Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum
Established	April 20, 1983
Location	1100 Rock and Roll Blvd. Cleveland, Ohio 44114 U.S.
President	Terry Stewart[1]
Public transit access	North Coast station (RTA Rapid Transit)
Website	RockHall.com

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a museum located on the shore of Lake Erie in downtown Cleveland, Ohio, United States. It is dedicated to archiving the history of some of the best-known and most influential artists, producers, engineers and others who have, in some major way, influenced the music industry through the genre of rock music. The museum is part of the city's redeveloped North Coast Harbor.

Foundation and museum[link]

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Trabant cars from U2's Zoo TV Tour hanging in the lobby of The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is a complex located in Cleveland, Ohio devoted to performers, creators, promoters, and others associated with the growth and popularity of rock and roll music.

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation was created April 20, 1983. However, it had no home. The search committee considered several cities, including Memphis (home of Sun Studios and Stax Records), Detroit (home of Motown Records), Cincinnati (home of King Records), New York City, and Cleveland. Cleveland lobbied hard to be chosen, citing that Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed is widely credited with promoting the new genre (and the term) of "rock and roll", and that Cleveland was the location of the first rock and roll concert. Civic leaders in Cleveland pledged $65 million in public money to fund the construction. A petition drive was signed by 600,000 fans favoring Cleveland over Memphis, and a USA Today poll which Cleveland won by 100,000 votes. The hall of fame board voted to build the museum in Cleveland.

Cleveland may have been chosen as the organization's site because the city offered the best financial package. As The Plain Dealer music critic Michael Norman noted,. It was $65 million... Cleveland wanted it here and put up the money."^[2] Co-founder Jann Wenner later said "one of the small sad things is we didn't do it in New York in the first place," but later added "I am absolutely delighted that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum is in Cleveland."^[3]

During early discussions on where to build the Hall of Fame and Museum, the Foundation's board considered the Cuyahoga River. Ultimately, the chosen location was in downtown Cleveland by Lake Erie, just east of Cleveland Browns Stadium and the Great Lakes Science Center.

At a point in the planning phase when a financing gap existed, a proposal was made for the Rock Hall to be located in the then vacant May Company Building, but it was finally decided that architect I. M. Pei would be commissioned to design a new building. Initial CEO Dr. Larry Thompson facilitated I. M. Pei as designs for the site were made. Pei came up with the idea of a tower with a glass pyramid protruding from it. The museum tower was initially planned to stand 200 ft (61 m) high, but it had to be cut down to 162 ft (49 m) due to its proximity to Burke Lakefront Airport. The building's base is approximately 150,000 square feet (14,000 m²). The groundbreaking ceremony was June 7, 1993, with Pete Townshend and Chuck Berry doing the honors. The first curator of the Hall of Fame was Dr. Bruce Conforth, a former folk musician, rock musician, and artist who was also a professor of folklore, ethnomusicology, American culture, and blues music at the University of Michigan. The museum opened on September 2, 1995, with the ribbon being cut by an ensemble that included Yoko Ono and Little Richard, among others.

In addition to the Hall of Fame inductees, the museum documents the entire history of rock and roll, regardless of induction status. Hall of Fame inductees are honored in a special exhibit inside the museum's spire.

Structure[link]

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame sits on the Lake Erie shore next to the Great Lakes Science Center in Cleveland's North Coast Harbor.

There are seven levels in the building. The first through fifth levels feature many permanent and temporary exhibits documenting the history of rock and roll. Temporary exhibits display items from artists that have only been borrowed for a short period of time, such as the Warped Tour display in 2007, showcasing memorabilia from the tour's 12 years in existence. The museum has also put up numerous musical films for viewing, such as 2007's temporary exhibit running George Harrison's Concert for Bangladesh. Some of the permanent exhibits include a history of audio technology, a section of mannequins donning outfits of famous performers past and present, and an area which looks at music scenes in various cities throughout different eras, including Memphis in the 50s, Detroit, Liverpool and San Francisco in the 60s, Los Angeles in the 70s, New York City and London in the 70s and 80s and Seattle in the 90s.

