Rock and Roll, also called Rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals (often with vocal harmony backing), electric guitars (and saxophone in the early days) and a strong back beat.

The term rock as used today is a very broad description and can differ greatly from what people see as rock and roll. All modern musical genres are difficult to define and many bands do not like being placed in only one particular category - they see themselves as a crossover between many different types of music. The subgenres of rock help to disambiguate to a large degree and it is usual to describe acts using a number of different terms.

History of rock and roll

Precursors and origins

Main article: Origins of rock and roll

Rock and roll emerged as a defined musical style in America in the 1950s, though elements of rock and roll can be seen in rhythm and blues records as far back as the 1920s. Early rock and roll combined elements of blues, boogie woogie, jazz and rhythm and blues, and is also influenced by traditional folk music, gospel music, black and white, and country and western. Going back even further, rock and roll can trace a foundational lineage to the old Five Points district of mid-19th century New York City, the scene of the first fusion of heavily rhythmic African shuffles and sand dances with melody driven European genres, particularly the Irish jig.

Early North American rock and roll (1953-1963)

Main article: American rock

Whatever the exact starting point for rock, it is clear that rock and roll appeared at a time when racial tensions in the United States were coming to the surface. African-Americans were protesting segregation of schools and public facilities. The "separate but equal" doctrine was overturned in 1954. It can hardly be a coincidence, then, that a musical form combining elements of white and black music should arise, and that this music should provoke strong reactions, of all types, in all Americans.

In the late 40s and into the next decade, rock and roll was almost entirely a black genre, both in performers and audiences. White listeners didn't listen to what was called "race music". Songs by early rock and rollers like Little Richard were covered by white crooners like Pat Boone, who stripped the songs of their raucous passion and sexual innuendo.

The rock 'n' roll music of the 1950s would change popular music forever.

On March 21, 1952 in Cleveland, Alan Freed produced the first rock and roll concert. The audience and the performers were mixed in race and the evening ended after one song in a near-riot as thousands of fans tried to get into the sold-out venue.

It was two years later that the first major white rock star began recording. In 1954, Elvis Presley began recording with Sam Philips, starting with the hit "That's All Right, Mama". Elvis played a rock and roll and country & western fusion called rockabilly, and he became possibly the first celebrity musician and teen idol. It was the following year's "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets that really set the rock boom in motion, though. The song was one of the biggest hits in history, and frenzied teens flocked to see him, even causing riots in some places.

Late 1950s

In the late 50s, rock and roll continued its popularity in the United States, alongside a wave of new genres. Pop-folk bands were popular, for example, as was doo wop, a vocal style of R&B that grew gradually more rock-influenced and uptempo into the 1960s, peaking in popularity in 1961, and gospel and its secularized counterpart, soul music. Rock was still popular in spite of the competition from other genres, especially in certain areas, where teenagers formed bands that played an enthusiastic but amateur style. This laid the roots for what became known as garage rock, as well as, in Southern California, surf music.

Birth of British rock

Main article: British rock music

American rock and roll had an impact across the globe, perhaps most intensely in Britain, where record collecting and trend-watching were in full bloom among the youth culture prior to the rock era, and where color barriers were less of an issue. Countless British youths listened to and were influenced by the R&B and rock and roll pioneers and began forming their own bands to play the new music with an intensity and drive seldom found in white American acts. This set the stage for Britain becoming a new center of rock and roll, leading to the British Invasion from 1958 to 1969.

In 1958 three British teenagers formed a rock and roll group, 'Cliff Richard and the Drifters (later renamed Cliff Richard and the Shadows). The group recorded a hit, "Move It", marking not only what is held to be the very first British full on rock 'n' roll single, but also the beginning of a different sound -- British rock.

British Invasion

Main article: British Invasion

It was only a few years before bands that formed in the wake of Richard's success began to gain in popularity themselves. Among these bands was The Beatles.

Although they were not the first British band to come to America, The Beatles spearheaded the Invasion, triumphing in the U.S. on their first visit in 1964 (including historic appearances on the Ed Sullivan Show). In the wake of Beatlemania other British bands headed to the U.S., notably The Rolling Stones, who disdained the Beatles' clean-cut image and presented a darker, more aggressive image, The Animals and The Yardbirds. Throughout the early and mid-'60s Americans seemed to have an insatialble appetite for British rock; one of the groups who made a greater mark in the USA than on the UK was Herman's Hermits. Other British bands, including The Who and The Kinks, would have some success during this period but saved their peak of popularity for the second wave of British invasion in the late 1960s.

