Rock N Roll In The 1950s

Teenage Rebellion is a major influence on the popularity of rock and roll in the 60’s. Society as a whole was well reserved and private about their personal and sexual lives. A struggling economy left most families spending the majority of income on basic living needs. Few households had disposable income.

Many other African-Americans started to cross-over to the white market. They wanted to appeal to the white audience. Many black Rock ‘N’ Rolls went for a sweeter sound, better looks, and soothing lyrics. They would dress up in tuxedos and sing ballads. As it breaks down barriers it was opening doors for African-American artist and

In 1951, Alan Freed, a European American disc jockey for a Cleveland radio station, first coined the term rock’n roll. Fifty years later, if you were to poll the general public on which race would dominate that genre of music, the response would be overwhelmingly whites. But rock’n roll is not a white mans music. African American’s were and still are an essential cornerstone of the genre known as rock’n roll. But rock’n roll simply would not exist if it weren't for African Americans. Their presence is felt in almost every genre of music known to the United States. Early twentieth century black musicians helped shape, influence and create my favorite genre of music today.

Up until the 20th century music in North America showed a clear distinction between race and social class. The music from then has since evolved into many diverse forms and backgrounds of origin. The most significant impact on music concerning race in the 20th century was African Americans and the musical traditions, they brought to the music world adapted through the life of slavery. Before the time era of the 20th century began, blues music was spreading very rapidly throughout. “Blues is a vocal and instrumental musical form which evolved from African American spirituals, shouts, work songs and chants.” (Twentieth-century music, n.d.) Blues was a way for people to sing about their hardships as a way of venting. “The origins of Jazz during

separation. Rock and roll music was formerly made up of only whites, but gradually African-Americans moved into that genre of music. This is a good thing for racial equality, except for when you look at the other types of dominant music today, rap and rhythm and blues. There is almost no white singers in these entire styles of music. On MTV, there has been only two white rap singers in the history of the channel, and one of them, Enimem,

Rock and roll has developed a long way throughout the years from a dance craze in the 1950’s to a political and cultural landscape that is recognized worldwide. Rock and roll has come to define the roots of teenage rebellion, people who don’t follow the norms, and have disrespect for authority. The style of rock and roll itself is a melting pot of music, a combination of sounds that include jazz, country, blues, ragtime, gospel, swing, classical, and ethnic music. It can be a simple variation of three chords to a complex chromatic scale combination. It can convey emotions such as love, hate, fear, lust, sadness, joy, disillusion, or a strong sense of reality. Many things can be said about rock but the fact is that it is the most widely

Between the two World Wars, jazz and swing were all the rage. Starting in the late 1910’s, jazz, an amalgamation of gospel, blues, ragtime and march, became the popular music of choice for African-American citizens – the descendants of slaves whose music influenced jazz. Jazz quickly caught on, and exploded during the 20’s, spreading to white citizens as well as black. In the 30’s, jazz music was supplemented by swing, a form of jazz which had larger bands, and which tended to focus more on a singer rather than a performer.

segregated music during the '50's and helped blacks win civil rights in general due to the

African American music pioneered modern music today, however, genres of music created by African American are being culturally appropriate. Scafidi claims, “Because African Americans weren’t widely accepted in U.S. society at that time, record executives chose to have white recording artists replicate the sound of black musicians. This led to musical forms such as rock-n-roll being largely associated with whites in spite of the fact that black musicians were pioneers of the art form. This move also had financial consequences, as many of the black musicians who helped pave the way for rock-n-roll’s success never saw a dime for their contributions to the music (Scafidi 2005).” Historically, Caucasian music artist have been imitating African American

The way America became a diverse country is similar with how the genre of music was made. Rock and roll, which is one of the genres, is also created with various influences.

The space race was after the cold war, between the United States and the Soviet Union, to see would get to the moon first. “Satellite” is sung by Teresa Brewer, it has a powerful message and a catchy beat. This is the perfect song because the lyrics describe what the United States was going through at this time.

Politically the country was seeing huge mile stones such as Brown v. Board of Education, where the segregation of schools were seen as unconstitutional. There was a yearning for many teens in this time period to come together as one by music. The music meant different things for both African Americans and the Caucasian teens. For African Americans that is their work that

The way people heard about music began in the 60’s when music really started to change in a big way. It started off with the smooth doo-wop vocals and the soulful saxophone sounds that made you want to get down and boogie, and then everything shifted towards pop, rock, and soul. This led to the increased commercialization which created a market for rock, soul, pop, reggae and blues music.

The 1950s were a time plagued by social inequality and political anxiety. The civil rights movement and Civil Right Act were yet to come, so black people did not have the same rights as white people, and women, while legally having equal rights as men, were still a long way from being represented sufficiently or having equal opportunities for employment, education, and other areas, and there was still large social inequality in the treatment and perception of women. At the beginning of the rock and roll revolution, one could make the case that white artists and music producers benefited from black music and culture in ways that were exploitative. This is especially the case due to the lack of equal rights and the discrimination, segregation, and abuse black people experienced at the time. The rise of rock and roll cannot be accurately discussed without mentioning the attempts to push out black people from the revolution who, arguably, were the most responsible for its rise. The cultural revolution that was the rock and roll movement coincided with (and, in some ways, was the same exact movement as) the social revolution that was beginning to emerge that called for ending inequality between black and white people. Rock and roll grew from a (in many ways exploitative) movement that was merely just inspired by black people to one in which influenced Americans the most to accept and want equality for all (making it ultimately beneficial- as without the popularization of that

Rock is a genre of music which focuses on heavy guitar, drums, a bassline and powerful vocals. It is not very popular today, although it used to be very popular in the 80’s and 90’s, when it was more commonly known as rock’n’roll. Now, pop and electronic music have taken over because of the evolution of technology and synthesizers (an electronic piano on which you can change the sounds and add effects). The development of technology enabled the use of auto-tune and electronic sounds in songs instead of real instruments.