The third level is where the actual Hall of Fame is located and includes a wall with all of the inductees' signatures. The seventh and final level of the building is a temporary exhibit which features a certain group or artist for a period of time. It occupies the entire floor, which is the smallest since it is at the top of the pyramid. Some of the artists featured include Elvis Presley, The Supremes, The Who, The Beach Boys, The Beatles, U2, Queen, Bob Dylan, The Clash, The Doors and Roy Orbison.^[4]

The former Annex in Soho in New York City (now closed)

While the museum is located in Cleveland, prior to 2009 the induction ceremony was annually held in New York City (except in 1993, when the ceremony was held in Los Angeles,^[5] and in 1997, when the ceremony was held in Cleveland^[6]). This has been a source of controversy and tension between the Foundation's commitment to a yearly showcase and the Hall of Fame itself. In December 2007, it was announced that Cleveland will hold the ceremony every three years, beginning in 2009.^[7][8]

On December 2, 2008, the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Annex was opened in the SoHo neighborhood of New York City but closed on January 3, 2010. According to a spokeswoman for S2BN Entertainment "the economy factored into our leaving,”. The spokeswoman also said that S2BN is "exploring opportunities to tour the exhibition".^[9]

500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll[link]

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame's "500 Songs that Shaped Rock and Roll" is an unordered list of 500 songs that they believe have been most influential in shaping the course of rock and roll, though some of them belong to different styles even after the consolidation of rock music (like some 1980s and 1990s rap songs). It was organized by Hall of Fame museum curator James Henke who, according to the hall, "compiled the list with input from the museum’s curatorial staff and numerous rock critics and music experts."^[10] The list is part of a permanent exhibit at the museum, and was envisioned as part of the museum from its opening in 1995.^[11] The list contains songs recorded from the 1920s^{[citation needed]} through the 1990s. The Beatles and The Rolling Stones are the most represented on the list, with eight songs each. Elvis Presley has seven songs, while The Beach Boys, Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin, Bruce Springsteen and Chuck Berry each have five.^[12]

25th Anniversary Concert[link]

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame celebrated its 25th Anniversary with a concert series over two days on October 29 and 30, 2009 at Madison Square Garden in New York. The celebration included performances by Jerry Lee Lewis, U2, Patti Smith, Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band, Simon & Garfunkel, Dion DiMucci, Metallica, James Taylor, Bonnie Raitt, Fergie, Mick Jagger, Lou Reed, Ray Davies, Ozzy Osbourne, Paul Simon, Jeff Beck, Aretha Franklin, Stevie Wonder, Sting, Little Anthony & The Imperials, and Crosby, Stills and Nash. The first night ran almost six hours with Bruce Springsteen & The E Street Band closing the concert with special guests John Fogerty, Darlene Love, Tom Morello, Sam Moore, Jackson Browne, Peter Wolf, and Billy Joel.^[13][14][15]

Hall of Fame[link]

The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, showing Lake Erie in the foreground

A handful of artists are inducted into the Hall of Fame in an annual induction ceremony, historically held at the Waldorf-Astoria Hotel in New York City. The first group of inductees, inducted on January 23, 1986, included James Brown, Little Richard, Elvis Presley, Fats Domino, Ray Charles, Chuck Berry, Sam Cooke, The Everly Brothers, Buddy Holly, and Jerry Lee Lewis.

Currently, groups or individuals are qualified for induction 25 years after the release of their first record. Nominees should have demonstrable influence and significance within the history of rock and roll. Four categories are recognized: Performers, Non-Performers, Early Influences, and Sidemen (as of 2000). However, fans have no input concerning who is nominated or elected to the hall.

Beginning in 2009, the annual induction ceremony will move to Cleveland on a rotating basis, perhaps as often as every three years.^[7]

Performers[link]

Performers include singers, vocal groups, bands, and instrumentalists of all kinds.

A nominating committee composed of rock and roll historians selects names for the "Performers" category, which are then voted on by roughly five hundred experts across the world. Those selected to vote include academics, journalists, producers, and others with music industry experience. To be selected for induction, performers must receive the highest number of votes, and also greater than 50% of the votes. Around five to seven performers are inducted each year.^[16]

In 2012, six additional bands were inducted as performers by a special committee, due to the controversial nature of their being excluded when their lead singer was inducted. "There was a lot of discussion about this," said Terry Stewart, a member of the nominating committee. "There had always been conversations about why the groups weren't included when the lead singers were inducted. Very honestly, nobody could really answer that question – it was so long ago... We decided we'd sit down as an organization and look at that. This is the result.^[17]

Early influences[link]

Early Influences includes artists from earlier eras, primarily country, folk, and blues, whose music inspired and influenced rock and roll artists. Other notable artists that have been inducted as Early Influences include country musician Hank Williams, blues musician Howlin' Wolf, and jazz musicians Jelly Roll Morton and Louis Armstrong. After Nat King Cole and Billie Holiday in 2000, no one was inducted in this category until 2009, when rockabilly singer Wanda Jackson was selected. Unlike earlier inductees in this category, Jackson's career almost entirely took place after the traditional 1955 start of the "rock era".