To Americans, the British Invasion was when British rock music started. To listeners in the UK and elsewhere, there was no invasion, for they always had these groups, as well as many who never gained worldwide recognition.

Birth of a Counterculture

Main article: Counterculture

As part of the societal ferment in North America and Europe generally, rock and roll changed and diversified in a number of subtle and not-so-subtle ways.

As early as the mid-1960s, the image of rock and roll became less like previous musical forms. The Rolling Stones are credited with being the first band to dispense with band uniforms; band members simply wore whatever clothes they wished, and these clothes were often outlandish or controversial. Hair styles also became longer and less tamed. As trivial as these changes may sound today, this break from tradition was shocking to audiences used to clean-cut musical groups in matching suits.

Psychedelic rock

Main article: Psychedelic rock

The music took on a greater social awareness; it was not just about dancing and smooching anymore, but took on themes of social justice. The counter-culture that was emerging (partly as a reaction to the Vietnam War) adopted rock and roll as its defining feature, and the music began to be heavily influenced by the various drugs that the youth culture was experimenting with. In America, psychedelic rock influenced and was influenced by the drug scene and the larger psychedelia lifestyle. It featured long, often improvised jams and wild electronic sounds. Jimi Hendrix, The Jefferson Airplane, and the Grateful Dead were leading practitioners of psychedelia. A more esoteric form of British psychedelia is exemplified by the Soft Machine, who accompanied Hendrix on his first U.S. tour.

The culmination of rock and roll as a socially-unifying force was seen in the rock festivals of the late '60s, the most famous of which was Woodstock which began as a three-day arts and music festival and turned into a "happening", as hundreds of thousands of youthful fans converged on the site.

Progressive rock

Main article: Progressive rock

The music itself broadened past the guitar-bass-drum format; while some bands had used saxophones and keyboards before, now acts like The Beach Boys and The Beatles (and others following their lead) experimented with new instruments including wind sections, string sections, and full orchestration. Many bands moved well beyond three-minute tunes into new and diverse forms; increasingly sophisticated chord structures, previously limited to jazz and orchestrated pop music, were heard.

Dabbling heavily in classical, jazz, electronic, and experimental music resulted in what would be called progressive rock (or, in its German wing, krautrock). Progressive rock could be lush and beautiful or atonal and dissonant, highly complex or minimalistic, sometimes all within the same song. At times it was hardly recognizeable as rock at all. Some notable practitioners include King Crimson, Genesis, Gentle Giant, The Nice, Yes, Gong, Magma, Can, and Faust.

Birth of heavy metal

Main article: Heavy metal music

A second wave of British bands and artists gained great popularity during this period dominant; these bands typically were more directly steeped in American blues music than their more pop-oriented predecessors but their performances took a highly amplified, often spectacular form. These were the bands that were led by the guitar; Cream and Led Zeppelin were early examples of this heavy-blues form and were followed by heavier rock bands including Black Sabbath and Deep Purple. This style of rock would come to be known as heavy metal music.

70s rock

As the idealism of the 1960s waned, some music became danceable again. The "Theme from Shaft" by Isaac Hayes, released in 1971, heralded what became known as disco music. Disco music was producer-driven music that was popular in places such as Studio 54 and other discotheques of the period. By 1980, a disco backlash occurred as the fad died down.

The early 70s also saw a wave of folky, soft rock acts, beginning with singer-songwriters like James Taylor, Carol King and John Denver, and continuing with bands like Toto and America.

Punk rock

Main article: Punk rock

Punk rock started off as a reaction to the lush, producer-driven sounds of disco, and against the commercialism of most progressive rock. Early punk borrowed heavily from the garage band ethic: played by bands for which expert musicianship was not a requirement, punk was stripped-down, three-chord music that could be played easily. Many of these bands also intended to shock mainstream society, rejecting the "peace and love" image of the prior musical rebellion of the 1960s which had degenerated, punks thought, into mellow disco culture.

