Rock ’n’ Roll

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
James Wierzbicki
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Black Music ◽  
Marketing Concept ◽  
Black Race ◽  
Rhythm And Blues ◽  
Recent Scholarship ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
American Popular Music ◽  
Rock N Roll ◽  
Hillbilly Music

This chapter discusses the romantic genealogy of rock 'n' roll and how its style resulted from the happy integration of white hillbilly music with black “race music” or, as it came to be known in the 1950s, “rhythm and blues.” Supported by recent scholarship that has delved into the files of record companies, analyses affirm that rock 'n' roll represents a blatant appropriation of black music by white entrepreneurs. A postmodern view might regard rock 'n' roll not even as music, but as simply “a marketing concept that evolved into a lifestyle.” The chapter also analyzes how Bill Haley's recording of “Rock Around the Clock” turned the tide of American popular music in late 1955.

‘Funky Drummer’: New Orleans, James Brown and the rhythmic transformation of American popular music

Popular Music ◽  
2000 ◽  
Vol 19 (3) ◽  
pp. 293-318 ◽  
Author(s):  
Alexander Stewart
Keyword(s):  
New York ◽  
World War Ii ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
New Orleans ◽  
World War ◽  
Related Development ◽  
American Popular Music ◽  
Rock N Roll ◽  
The 1960S ◽  
Reverse Development

The singular style of rhythm & blues (R&B) that emerged from New Orleans in the years after World War II played an important role in the development of funk. In a related development, the underlying rhythms of American popular music underwent a basic, yet generally unacknowledged transition from triplet or shuffle feel (12/8) to even or straight eighth notes (8/8). Many jazz historians have shown interest in the process whereby jazz musicians learned to swing (for example, the Fletcher Henderson Orchestra through Louis Armstrong's 1924 arrival in New York), but there has been little analysis of the reverse development – the change back to ‘straighter’ rhythms. The earliest forms of rock 'n' roll, such as the R&B songs that first acquired this label and styles like rockabilly that soon followed, continued to be predominantly in shuffle rhythms. By the 1960s, division of the beat into equal halves had become common practice in the new driving style of rock, and the occurrence of 12/8 metre relatively scarce. Although the move from triplets to even eighths might be seen as a simplification of metre, this shift supported further subdivision to sixteenth-note rhythms that were exploited in New Orleans R&B and funk.

The Rise and Fall of Ace Records: A Case Study in the Independent Record Business

1990 ◽  
Vol 64 (3) ◽  
pp. 411-450 ◽  
Author(s):  
Donald J. Mabry
Keyword(s):  
United States ◽  
Middle Class ◽  
The United States ◽  
Record Industry ◽  
Rhythm And Blues ◽  
White Middle Class ◽  
History Of ◽  
The 1950S ◽  
Rock N Roll

The record industry in the United States was controlled until the 1950s by a half dozen major companies, which produced music directed primarily toward the white middle class. The following article uses the history of Ace Records, a small, regional, independent company, to examine the nature of the record industry in the 1950s and 1960s. The article explains the shifts in demography and technology that made possible the growth of the independents, as well as the obstacles and events that made their demise more likely. It also traces the changes that such companies, by recording and promoting rhythm and blues and early rock ‘n’ roll, introduced to the cultural mainstream.

scholarly journals Ragtime Country

2020 ◽  
Vol 32 (2) ◽  
pp. 50-62
Author(s):  
Wayne Marshall
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Jim Crow ◽  
Country Music ◽  
Black Music ◽  
Common Root ◽  
Music Scenes ◽  
History Of ◽  
The Caribbean ◽  
American Popular Music ◽  
Rock N Roll

In 1955, Elvis Presley and Ray Charles each stormed the pop charts with songs employing the same propulsive rhythm. Both would soon be hailed as rock 'n' roll stars, but today the two songs would likely be described as quintessential examples, respectively, of rockabilly and soul. While seeming by the mid-50s to issue from different cultural universes mapping neatly onto Jim Crow apartheid, their parallel polyrhythms point to a revealing common root: ragtime. Coming to prominence via Maple Leaf Rag (1899) and other ragtime best-sellers, the rhythm in question is exceedingly rare in the Caribbean compared to variations on its triple-duple cousins, such as the Cuban clave. Instead, it offers a distinctive, U.S.-based instantiation of Afrodiasporic aesthetics—one which, for all its remarkable presence across myriad music scenes and eras, has received little attention as an African-American “rhythmic key” that has proven utterly key to the history of American popular music, not least for the sound and story of country. Tracing this particular rhythm reveals how musical figures once clearly heard and marketed as African-American inventions have been absorbed by, foregrounded in, and whitened by country music while they persist in myriad forms of black music in the century since ragtime reigned.