Non-performers (Ahmet Ertegun Award)[link]

This category encompasses those who primarily work behind the scenes in the music industry, including record label executives, songwriters, record producers, disc jockeys, concert promoters and music journalists. This category has had at least one inductee every year except 2007 and 2009. After the death of co-founder Ahmet Ertegun, the non-performers' award was named in 2008 the Ahmet Ertegun Award in his memory.^[18]

Sidemen (Musical excellence award)[link]

The sidemen category was introduced in 2000 and honored veteran session and concert players who are selected by a committee composed primarily of producers. The category was dormant from 2004 through 2007 and re-activated in 2008. In 2010, the category was renamed the "Award for Musical Excellence". According to Joel Peresman, the president of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Foundation, "This award gives us flexibility to dive into some things and recognize some people who might not ordinarily get recognized."^[19]

Criticism[link]

The most frequent criticism of the Hall of Fame is that the nomination process is controlled by a few individuals who are not themselves musicians, such as founder Jann Wenner (who has filled the position of managing editor for Rolling Stone magazine), former foundation director Suzan Evans, and writer Dave Marsh, reflecting their personal tastes rather than the views of the rock world as a whole. A former member of the nominations board once commented that "At one point Suzan Evans lamented the choices being made because there weren't enough big names that would sell tickets to the dinner. That was quickly remedied by dropping one of the doo-wop groups being considered in favor of a 'name' artist...I saw how certain pioneering artists of the '50s and early '60s were shunned because there needed to be more name power on the list, resulting in '70s superstars getting in before the people who made it possible for them. Some of those pioneers still aren't in today."^[20]

There is also controversy in the lack of transparency in the selection process. Janet Morrissey of The New York Times wrote, "With fame and money at stake, it’s no surprise that a lot of backstage lobbying goes on. Why any particular act is chosen in any particular year is a mystery to performers as well as outsiders – and committee members say they want to keep it that way." Jon Landau, the chairman of the nominating committee, says they prefer it that way. "We’ve done a good job of keeping the proceedings nontransparent. It all dies in the room."^[21]

According to Fox News, petitions with tens of thousands of signatures were also being ignored, and some groups that were signed with certain labels or companies or were affiliated with various committee members have even been put up for nomination with no discussion at all.^[20] The committee has also been accused of largely ignoring certain genres.^[22] According to author Brett Milano, "entire genres get passed over, particularly progressive rock, '60s Top 40, New Orleans funk and a whole lot of black music."^[23]

Another criticism is that too many artists are inducted. In fifteen years, 97 different artists have been inducted.^[24] A minimum of 50% of the vote is needed to be inducted; although, the final percentages are not announced and a certain number of inductees (five in 2011) is set before the ballots are shipped.^[24] The committee usually nominates a small number of artists (12 in 2010) from an increasing number of different genres. Several voters, including Joel Selvin, himself a former member of the nominating committee, didn't submit their ballots in 2007 because they didn't feel that any of the candidates were truly worthy.^[25]

The surviving members of the British punk rock band Sex Pistols, inducted in 2006, refused to attend the ceremony, calling the museum "a piss stain".^[26]

Controversy[link]

Fleetwood Mac & Bob Welch[link]

American musician Bob Welch joined the British blues-rock band Fleetwood Mac in 1971, after the departure of founder Peter Green. Welch was a key reason for the band's move from England to California in the mid-1970s, played lead and rhythm guitar and wrote or co-wrote many of the songs on five Fleetwood Mac albums. When Fleetwood Mac was inducted into the Rock Hall of Fame in 1998, original band members Green, Jeremy Spencer, Danny Kirwan, Mick Fleetwood and John McVie were named to the Hall, as were Christine McVie, Lindsey Buckingham and Stevie Nicks. Welch, who anchored the band from 1971 to 1974, was not. In 1998, after Welch was snubbed by the Hall, he told Cleveland's daily newspaper, The Plain Dealer, "My era was the bridge era. It was a transition. But it was an important period in the history of the band. Mick Fleetwood dedicated a whole chapter of his biography to my era of the band and credited me with 'saving Fleetwood Mac'. Now they want to write me out of the history of the group. It hurts."