Punk rose to public awareness nearly simultaneously in Britain with the Sex Pistols and in America with the Ramones. Amid social hysteria over the purported degenerate punks, punk rock became very famous and struck a nerve. Bands like The Clash became rock stars, the very antithesis of what they had been symbols of. None of the major punk rock bands had sustained success, partially due to the friction between selling out and maintaining a fan base. The punk rock sound, however, was incorporated into several pop groups, including The Go-Gos and Billy Idol.

Punk evolves

Main article: Post-punk

By the early 1980s, punk rock no longer existed in its previous form. It split into several subgenres, including:

• New Wave - very popular electronic music
• Hardcore - hard and fast underground music, associated with suburbs of cities like Washington DC
• Alternative - an often grungy and dirty style that drew on garage rock, came to be associated with cities like Seattle
• Gothic rock - morose and dark rock music

Metal resurgence

Main article: Hair metal

When the 70s began, progressive electronic pop called New Wave was popular, and it remained so throughout the decade. In the early 80s, however, punk rock and heavy metal were spawning numerous subgenres. One variety of punk, hardcore was mixed with heavy metal by bands like Metallica, resulting in thrash. Later developments in heavy metal included black metal later in the decade. The most popular variety, however, was hair metal, a pop-metal style played originally by bands like Bon Jovi, known for long hair, feminized clothing and make-up and macho lyrics and imagery. Later in the decade, bands included Extreme, Ratt, Def Leppard and Motley Crue.

Alternative rock

Main article: Alternative music

The term alternative music was coined in the early 1980s to describe bands which didn't fit into the mainstream genres of the time. Bands dubbed "alternative" could be most any style not typically heard on the radio, however, most alternative bands were unified by their collective debt to punk. Although these groups never generated spectacular album sales, they exerted a considerable influence on the generation of musicians who came of age in the 80s.

In the UK, alternative rock formed numerous subgenres, including shoegazing, twee pop, space rock and dream pop; all of these influences brewed together late in the decade, leading to the Britpop explosion of the mid-90s, when bands like Oasis and Blur became mainstream sensations.

Grunge and the anti-corporate rock movement (1988-1995)

Main article: Grunge music

By the late 1980s rock radio was dominated by aging classic rock artists, slick commercial pop-rock and hair metal; MTV had arrived and brought with it a perception that style was more important than substance. Any remaining traces of rock and roll rebelliousness or the punk ethic seemed to have been subsumed into corporate-sponsored and mass-marketed product. Disaffected by this trend, some young musicians began to reject the polished, glamour-oriented approach and created crude, sometimes angry music.

The American Pacific Northwest region, especially Seattle, became a hotbed of this movement, dubbed grunge. The first and biggest band to emerge from this scene was Nirvana, whose Nevermind, and the first hit "Smells Like Teen Spirit", broke the field into mainstream audiences.

90s indie rock

Main article: Indie rock

Alternative music and the rebellious, DIY ethic it espoused became the inspiration for grunge, the popularity of which, paradoxically, took alternative rock into the mainstream. By the mid-90s, the term "alternative music" had lost much of its original meaning as rock radio and record buyers embraced increasingly slick, commercialized, and highly marketed forms of the genre. The bands playing indie rock were linked more by practices and record labels than actual styles, and included a broad range of punk, metal, folk, rock, country and hip hop performers.

Current (1995-present)

In 1995, Canadian pop star Alanis Morissette released Jagged Little Pill, a major hit that featured blunt, personally-revealing lyrics. The success of Jagged Little Pill spawned a wave of popularity in the late 90s of confessional rock releases by female artists including Jewel, Tori Amos, Fiona Apple, and Liz Phair. Many of these artists drew on their own alternative rock heroes from the 1980s and early 90s, including the folky Tracy Chapman and the hardcore punk girl bands called Riot Grrl. The use of introspective lyrics bled into other styles of rock, including those dubbed alternative. Eventually, this trend led to the popularity of bands such as Everclear and Third Eye Blind.

The late 1990s brought about a wave of mergers and consolidations among US media companies and radio stations such as the Clear Channel Communications conglomerate. This has resulted in a homogenization of music available and the creation of artificially-hyped acts. In the early 2000s the entire music industry was shaken by claims of massive theft of music rights using file-sharing tools such as Napster, resulting in lawsuits against private file-sharers by the recording industry group the RIAA.

