Rock Music

I

Introduction

Rock Music, group of related music styles that have dominated popular music in the West since about 1955. Rock music began in the United States, but it has influenced and in turn been shaped by a broad field of cultures and musical traditions, including gospel music, the blues, country-and-western music, classical music (see Music, Western), folk music, electronic music, and the popular music of Asia, Africa, and Latin America (see Worldbeat). In addition to its use as a broad designation, the term rock music commonly refers to music styles after 1959 predominantly influenced by white musicians. Other major rock-music styles include rock and roll (also known as rock 'n' roll), the first genre of the music; and rhythm-and-blues music (R&B), influenced mainly by black American musicians (see African American Music). Each of these major genres encompasses a variety of substyles, such as heavy metal, punk, alternative, and grunge. While innovations in rock music have often occurred in regional centers—such as New York City; Kingston, Jamaica; and Liverpool, England—the influence of rock music is now felt worldwide.

II

Musical Elements

The central musical instrument in most kinds of rock music is the electric guitar. Important figures in the history of this instrument include jazz musician Charlie Christian, who in the late 1930s was one of the first to play the amplified guitar as a solo instrument; Aaron Thibeaux “T-Bone” Walker, the first blues musician to record with an amplified guitar (1942); Leo Fender, who in 1948 introduced the first mass-produced solid-body electric guitar; and Les Paul, who popularized the instrument in the early 1950s with a series of technologically innovative recordings. Rock-and-roll guitarist Chuck Berry established a style of playing in the late 1950s that remains a great influence on rock music. Beginning in the late 1960s a new generation of rock guitarists, including Jimi Hendrix, Eric Clapton, and Carlos Santana, experimented with amplification, feedback (a type of electronic sound distortion), and various electronic devices, extending the musical potential of the instrument.

Other instruments commonly used in rock music include the electric bass guitar (introduced by Fender in 1951); keyboard instruments such as the electric piano, organ, and synthesizer; and the drum set, an African American innovation that came into rock music from jazz and R&B music. Instruments that play important roles in certain rock-music genres include the saxophone—prominent in jazz-rock and soul music—and a wide assortment of traditional instruments used in worldbeat music. The microphone also functions as a musical instrument for many rock singers, who rely upon the amplification and various effects (such as echo) obtainable through electronic means.

Rock music also shares more complex technical aspects. Most rock music is based on the same harmonies as Western music, especially the chords known as tonic, subdominant, and dominant (see Harmony: Functional Chord Names). The chord progression (series of chords) known as the 12-bar blues is based on these chords and has figured prominently in certain styles, especially rock and roll, soul music, and southern rock. Other common harmonic devices include the use of a drone, or pedal point (a single pitch sustained through a progression of chords), and the parallel movement of chords, derived from a technique on the electric guitar known as bar-chording. Many elements of African American music have been a continuing source of influence on rock music. These characteristics include riffs (repeated patterns), backbeats (emphasizing the second and fourth beats of each measure; see Musical Rhythm: Pulse and Meter), call-and-response patterns, blue notes (the use of certain bent-sounding pitches, especially those related to the third and fifth degrees of a musical scale), and dense buzzy-sounding timbres, or tone colors.

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The musical form of rock music varies. Rock and roll of the late 1950s relied heavily upon 12-bar blues and 32-bar song forms. Some rock bands of the late 1960s experimented with more flexible, open-ended forms, and some rock bands of the 1970s developed suite forms derived from classical music. Another important formal development in rock music has been the so-called concept album, a succession of musical pieces tied together by a loose narrative theme.

Much rock music is performed at high volume levels, so the music has been closely tied to developments in electronic technology. Rock musicians have pioneered new studio recording techniques, such as multi-tracking—a process of recording different song segments at different times and layering them on top of one another—and digital sampling, the reproduction by a computer of the patterns of a particular sound. Rock concerts, typically huge events involving thousands of audience members, often feature high-tech theatrical stage effects, including synchronized lighting.

III

Historical Development

A

Rock and Roll

The first type of rock music, rock and roll, originated in the United States in the 1950s, and was largely derived from music of the American South. In the United States, the affluence that followed the end of World War II in 1945 and the emergence of a youth culture—based in part upon the rejection of older styles of popular culture—helped rock and roll to displace the New York City-based Tin Pan Alley songwriting tradition that had dominated the mainstream of American popular taste since the late 19th century (see Popular Music: Early 20th Century). Rock and roll was a combination of the R&B (rhythm-and-blues music) style known as jump blues, the gospel-influenced vocal-group style known as doo wop, the piano-blues style known as boogie-woogie (or barrelhouse), and the country-music style known as honky tonk.

During the 1950s the term rock and roll was actually a synonym for black R&B. Rock and roll was first released by small, independent record companies and promoted by radio disc jockeys (DJs) like Alan Freed, who used the term rock 'n' roll to help attract white audiences unfamiliar with black R&B. Indeed, the appeal of rock and roll to white middle-class teenagers was immediate and caught the major record companies by surprise. As these companies moved to capitalize on the popularity of the style, the market was fueled by cover versions (performances of previously recorded songs) of R&B songs that were edited for suggestive lyrics and expressions and performed in the singing style known as crooning, by white vocalists such as Pat Boone. The most successful rock-and-roll artists wrote and performed songs about love, sexuality, identity crises, personal freedom, and other issues that were of particular interest to teenagers.