Welch went on to tell The Plain Dealer, "Mick and I co-managed the group for years. I'm the one who brought the band to Los Angeles from England, which put them in the position of hooking up with Lindsey and Stevie. I saw the band through a whole period where they barely survived, literally". Welch believes that he was blackballed because he filed a lawsuit against Fleetwood and John & Christine McVie over underpayment of royalties owed him, which was settled out of court. He believes the falling out with the band members led them to pressuring the selection committee into excluding him from the Hall.^[27]

Dave Clark Five[link]

On March 14, 2007, two days after that year's induction ceremony, Roger Friedman of Fox News published an article claiming that The Dave Clark Five should have been the fifth inductee, as they had more votes than inductee Grandmaster Flash and the Furious Five. The article went on to say "[Jann Wenner] used a technicality about the day votes were due in. In reality, The Dave Clark Five got six more votes than Grandmaster Flash. But he felt we couldn't go another year without a rap act."^[28]

The Rock & Roll Hall of Fame would later deny fixing the vote, although they did not deny that late votes were received, saying, "No. There is a format and rules and procedure. There is a specific time when the votes have to be in, and then they are counted. The bands with the top five votes got in."^[29] The Dave Clark Five was subsequently nominated again and then inducted the following year.^[30]

See also[link]

• List of Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductees
• Fortune Battle of the Corporate Bands
• Vocal Group Hall of Fame

References[link]

External links[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame

• Official website
• Library and Archives
• SiriusXM.com: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Radio
• AlanFreed.com: Rock and Roll Hall of Fame
• FutureRockLegends.com
• Notinhalloffame.com

Coordinates: 41°30′30″N 81°41′44″W / 41.508375°N 81.69550°W / 41.508375; -81.69550

Walhalla temple, Germany

Along the Hollywood Walk of Fame, U.S.

A hall of fame, wall of fame, walk of fame, walk of stars or avenue of stars is a type of attraction established for any field of endeavor to honor individuals of noteworthy achievement in that field. The meaning of "Fame" has changed over the years, originally meaning "renown" as opposed to today's more common meaning of "celebrity".^[1]

In some cases, these halls of fame consist of actual halls or museums which enshrine the honorees with sculptures, plaques, and displays of memorabilia. Sometimes, the honorees' plaques may instead be posted on a wall (a '"wall of fame") or inscribed on a sidewalk (a "walk of fame" or an "avenue of fame"). In others, the hall of fame is more figurative, and just simply consists of a list of names of noteworthy individuals maintained by an organization or community.

The English-language term was first used for the Hall of Fame for Great Americans at Bronx Community College, in New York City, although its inspiration, the Ruhmeshalle in Munich, Germany, also means "Hall of Fame". The Walhalla Temple in Bavaria, Germany, is an even earlier hall of fame, conceived in 1807 and built between 1830 and 1842.

References[link]

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Halls of fame

Look up hall of fame in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• R. Rubin (1997). "The Mall of Fame". The Atlantic Monthly 280 (1): 14–18. 

This organization-related article is a stub. You can help Wikipedia by expanding it. v t e

Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll or rock 'n' roll) is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s,^[1][2] primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz,^[3] and gospel music.^[4] Though elements of rock and roll can be heard in country records of the 1930s,^[3] and in blues records from the 1920s,^[5] rock and roll did not acquire its name until the 1950s.^[6][7]

The term "rock and roll" now has at least two different meanings, both in common usage. The American Heritage Dictionary^[8] and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary^[9] both define rock and roll as synonymous with rock music. Encyclopædia Britannica, on the other hand, regards it as the music that originated in the mid-1950s and later developed "into the more encompassing international style known as rock music".^[10] For the purpose of differentiation, this article uses the second definition.

In the earliest rock and roll styles of the late 1940s and early 1950s, either the piano or saxophone was often the lead instrument, but these were generally replaced or supplemented by guitar in the middle to late 1950s.^[11] The beat is essentially a blues rhythm with an accentuated backbeat, the latter almost always provided by a snare drum.^[12] Classic rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars (one lead, one rhythm), a string bass or (after the mid-1950s) an electric bass guitar, and a drum kit.^[11]

Rock and roll began achieving wide popularity in the 1960s.^[13] The massive popularity and eventual worldwide view of rock and roll gave it a widespread social impact. Bobby Gillespie writes that "When Chuck Berry sang 'Hail, hail, rock and roll, deliver me from the days of old', that's exactly what the music was doing. Chuck Berry started the global psychic jailbreak that is rock'n'roll."^[14]

Far beyond simply a musical style, rock and roll, as seen in movies and on television, influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes, and language. It went on to spawn various sub-genres, often without the initially characteristic backbeat, that are now more commonly called simply "rock music" or "rock".