After existing in the musical underground for decades, garage rock finally saw a resurgence of popularity in the early 2000s, with bands like The White Stripes, The Strokes, and The Hives all releasing successful singles and albums. This wave is often referred to as the garage rock revival.

In Britain however, the trend was totally different. While America was full of grunge, post-grunge, and hip hop, Britain launched a 1960s revival, often called Britpop, with bands like Oasis, Blur, The Seahorses, and Radiohead. For a time, the Oasis-Blur rivalry was similar to the Beatles-Rolling Stones rivalry. While bands like Blur tended to follow on from the Small Faces and the Kinks, Oasis mixed the attitude of the Rolling Stones with the melody of the Beatles. Both bands became very successful, and for a time Oasis was given the title "the biggest band in the world" but slowed down after band breakups and slightly less popular support.

Social Impacts

From its beginnings, rock and roll has been associated with youth, rebellion, and anti-establishmentism. The combination of black influences, suggestive lyrics, and wild response by the younger set made rock and roll shocking and threatening to the older generation. The ability to shock the elders in turn became part of the appeal of the music to young people. Attempts to control the influence of rock often turned comical; after several previous television appearances became controversial, Elvis Presley was famously shown from the waist up (to avoid offending viewers with his suggestive hip swivels) on the Ed Sullivan show in 1956. Hollywood was quick to capitalize on the trend, turning out a series of rock-and-roll themed exploitation films designed to thrill teenagers and horrify adults.

As the original generations of rock and roll fans matured, rock music became an accepted and deeply-interwoven thread in popular culture. Beginning in the early 1970s, rock songs and acts began to be used regularly in television commercials; starting in the 1980s rock music was often featured in film and television program soundtracks. While mainstream rock music was no longer able to shock or offend, new forms of music, particularly Punk rock and Rap emerged to fill this role; people who as youths delighted in the effect rock and roll had on their parents found themselves railing in a similar fashion against their children's music.

Unclassifiable, non-commercial music forms have always played an important part in the evolution of rock music. An ever-expanding group of British musicians known collectively as the Canterbury Scene, largely because there is no other way to classify them, are an example of a relatively unknown, cultish trend in music that is very influential but flies below the cultural radar of all but the most adventurous music fans. A combination of jazz, psychedelia, Dada, John Cage, and other art and literary references, fused reluctantly into a 60s and 70s rock framework, is characterized by bands such as the early Soft Machine and Gong, who, in retrospect, can be said to have pioneered trends such as World Music and experimental music. Audiences for this type of cross-genre experimentation, both live and in recordings, are larger in Europe than the U.S., although in recent years, the popularization of Punk and Rap have opened traditionally mainstream minds to new forms of expression within the rock idiom.

Rock and Fashion

Main article: Rock and roll fashion

Rock music and fashion have also been inextricably linked. The tough, leather-clad image of early rockers such the Rolling Stones in the influenced a generation of young people on both sides of the ocean. A cultural war broke out in the mid-1960s in the UK over the rivalry between the "Mods" (who favored high-fashion, expensive styles) and the "Rockers" (who wore T-shirts and leather); followers of each style had their favored musical acts, who eagerly fed into the conflict by releasing records praising one style and disparaging another (the Mods versus Rockers controversy would form the backdrop for The Who's rock opera Quadrophenia). Rock musicians were early adopters of hippie fashion and introduced such styles as the Nehru jacket; bands such as the Beatles had custom-made clothing that influenced much of '60s style. As rock music genres became more segmented, what an artist wore became as important as the music itself in defining the intent and relationship to the audience. In the late 1970s, Disco acts helped bring flashy urban styles to the mainstream, while New Wave groups began wearing mock-conservative attire (including suit jackets and skinny ties) in an attempt to be as unlike mainstream rockers (who still favored blue jeans and hippie-influenced clothes) as possible. In the late 80s and early 90s, the popularity of grunge brought in a fashion of its own. Grunge musicians and fans wore torn jeans, old shoes, flannel shirts, backwards baseball hats, and grew their hair long. This was a rebellion against the clean cut image that was popular at the time. Today’s most popular rock influenced fashion spawns from a new genre of rock music called emo. Emo fans and musicians often dye their hair black, adorn studded belts, add pins to pants and bags, and wear vintage clothing often from thrift shops.