Soul in Seoul

2020 ◽  
Author(s):  
Crystal S. Anderson
Keyword(s):  
African American ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
Hip Hop ◽  
Cultural Work ◽  
Musical Aesthetics ◽  
Korean Music ◽  
Rhythm And Blues ◽  
Musical Production ◽  
Music Aesthetics ◽  
American Popular Music

Soul in Seoul: African American Popular Music and K-pop examines how K-pop cites musical and performative elements of Black popular music culture as well as the ways that fans outside of Korea understand these citations. K-pop represents a hybridized mode of Korean popular music that emerged in the 1990s with global aspirations. Its hybridity combines musical elements from Korean and foreign cultures, particularly rhythm and blues-based genres (R&B) of African American popular music. Korean pop, R&B and hip-hop solo artists and groups engage in citational practices by simultaneously emulating R&B’s instrumentation and vocals and enhancing R&B by employing Korean musical strategies to such an extent that K-pop becomes part of a global R&B tradition. Korean pop groups use dynamic images and quality musical production to engage in cultural work that culminates the kind of global form of crossover pioneered by Black American music producers. Korean R&B artists, with a focus on vocals, take the R&B tradition beyond the Black-white binary, and Korean hip-hop practitioners use sampling and live instrumentation to promote R&B’s innovative music aesthetics. K-pop artists also cite elements of African American performance in Korean music videos that disrupt limiting representations. K-pop’s citational practices reveal diverse musical aesthetics driven by the interplay of African American popular music and Korean music strategies. As a transcultural fandom, global fans function as part of K-pop’s music press and deem these citational practices authentic. Citational practices also challenge homogenizing modes of globalization by revealing the multiple cultural forces that inform K-pop.

scholarly journals Post-World War II Rhythm and Blues: Jump Blues, Club Blues, and Roy Brown

2013 ◽  
Vol 17 (1) ◽  
pp. 20-39
Author(s):  
Rob Bowman
Keyword(s):  
World War Ii ◽  
Popular Music ◽  
North American ◽  
Social Behaviour ◽  
Rock And Roll ◽  
World War ◽  
Performance Style ◽  
Rhythm And Blues ◽  
American Popular Music

The classification of different styles of North American popular music has often been problematic. This paper investigates some of the music referred to as rhythm and blues (r & b) in the late 1940s and early 1950s by specifically looking at the works of one of the music's leading practitioners of the time, Roy Brown. Brown recorded both jump and club blues between 1947 and 1955, placing fifteen records in the Top 20 of the Billboard rhythm and blues charts. For the purposes of this paper fifty-four of the seventy-four songs that Brown recorded in this period were analyzed with respect to structure, performing force, performance style, tempo, arrangement, bass lines, approach to the beat, rate of singing, vocal ornamentation, and lyric content and structure. Three main subdivisions were found within Brown's repertoire, all connected to social behaviour, namely, dance. In the process, a basic biography of Brown is provided and his influence on many subsequent rhythm and blues and rock and roll performers is contextualized.

The moan within the tone: African retentions in rhythm and blues saxophone style in Afro-American popular music

Popular Music ◽  
1995 ◽  
Vol 14 (2) ◽  
pp. 155-174 ◽  
Author(s):  
Doug Miller
Keyword(s):  
Popular Music ◽  
Tenor Saxophone ◽  
Rhythm And Blues ◽  
The People ◽  
American Popular Music

The tenor is a rhythm instrument and the best statements negroes have made of what their soul is have been on tenor saxophone. Now you think about it and you'll see I'm right. The tenor's got that thing, that honk, you can get to people with it. Sometimes you can be playing that tenor and I'm telling you the people want to jump across the rail. (Ornette Coleman)

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