Origins[link]

Bill Haley and his Comets performing "Rock Around the Clock" on TV in 1955

The origins of rock and roll have been fiercely debated by commentators and historians of music.^[15] There is general agreement that it arose in the Southern United States – a region which would produce most of the major early rock and roll acts – through the meeting of various influences that embodied a merging of the African musical tradition with European instrumentation.^[16] The migration of many former slaves and their descendants to major urban centers like Memphis and north to New York City, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland and Buffalo meant that black and white residents were living in close proximity in larger numbers than ever before, and as a result heard each other's music and even began to emulate each other's fashions.^[17][18] Radio stations that made white and black forms of music available to both groups, the development and spread of the gramophone record, and African American musical styles such as jazz and swing which were taken up by white musicians, aided this process of "cultural collision".^[19]

The immediate roots of rock and roll lay in the rhythm and blues, then called "race music", and country music of the 1940s and 1950s.^[15] Particularly significant influences were jazz, blues, gospel, country, and folk.^[15] Commentators differ in their views of which of these forms were most important and the degree to which the new music was a re-branding of African American rhythm and blues for a white market, or a new hybrid of black and white forms.^[20][21][22]

In the 1930s jazz, and particularly swing, both in urban based dance bands and blues-influenced country swing, was among the first music to present African American sounds for a predominately white audience.^[21][23] The 1940s saw the increased use of blaring horns (including saxophones), shouted lyrics and boogie woogie beats in jazz based music. During and immediately after World War II, with shortages of fuel and limitations on audiences and available personnel, large jazz bands were less economical and tended to be replaced by smaller combos, using guitars, bass and drums.^[15][24] In the same period, particularly on the West Coast and in the Midwest, the development of jump blues, with its guitar riffs, prominent beats and shouted lyrics, prefigured many later developments.^[15] In the documentary film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, Bruce Springsteen demonstrates a compelling explanation of how Chuck Berry developed his brand of rock and roll, by transposing the familiar two-note lead line of jump blues piano directly to the electric guitar, creating what is instantly recognizable as rock guitar. Similarly, country boogie and Chicago electric blues supplied many of the elements that would be seen as characteristic of rock and roll.^[15]

Sign commemorating the role of Alan Freed and Cleveland, Ohio in the origins of rock and roll

Rock and roll arrived at a time of considerable technological change, soon after the development of the electric guitar, amplifier and microphone, and the 45 rpm record.^[15] There were also changes in the record industry, with the rise of independent labels like Atlantic, Sun and Chess servicing niche audiences and a similar rise of radio stations that played their music.^[15] It was the realization that relatively affluent white teenagers were listening to this music that led to the development of what was to be defined as rock and roll as a distinct genre.^[15]

The phrase "rocking and rolling" originally described the movement of a ship on the ocean, but was used by the early twentieth century, both to describe the spiritual fervor of black church rituals^[25] and as a sexual analogy. Various gospel, blues and swing recordings used the phrase before it became used more frequently – but still intermittently – in the 1940s, on recordings and in reviews of what became known as "rhythm and blues" music aimed at a black audience.^[25] By 1942, Billboard magazine columnist Maurie Orodenker had begun using the term "rock and roll" in descriptions of upbeat recordings such as "Rock Me" by Sister Rosetta Tharpe.^[26] In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing this music style while popularizing the phrase to describe it.^[27]

Because the development of rock and roll was an evolutionary process, no single record can be identified as unambiguously "the first" rock and roll record.^[28] One contender for "first rock and roll record" is "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (actually an alias for Ike Turner and his band The Kings of Rhythm), recorded by Sam Phillips for Sun Records in March 1951.^[29] Other early contenders include Wynonie Harris' "Good Rockin' Tonight" (1947)^[30] and Jimmy Preston's "Rock the Joint" (1949), which was later covered by Bill Haley & His Comets in 1952.^[31] In terms of its wide cultural impact across society in the US and elsewhere, Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock", recorded in April 1954 but not a commercial success until the following year, is generally recognized as an important milestone, but it was preceded by many recordings from earlier decades in which elements of rock and roll can be clearly discerned.^[28][32][33] Other artists with early rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Gene Vincent.^[29] Bo Diddley in particular introduced a new beat and unique guitar style that inspired many artists.^[34] His more insistent, driving rhythms, hard-edged electric guitar sound, African rhythms, and signature beat (a simple, five-accent rhythm), have remained cornerstones of rock and pop.^[35][36][37]

Early rock and roll[link]

Rockabilly[link]

Elvis Presley in a promotion shot for Jailhouse Rock in 1957

"Rockabilly" usually (but not exclusively) refers to the type of rock and roll music which was played and recorded in the mid 1950s by white singers such as Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, who drew mainly on the country roots of the music.^[38] Many other popular rock and roll singers of the time, such as Fats Domino and Little Richard, came out of the black rhythm and blues tradition, making the music attractive to white audiences, and are not usually classed as "rockabilly".