Sex, Drugs, and Rock and Roll

The rock lifestyle has always been popularly known as being associated with sex and drugs. Many of rock and roll's early stars (as well as their jazz and blues counterparts) were known as hard-drinking, hard-living characters; during the 1960s a decadent rock lifestyle became more publically known, aided by the growth of the underground rock press which documented such excesses, often in exploitative fashion. Musicians had always attracted attention from the opposite sex; Groupies, girls who followed, spent time with and often did sexual favors for band members, appeared in the 1960’s. While some groups (notably the Beatles) eschewed such attention in favor of long-term relationships, other groups and artists did little to discourage it, and many tales (both true and exaggerated) of sexual escapades became part of rock music legacy during the heyday of the rock era.

Drugs were often a huge part of a rock musician’s lifestyle too. In the 60’s, psychedelic music was created, in which some musicians encouraged and intended listeners of psychedelic music to be under the influence of LSD or other hallucinogenic drugs. They claimed that being on acid while listening to the music greatly enhanced the listening experience. Jerry Garcia of the rock band Grateful Dead says, “For some people, taking LSD [acid] and going to a [Grateful] Dead show functions like a rite of passage.... we don’t have a product to sell; but we do have a mechanism that works.”

The popularity of experimentation with drugs by musicians may have influenced their popularity and acceptability among the youth that followed them. When the Beatles, once marketed as clean-cut youths, started publicly acknowledging using marijuana, many fans followed. Journalist Al Aronowitz who was a friend of the Beatles wrote, “...whatever the Beatles did was acceptable, especially for young people. Pretty soon everybody was smoking it, and it seemed to be all right.” The relationship of rock music to the hippie and counterculture movements, which espoused use of marijuana and other drugs, is complex and intertwined, and it is not always clear in which direction influence flowed. What is clear is that by the end of th 1960s drugs and rock music were part of a common youth scene and that both some rock musicians and some rock fans were experimenting with many types of drugs.

In the late 1960s and early 1970s however, much of the rock and roll cachet associated with drug use dissipated as rock music suffered a series of drug-related deaths, including those of Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin, Jim Morrison, Keith Moon of the Who and John Bonham of Led Zeppelin. Although some amount of drug use remained common among rock musicians, a greater respect for the dangers of drug consumption was observed, and many anti-drug songs became part of the rock lexicon, notably "The Needle and the Damage Done" by Neil Young (1972).

Many rock musicians, including Keith Richards, Eric Clapton, Steven Tyler and others, have acknowledged battling addictions to many substances including cocaine and heroin; most of these have successfully undergone drug rehabilitation programs, but many have died, like Jimi Hendrix and Janis Joplin.

The lessons of the excesses of the earlier eras were not always learned; the Grunge rock movement of the 1980s was associated with a resurgence in abuse of heroin and other hard drugs. Later, many rap and hip hop acts would glamorize and promote drug use in songs.

The "Sell Out" dilemma

Main article: Selling out

Rock musicians and fans have consistently struggled with the paradox of "selling out" -- to be considered "authentic", rock music must keep a certain distance from the establishment and its constructs; however it is widely believed that certain compromises must be made in order to become successful and to make music available to the public. This dilemma has created friction between musicians and fans, with some bands going to great lengths to avoid the appearance of "selling out" (while still finding ways to make a lucrative living).

If a performer first comes to public attention with one style, any further stylistic development may be seen as selling out to long-time fans. On the other hand, managers and producers may progressively take more control of the artist, as happened, for instance, in Elvis Presley's swift transition in species from "The Hillbilly Cat" to "your teddy bear".

There is a problem defining the difference between seeking a wider audience and selling out. Ray Charles left behind his classic formulation of rhythm and blues to sing country music, pop songs, and soft-drink commercials. In the process, he went from a niche audience to worldwide fame. In the end, it is a moral judgement made by the artist, the management, and the audience.

External links

• Classic Rock Lyrics Page (http://home.att.net/~chuckayoub/)

Oddity: The first gramophone record released in Britain to feature the words Rock and Roll was "Bloodnock's Rock And Roll Call" a 1956 record from The Goon Show.

There have been many songs with the title "Rock and Roll" from The Treniers in the 1950s to Led Zeppelin and Gary Glitter in the 1970s.