~ What is rock *n* roll? ~
*Definition Time*
Definition: A form of popular music arising from and incorporating a variety of musical styles, especially rhythm and blues, country music, and gospel. Originating in the United States in the 1950s, it is characterized by electronically amplified instrumentation, a heavily accented beat, and relatively simple phrase structure. This definition is according to dictionary.com.From answer.com: A great advance in American civil liberties, as well as a revolution in music, took place as a result of the introduction of rock and roll in 1951. The introducer was Alan Freed, a disc jockey in Cleveland, who used the term to undermine the segregation of popular music into black and white. African-American popular music of the day, known as rhythm and blues, was increasingly influential, but radio stations and the record industry insisted on having white performers for white audiences. The only way a song composed and performed by blacks could reach a wider audience was for it to be remade by a white group.
Freed was able to get around the prohibition against African-American music on his radio station by coining a catchy name that was new and therefore all-encompassing. He wouldn't fight to play the forbidden rhythm and blues; instead, he would treat his audiences to what he called rock and roll. And while that term did not end music segregation overnight, it eventually made segregation impossible, as both black and white performers took up the phrase and together developed the new rock and roll. From the beginning it was also known informally as rock 'n' roll. By the mid-1960s the triumph of rock and roll was so complete that the name of the genre, now performed by musicians of all races all over the world, shrank to rock. No longer needed for music, the full phrase rock and roll recently has been used to mean "get going, move along," as in "Let's rock and roll."
Freed, who went on to greater fame and misfortune, is appropriately memorialized in Cleveland's Rock 'n' Roll Museum. But he did not actually invent rock and roll; he just gave it a new definition. Freed probably picked up rock and roll from the lyrics of a 1948 rhythm-and-blues hit called "Good Rockin' Tonight." Before that, both rock and roll had sexual meanings in jazz and blues, as in "My Man Rocks Me with One Steady Roll," recorded by Trixie Smith in 1922, which inspired Bill Haley's famous "Rock Around the Clock" in 1954. Yes Ma! There are sometimes clever people even in Cleveland. LOL!
(Just kidding!) ======================= Shall we define other terms of importance? Rhythm & Blues --> Rhythm and Blues was and still is a term used for a number of post-war American popular music forms. The term is credited to Jerry Wexler when he was editing the charts in Billboard magazine (1947). The term was used in the chart listings from 1949 onwards and the charts in question encompassed a number of contemporary forms that emerged around that time. Credit belongs here. -------------- Tin Pan Alley --> Tin Pan Alley was the name given to the collection of New York City-centered music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States of America in the late 19th century and the early 20th century.
The start of Tin Pan Alley is usually dated to about 1885, when a number of music publishers set up shop in the same district of Manhattan. The end of Tin Pan Alley is less clear cut; some date it to the start of the Great Depression in the 1930s when the phonograph and radio finally supplanted sheet music as the driving force of American popular music, while others consider Tin Pan Alley to have continued on into the 1950s when earlier styles of American popular music were upstaged by the rise of rock & roll.
Tin Pan Alley was originally a specific place, West 28th Street between Broadway and Sixth Avenue in Manhattan.
The name "Tin Pan Alley" was originally derogatory, a reference to the sound made by many pianos all playing different tunes in this small urban area, producing a cacophony comparable to banging on tin pans. With time this nickname was popularly embraced and many years later it came to describe the USA music industry in general. Credit belongs here. -------------- Funk --> Funk is a distinct style of music originated by African-Americans, e.g., James Brown and his band members (especially Maceo and Melvin Parker), and groups like The Meters. Funk best can be recognized by its syncopated rhythms; thick bass line (often based on an "on the one" beat); razor-sharp rhythm guitars; chanted or hollered vocals (as that of Marva Whitney or the Bar-Kays); strong, rhythm-oriented horn sections; prominent percussion; an upbeat attitude; African tones; danceability; and strong jazz influences (e.g., as in the music of Miles Davis, Herbie Hancock, George Duke, Eddie Harris, and others). ----------------- Soul --> Soul music is a combination of rhythm and blues and gospel which began in the late 1950s in the United States. Rhythm and blues (a term coined by music writer and record producer Jerry Wexler) is itself a combination of blues and jazz, and arose in the 1940s as small groups, often playing saxophones, built upon the blues tradition. Soul music is differentiated by its use of gospel-music devices, its greater emphasis on vocalists, and its merging of religious and secular themes. ------------- Doo Wop --> Doo-wop is a style of vocal-based rhythm and blues music popular in the mid-1950s to the early 1960s in America. The term was coined by a DJ, Gus Gossert, in the 1970s referring to (mostly) white Rock & Roll groups of the late 50s and early 60s. It became the fashion in the 1990s to keep expanding the definition backward to take in Rhythm & Blues groups from the mid-1950s and then further back to include groups from the early 1950s and even the 1940s. There is no consensus as to what constitutes a Doo-wop song, and many aficionados of R&B music dislike the term intensely.
The style was at first characterized by upbeat harmony vocals that used nonsense syllables from which the name of the style is derived. The name was later extended to group harmony ballads. Examples of doo-wop can be found in the music of The Clovers, The Ravens, and The Larks. Debate continues to rage among aficionados about the start of true doo-wop - the term seems to mean all things to all fans - but while the alternating lead voices of The Ink Spots and the scat singing of the Mills Brothers undoubtedly had an influence on the form, the crucial absence of gospel inflection in the singing style of either group means that they predate the genre. The Orioles, featuring the tremulous lead of Sonny Til, and the Ravens, blessed with the fathoms-deep voice of Jimmy Ricks, are more recognisably part of the style: Ricks' intro to "Count Every Star" (1950), as though imitating the plucking of a double bass, created a template for later groups. -----------
British Invasion --> The British Invasion was an influx of rock and roll performers from Great Britain who became popular in the United States, Australia, Canada and elsewhere. The classic British Invasion was in 1964-1966, but the term may also be applied to later "waves" of UK artists to significantly impact entertainment markets outside of Britain.
The roots of the first British Invasion were sown with the explosion of American Rock and Roll in 1955. Following the successful export of Bill Haley and the Comets, Elvis Presley, and other rock 'n' roll acts in the late 1950s, large numbers of British teens formed bands to emulate their American heroes. They copied both the musical styles and the rebellious images of the Americans, both of which deeply resonated with UK youth at the time. Britain produced a few successful homegrown artists during this time, such as Cliff Richard and The Shadows. But their impact on US and world record charts was limited, with only a handful of #1 recordings (such as The Tornados (with "Telstar") and Mr. Acker Bilk with "Stranger on the Shore", both instrumentals.
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