In July 1954, Elvis Presley recorded the regional hit "That's All Right (Mama)" at Sam Phillips' Sun Studio in Memphis.^[39] Three months earlier, on April 12, 1954, Bill Haley & His Comets recorded "Rock Around the Clock". Although only a minor hit when first released, when used in the opening sequence of the movie Blackboard Jungle, a year later, it really set the rock and roll boom in motion. The song became one of the biggest hits in history, and frenzied teens flocked to see Haley and the Comets perform it, causing riots in some cities. "Rock Around the Clock" was a breakthrough for both the group and for all of rock and roll music. If everything that came before laid the groundwork, "Rock Around the Clock" introduced the music to a global audience.^[40]

In 1956 the arrival of rockabilly was underlined by the success of songs like "Folsom Prison Blues" by Johnny Cash, "Blue Suede Shoes" by Perkins and "Heartbreak Hotel" by Presley.^[38] For a few years it became the most commercially successful form of rock and roll. Later rockabilly acts, particularly performing songwriters like Buddy Holly, would be a major influence on British Invasion acts and particularly on the song writing of The Beatles and through them on the nature of later rock music.^[41]

Doo wop[link]

Doo wop was one of the most popular forms of 1950s rock and roll, with an emphasis on multi-part vocal harmonies and meaningless backing lyrics (from which the genre later gained its name), which were usually supported with light instrumentation.^[42] Its origins were in African American vocal groups of the 1930s and 40s, like the Ink Spots and the Mills Brothers, who had enjoyed considerable commercial success with arrangements based on close harmonies.^[43] They were followed by 1940s R&B vocal acts like The Orioles, The Ravens and The Clovers, who injected a strong element of traditional gospel and, increasingly, the energy of jump blues.^[43] By 1954, as rock and roll was beginning to emerge, a number of similar acts began to cross over from the R&B charts to mainstream success, often with added honking brass and saxophone, with The Crows, The Penguins, The El Dorados and The Turbans all scoring major hits.^[43] Despite the subsequent explosion in records from doo wop acts in the later 50s, many failed to chart or were one-hit wonders. Exceptions included The Platters, with songs including "The Great Pretender" (1955) and The Coasters with humorous songs like "Yakety Yak" (1958), both of which ranked among the most successful rock and roll acts of the era.^[43] Towards the end of the decade there were increasing numbers of white, particularly Italian American, singers taking up Doo Wop, creating all-white groups like The Mystics and Dion and the Belmonts and racially integrated groups like The Dell Vikings and The Impalas.^[43] Doo wop would be a major influence on vocal surf music, soul and early Merseybeat, including The Beatles.^[43]

Cover versions[link]

Many of the earliest white rock and roll hits were covers or partial re-writes of earlier black rhythm and blues or blues songs. Through the late 1940s and early 1950s, R&B music had been gaining a stronger beat and a wilder style, with artists such as Fats Domino and Johnny Otis speeding up the tempos and increasing the backbeat to great popularity on the juke joint circuit.^[44] Before the efforts of Freed and others, black music was taboo on many white-owned radio outlets, but artists and producers quickly recognized the potential of rock and roll.^[45] Most of Presley's early hits were covers of black rhythm and blues or blues songs, like "That's All Right" (a countrified arrangement of a blues number), its flip side "Blue Moon of Kentucky", "Baby Let's Play House", "Lawdy Miss Clawdy" and "Hound Dog".^[46]

Rock'n'roller Little Richard performing in 2007

Covers were customary in the music industry at the time; it was made particularly easy by the compulsory license provision of United States copyright law (still in effect).^[47] One of the first relevant successful covers was Wynonie Harris's transformation of Roy Brown's 1947 original jump blues hit "Good Rocking Tonight" into a more showy rocker^[48] and the Louis Prima rocker "Oh Babe" in 1950, as well as Amos Milburn's cover of what may have been the first white rock and roll record, Hardrock Gunter's "Birmingham Bounce" in 1949.^[49] The most notable trend, however, was white pop covers of black R&B numbers. The more familiar sound of these covers may have been more palatable to white audiences, there may have been an element of prejudice, but labels aimed at the white market also had much better distribution networks and were generally much more profitable.^[50] Famously, Pat Boone recorded sanitized versions of Little Richard songs. Later, as those songs became popular, the original artists' recordings received radio play as well.^[51]

