The History of Rock and Roll

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Rock music has come a long way since its development in the early 20th century. The genre, defined “as a merger between rhythm&blues and country” (Scaruffi, The History of Rock Music:1955-1966), started out more as an underground market, but ended up becoming a significant aspect of American popular music history. Rock-n-Roll music produce many legendary artists who will for ever be known as innovators of the genre. Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry were some of the many artists in Rock-n-Roll who will always live on in their music.Many teenagers were also to identify it due to its rebellious nature their disapproval of the cold war. Towards the end of the 1950s, Rock-n-Roll was ending on a particularly bad note, with a brief decline: “Chuck berry was on the verge of being convicted for having transported a minor across state lines; Elvis was in the army; Little Richard had left popular music for the ministry, Jerry Lee Lewis had effectively been black listed for having married his 13 year old cousin, and Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and the Big Bopper had died in a plane crash.” (Bracket, Pg 131). On top of all of this, alarmists subdued rock labels and their performers. Blacks were also of their backlash, claiming that they were “poisoning white youth with “primitive” and “jungle music” and who were skillfully battling segregation “(Farber and Bailey,Pg 288). I agree with Starr and Waterman when they described the 1960s, as a “violent and controversial decade American History”. The assassination of John F. Kennedy and Martin Luther King Jr. shocked the nation. The decade was also going through the process of a great social change; the civil rights movement. “Members of the first generation who grew up listening to Rock-n-Roll b... ... middle of paper ... ... and Soul Reader. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Farber, D., & Bailey, B. (2001). America in the 1960s. New York: Columbia University Press. Lull, J. (1982). Popular Music:Resistance to New Wave. Journal of Communication , 11. Madani, J. (1998). Pop and Rock Music in the 60s. Retrieved May 8, 2014, from SPectropop: http://www.spectropop.com/hmadanibrief.html Scaruffi, P. (2009). The Counterculture 1965- 66. Retrieved May 1, 2014, from The History of Rock Music: 1955-1966: http://www.scaruffi.com/history/cpt16.html Starr, L., & Waterman, C. (2010). American Popular Music. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Stillman, P. A. (2010, April 3). 1960s Folk/Rock and the Youth Counterculture Movement. Retrieved 8 May, 2014, from Music of Revolution Blog: http://musicofrevolutionblog.wordpress.com/2010/04/03/folk-and-rock-music-in-the-1960s-youth-counterculture-movement/

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