveland who commonly is credited with inventing the word "rock'n'roll", had a radioprogram called the "Moondog Rock'n'Roll Party" that broadcasted black music (R&B) to an audience of white teenagers. So while the middle class of the United States listened to the pleasant and peaceful music that was made on Tin Pan Alley, a whole new world of sound that literally was going to disintegrate on the old world of ordered notes was being created

After different events, like the invention of electric instruments, you could notice a change in many bands, where the basic instruments went to being drums, double bass (the electric basses didn't come into style until the 60's, which is confirmed in old Elvis Presley movies) and one or two electric guitars or a piano. Although, Rock'n'Roll was only almost finished by 1950, as a variant of Rythm'n'Blues. The breakthrough didn't come until 1955, and there are a few explinations to this. The first one is that the artists were black while the buyers were white. The black people were making the most exiting music but it was the white ones that had the money, which was a huge issue because the U.S.A still was a largely racially-divided country back then.

Another reason why rock music didn't break through until 1955 was that the songs were about dancing, sex and youth, and all the babies that were born in the 30's weren't old enough until then, and they hadn't any money. This changed later on thanks to the welfare after the Depression and World War II. The teenagers got also a better education that gave a maturity that collided with the popular music (the hit songs). Though, the main reason to the delay of the breakthrough was the rasism, it was not likely that a white teenager would worship a black artist at this time.

What the music industry needed was a white artist with the right songs and with the right style and attitude, and when Sam Phillips founded Sun Records in Memphis, he made the very famous statement: "If I could find a white man who sings with the Negro feel, I'd make a million dollars".

1952 Bill Haley formed his band, the Comets, which can be considered the first rock'n'roll band. 1954 he wrote the first rock song ever that was used in a movie soundtrack. This song was Rock Around The Clock, and it turned rock'n'roll into a nation-wide phenomenon. Haley had yet a pretty short career. This depends much on his age, he was almost 30 years old, 10 years older than the average age of the listeners, which resulted in that the youth couldn't identify with him. The financial power of the youth walked hand in hand with sexual liberation. Also, his music was still not as popular as the record companies hoped. It was too white.

When Sam Phillips met Elvis Presley his dreams came true. He had finally found the right man, a white one that could sing black music. He gained a huge popularity and fame, and became a successful protoype for the other musicians to follow. He recorded songs that are popular still today, Can't Help Falling In Love (1961), Love Me Tender (1956), Jailhouse Rock (1958) and Don't Be Cruel (1956) are just a very few of them. Sam Phillips marketed him as a juvenile criminal, as Elvis didn't write the majority of his songs. He was robbing hits from black musicians. But let's not believe that Elvis got his success only by using other people, he did actually create a new style of rock called "rockabilly", where the singer sang in a hiccuping and stuttering manner as he was accompanied by a small combo of frantic guitars and slapping bass. Rockabilly songs were stimulated bursts of lust.

Chuck Berry's first recording session was the real musical event of 1955. He was the first one to use the guitar as the lead instrument, and he was the first major composer of rock'n'roll, not just a interpreter. At that time he didn't get so much attention as he should have, for he was black. Today he's a legend and a cult item, because he invented the kind of rock'n'roll that would rule for the following 50 years.

White rockers started to grow more and more, and soon they were tolerated by the recording industry. They started to write their own songs and didn't sing songs made by professional songwriters anymore. The guitar took over the piano, and rock'n'roll became a guitarbased genre. Rockers were expected to swing a guitar in front of them. The lyrics also changed among all rockers, though black singers continued singing about realistic things like the life in the street, in the ghetto, in the plantation and in jail, like the bluesmen, they only shaped the stories in a modern way so that the youth of America could connect with it.

Rockers wrote songs that where sarcastic, erotic and violent because this was a teenager's view of the world. Rock'n'roll made fun of the establishment and stars, and got young people searching for an identity, which was a process that was parallel to the evolution of rock music that would continue for decades. Music became like a messageboard and more than entertainment. It became a revolutionary tool for the youth of the United States.

Own Thoughts

After writing this essay I'm convinced that rock, and music in general, have had a great importance in the history and the shaping of, not only the american society, but also the majority of the industrialized countries. Thanks to rock'n'roll the teenagers (and other people too ofcourse) started to think and got the courage to express themselves in a way that before weren't appropriate. People got more independent, tolerant and free which lead to selfknowledge and selfconfidence etc.

In the beginning the black music was much more original and poweful than white music, but here I believe that Elvis Presley played a huge role because, even if he didn't write most of his songs himself, he showed the world that not only black people can make magic happen when it comes to music. He put the white rockers on the map and made them tolerated. After Elvis white rockers even got promoted by the major record labels, also called the "majors". I think that due to Elvis Presley's succsess more white rockers got more confident, and dared to experiment more with the music they made, and suddenly somebody invented something new, something that people liked. This helped the white rockers even more.