The cover versions were not necessarily straightforward imitations. For example, Bill Haley's incompletely bowdlerized cover of "Shake, Rattle and Roll" transformed Big Joe Turner's humorous and racy tale of adult love into an energetic teen dance number,^[52] while Georgia Gibbs replaced Etta James's tough, sarcastic vocal in "Roll With Me, Henry" (covered as "Dance With Me, Henry") with a perkier vocal more appropriate for an audience unfamiliar with the song to which James's song was an answer, Hank Ballard's "Work With Me, Annie".^[53] Elvis' rock and roll version of "Hound Dog" was very different from the blues shouter that Big Mama Thornton had recorded.^[54]

Decline[link]

Commentators have traditionally perceived a decline of rock and roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s.^[55][56] By 1959, the death of Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens in a plane crash, the departure of Elvis for the army, the retirement of Little Richard to become a preacher, prosecutions of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry, and the breaking of the payola scandal (which implicated major figures, including Alan Freed, in bribery and corruption in promoting individual acts or songs), gave a sense that the initial rock and roll era had come to an end.^[29] There was also a process that has been described as the "feminisation" of rock and roll, with the charts beginning to be dominated by love ballads, often aimed at a female audience, and the rise of girl groups like The Shirelles and The Crystals.^[57] Some historians of music have pointed to important and innovative developments that built on rock and roll in this period, including multitrack recording, developed by Les Paul, the electronic treatment of sound by such innovators as Joe Meek, and the Wall of Sound productions of Phil Spector, continued desegregation of the charts, the rise of surf music, garage rock and the Twist dance craze.^[21]

British rock and roll[link]

Tommy Steele, one of the first British rock and rollers, performing in Stockholm in 1957

In the 1950s, Britain was well placed to receive American rock and roll music and culture.^[58] It shared a common language, had been exposed to American culture through the stationing of troops in the country, and shared many social developments, including the emergence of distinct youth sub-cultures, which in Britain included the Teddy Boys.^[59] Trad Jazz became popular, and many of its musicians were influenced by related American styles, including boogie woogie and the blues.^[60] The skiffle craze, led by Lonnie Donegan, utilised amateurish versions of American folk songs and encouraged many of the subsequent generation of rock and roll, folk, R&B and beat musicians to start performing.^[61] At the same time British audiences were beginning to encounter American rock and roll, initially through films including Blackboard Jungle (1955) and Rock Around the Clock (1955).^[62] Both movies contained the Bill Haley & His Comets hit "Rock Around the Clock", which first entered the British charts in early 1955 – four months before it reached the US pop charts – topped the British charts later that year and again in 1956, and helped identify rock and roll with teenage delinquency.^[63] American rock and roll acts such as Elvis Presley, Little Richard and Buddy Holly thereafter became major forces in the British charts.

The initial response of the British music industry was to attempt to produce copies of American records, recorded with session musicians and often fronted by teen idols.^[58] More grassroots British rock and rollers soon began to appear, including Wee Willie Harris and Tommy Steele.^[58] During this period American Rock and Roll remained dominant; however, in 1958 Britain produced its first "authentic" rock and roll song and star, when Cliff Richard reached number 2 in the charts with "Move It".^[64] At the same time, TV shows such as Six-Five Special and Oh Boy! promoted the careers of British rock and rollers like Marty Wilde and Adam Faith.^[58] Cliff Richard and his backing band, The Shadows, were the most successful home grown rock and roll based acts of the era.^[65] Other leading acts included Billy Fury, Joe Brown, and Johnny Kidd & The Pirates, whose 1960 hit song "Shakin' All Over" became a rock and roll standard.^[58]