Popular rock-and-roll artists and groups emerged from diverse backgrounds. The group Bill Haley and the Comets, which had the first big rock-and-roll hit with the song “Rock Around the Clock” (1955), was a country-music band from Pennsylvania that adopted aspects of the R&B jump-blues style of saxophonist and singer Louis Jordan. The unique style of Chuck Berry came from his experience playing a mixture of R&B and country music in the Midwest. The rock-and-roll piano style of Fats Domino grew out of the distinctive sound of New Orleans R&B, which also influenced singer and songwriter Little Richard. Rockabilly, a blend of rock-and-roll and country-and-western music, was pioneered by Memphis producer Sam Phillips, who first recorded artists Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins on his Sun Records label. The earthy style of guitarist Bo Diddley derived from the blues of the Mississippi Delta region. The standard four-piece instrumentation of rock bands (drum set and lead, rhythm, and bass guitars) was developed by Texas musician Buddy Holly, who produced his own studio recordings. From the urban North came the vocal style of doo wop, which influenced such vocal groups as the Chords, the Penguins, and the Platters.

The golden age of rock and roll, which lasted only five years, from 1955 to 1959, is exemplified by the recordings of Berry, Presley, Little Richard, and Holly. By the early 1960s, the popular music industry was assembling professional songwriters, hired studio musicians, and teenage crooners to mass-produce songs that imitated late-1950s rock and roll. In the early 1960s professional songwriters in Manhattan, New York, such as Carole King and Neil Sedaka, produced numerous hit songs, many of which were recorded by female ensembles known as girl groups, such as the Ronettes and the Shirelles. Also during this period, the role of the record producer was expanded by Phil Spector, a producer who created hits by using elaborate studio techniques in a dense orchestral approach known as the wall of sound.

Beginning about 1962, producer Berry Gordy expanded the crossover market (music by black performers purchased by white youth) with a number of hits for his Motown record company, based in Detroit, Michigan. Popular Motown groups included the Supremes (see Diana Ross), the Temptations, and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles (see Smokey Robinson). Other distinctive regional styles also developed during this period, such as the surf sound of the southern California band the Beach Boys and the urban folk music of the Greenwich Village movement—based in that neighborhood in New York City—which included singer and lyricist Bob Dylan.

B

The 1960s

In 1964 the Beatles traveled to New York City to appear on a television broadcast (The Ed Sullivan Show, 1948 to 1971) and launched the so-called British Invasion. Influenced by American recordings, British pop bands of the period invigorated the popular music mainstream and confirmed the international stature of rock music. Soon, several British groups had developed individual distinctive styles: The Beatles combined the guitar-based rock and roll of Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly with the artistry of the Tin Pan Alley style; the Animals blended blues and R&B influences; and the Rolling Stones joined aspects of Chicago blues to their intense, forceful music.

As with early rock and roll, the major American record companies did not take the British bands seriously at first—the Beatles' first hit singles in the United States were released through small, independent record companies. Soon, however, the success of the British bands became too difficult to ignore, and some American musicians reacted by developing their own styles. In 1965 Bob Dylan performed live and in-studio with a band that played electric instruments, alienating many folk-music purists in the process. The folk-rock style was further pioneered the same year by the American band the Byrds, who had a number-one hit on the Billboard magazine music charts with a version of Dylan's song “Mr. Tambourine Man.” The short-lived group Buffalo Springfield, formed in 1966, blended aspects of rock and country-and-western music to create country rock.

During the late 1960s, rock music diversified further into new styles while consolidating its position in the mainstream of American popular music. The Beatles' 1967 album Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, the first rock concept album, established new standards for studio recording and helped to establish the notion of the rock musician as a creative artist. Once again, American musicians responded to the British musical stimulus by experimenting with new forms, technologies, and stylistic influences.

An influential rock style emerged during the mid-to-late 1960s in San Francisco, California. Sometimes called psychedelic rock, this form of rock was closely associated with the use of hallucinogenic drugs, such as Lysergic Acid Diethylamide (LSD); psychedelic art and light shows; and an emphasis on spontaneity and communitarian values, epitomized by free-form events known as be-ins. The San Francisco scene reached its high point with the so-called Summer of Love in 1967, when thousands of young people—often referred to at the time as hippies—flocked to the city to experience the culture.

Perhaps the most representative group of musicians to come out of San Francisco during this period was the Grateful Dead featuring vocalist and lead guitarist Jerry Garcia. The Dead experimented with long, improvised stretches of music called jams. Despite the antiestablishment orientation of the youth culture at the time, a number of the musicians and groups that were prominent on the scene—including the Dead, Jefferson Airplane, Janis Joplin, and Santana (a group led by Carlos Santana)—eventually signed lucrative contracts with major recording companies. Santana, Jefferson Airplane (later renamed Jefferson Starship), and the Grateful Dead went on to have successful music careers in the ensuing decades, but Joplin died of a drug overdose in 1970—one of the events that for many people signified the end of the San Francisco scene.

Another important center of rock music in the 1960s was Los Angeles, where film student Jim Morrison formed the group the Doors and guitarist and composer Frank Zappa developed a unique blend of risqué humor and complex jazz-influenced compositional forms with his group the Mothers of Invention. In the late 1960s hard rock emerged, focusing on thick layers of sound, loud volume levels, and virtuoso guitar solos. In London, American Jimi Hendrix developed a highly influential electric-guitar style. His fiery technique gained exposure at the first large-scale rock festivals in the United States, Monterey Pop (1967) and Woodstock (1969). In 1966 the first so-called power trio was formed in London—the band Cream, which showcased the virtuosity of guitarist Eric Clapton, bassist Jack Bruce, and drummer Ginger Baker. In the late 1960s additional styles emerged in the United States, including southern rock, pioneered by the Allman Brothers Band; jazz rock, proponents of which included the band Blood, Sweat & Tears; and Latin rock (a blend of Latin American music, jazz and rock influences, and R&B styles), exemplified by the music of Santana.

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