As interest in rock and roll was beginning to subside in America in the late 1950s and early 1960s, it was taken up by groups in major British urban centres like Liverpool, Manchester, Birmingham, and London.^[66] About the same time, a British blues scene developed, initially led by purist blues followers such as Alexis Korner and Cyril Davies who were directly inspired by American musicians such as Robert Johnson, Muddy Waters and Howlin' Wolf.^[67] Many groups moved towards the beat music of rock and roll and rhythm and blues from skiffle, like the Quarrymen who became The Beatles, producing a form of rock and roll revivalism that carried them and many other groups to national success from about 1963 and to international success from 1964, known in America as the British Invasion.^[68] Groups that followed The Beatles included the beat-influenced Freddie and the Dreamers, Wayne Fontana and the Mindbenders, Herman's Hermits and the Dave Clark Five, and the more blues-influenced The Animals, The Kinks, The Rolling Stones, The Who and The Yardbirds.^[69] As the blues became an increasingly significant influence, leading to the creation of the blues-rock of groups like The Moody Blues, Small Faces, The Move, Traffic and Cream, and developing into rock music, the influence of early rock and roll began to subside.^[68]

Cultural impact[link]

Far beyond simply a musical style, rock and roll influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes, and language.^[70] In addition, rock and roll may have helped the cause of the civil rights movement because both African American teens and white American teens enjoyed the music.^[71]

Many early rock and roll songs dealt with issues of cars, school, dating, and clothing. The rock and roll songs described events and conflicts that most listeners could relate to from some point in their lives. Topics that were generally considered taboo, such as sex, began to be introduced in rock and roll music. This new music tried to break boundaries and express the real emotions that people were feeling, but didn't talk about. An awakening in the young American culture began to take place.^[13]

Race[link]

In the cross-over of African American "race music" to a growing white youth audience, the popularization of rock and roll involved both black performers reaching a white audience and white performers appropriating African American music.^[72] Rock and roll appeared at a time when racial tensions in the United States were entering a new phase, with the beginnings of the civil rights movement for desegregation, leading to the Supreme Court ruling that abolished the policy of "separate but equal" in 1954, but leaving a policy which would be extremely difficult to enforce in parts of the United States.^[73] The coming together of white youth audiences and black music in rock and roll, inevitably provoked strong white racist reactions within the US, with many whites condemning its breaking down of barriers based on color.^[71] Many observers saw rock and roll as heralding the way for desegregation, in creating a new form of music that encouraged racial cooperation and shared experience.^[74] Many authors have argued that early rock and roll was instrumental in the way both white and black teenagers identified themselves.^[75]

Teen culture[link]

"There's No Love in Rock and Roll" made the cover of True Life Romance in 1956

Several rock historians have claimed that rock and roll was one of the first music genres to define an age group.^[76] It gave teenagers a sense of belonging, even when they were alone.^[76] Rock and roll is often identified with the emergence of teen culture among the first baby boomer generation, who had both greater relative affluence, leisure and who adopted rock and roll as part of a distinct sub-culture.^[77] This involved not just music, absorbed via radio, record buying, jukeboxes and T.V. programs like American Bandstand, but it also extended to film, clothes, hair, cars and motorbikes, and distinctive language. The contrast between parental and youth culture exemplified by rock and roll was a recurring source of concern for older generations, who worried about juvenile delinquency and social rebellion, particularly as to a large extent rock and roll culture was shared by different racial and social groups.^[77] In America, that concern was conveyed even in youth cultural artifacts like comic books. In "There's No Love in Rock and Roll" from True Life Romance (1956), a defiant teen dates a rock and roll-loving boy but drops him for one who likes traditional adult music—to her parents' relief.^[78] In Britain, where post-war prosperity was more limited, rock and roll culture became attached pre-existing to the Teddy Boy movement, largely working class in origins, and eventually to the longer lasting rockers.^[59] Rock and roll has been seen as reorienting popular music towards a teen market, often celebrating teen fashions, as in Carl Perkins' "Blue Suede Shoes" (1956), or Dion and the Belmonts "A Teenager in Love" (1960).^[79]

Dance styles[link]

From its early-1950s beginning through the early 1960s, rock and roll music spawned new dance crazes.^[80] Teenagers found the irregular rhythm of the backbeat especially suited to reviving the jitterbug dancing of the big-band era. "Sock hops", gym dances, and home basement dance parties became the rage, and American teens watched Dick Clark's American Bandstand to keep up on the latest dance and fashion styles.^[81] From the mid-1960s on, as "rock and roll" yielded gradually to "rock", later dance genres followed, starting with the twist, and leading up to funk, disco, house, techno, and hip hop.^[82]

See also[link]

Rock and Roll portal

Notes[link]

Further reading[link]

External links[link]

Wikiquote has a collection of quotations related to: Rock music

Wikimedia Commons has media related to: Rock music

• The Camp Meeting Jubilee 1910 recording
• The Smithsonian's history of the electric guitar
• History of Rock
• Youngtown Rock and Roll Museum – Omemee, Ontario