1. Group questions What is the difference between rock ‘n’ roll and rock?
How has the role of recordings and performance changed with rock in comparison to other styles?
Make a list of rock music subject matter. Can you name any examples of altruism?
Describe the basic makeup of the rock band. Instruments/voices….
Describe the vocal styles of rock singers.

2. What is the difference between rock ‘n’ roll and rock?
essentially white music coming out of black rhythm-and-blues
essentially music to dance to
early-mid 1950s to late 1960s
rock
umbrella term covering many types of music
encompasses a broad spectrum of performing and arranging styles
outgrowth and expression of urban life and values [as country is of rural life and values]

3. How has the role of recordings and performance changed with rock in comparison to other styles?
Recording has taken precedence over the performance of the work.
Performances are now used to promote the recording.
The recording itself becomes the end product, the work of art.

4. Rock Subject Matter Love, Romantic, Real-Life, and Altruistic
What are some examples of altruism in rock that have occurred since the 1980s?
Band Aid (1984) to raise money for the starving in Ethiopia
We Are the World album (1985) for the starving in Africa
“The Concert for New York City” (October 20, 2001) for the victims of the World Trade Center and Pentagon attacks
Others?

5. Other subject matter… Sex
censored and disguised in early rock ‘n’ roll
Overtly sexual lyrics were reintroduced by young British groups (e.g. Rolling Stones) in the 1960s, groups heavily influenced by American blues music and lyrics.
Dissent
expressions of revolt not uncommon
identity as a vehicle of protest
Vietnam War songs of the 1960s and early 1970s
conditions of ghetto life

6. The Basic Makeup of the Rock Band
What three components make up rock’s signature sound?
human voice (amplified with microphone)
guitar(s) (nearly always electric); electric bass guitar
drum set
Optional: keyboard, saxophone, other

7. Vocal Styles
Rock singing is highly individual, but the heritage of the blues can be heard in the following vocal styles.
the shout
the cry
the groan
the use of falsetto
the mumbled slur

8. Rock’s Ties to Rhythm and Blues
“Good Rockin’ Tonight” performed by Wynonie “Blues” Harris (vocal) and his group.
an example of rhythm-and-blues that would have been played on black radio stations in large cities
recorded in 1947

9. honking blues saxophone shouting style of singing
What rhythm and blues elements can you identify in “Good Rockin’ Tonight”?
boogie-woogie bass
honking blues saxophone
shouting style of singing
backbeat (marked here with the clapping hands)
What is a backbeat?
heavy emphasis on beats two and four of every measure

10. Comparison
Compare “Good Rockin’ Tonight” (rhythm and blues) and “Rock Around the Clock” (rock and roll)
In both: rhythm and blues elements, twelve-bar blues form, boogie-woogie bass, backbeat, and saxophone
Who first recorded “Rock Around the Clock”?
Bill Haley and His Comets in 1954

11. What makes one song rhythm and blues and another rock ‘n’ roll?
audience
R&B: marketed to a black audience
R&R: marketed to a white audience

12. evolution from rhythm-and-blues to rock
Pre-1946
Rock and roll is a common slang term in blues lyrics to refer to sexual intercourse.
1946
Billboard used the term to describe a record by Joe Liggins and His Honeydrippers, a Los Angeles rhythm-and-blues band.
1951
Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed began programming black rhythm-and-blues among white adolescents.
His early radio program was called “Moondog and the Rock and Roll Party.”
1954
Freed moved to New York. He begins referring to the music itself as rock ‘n’ roll.
By 1954 white groups were covering popular black rhythm-and-blues recordings.
White group Bill Haley and His Comets first record “Rock Around the Clock” in April.
Elvis Presley records “That’s Alright Mama,” covering black musician Arthur “Big Boy” Crudup’s song. Elvis’s version combined country with rhythm-and-blues contributing to the development of the rockabilly sound.
1955
Hollywood film Blackboard Jungle opened with “Rock Around the Clock” helping Haley to sell 17 million copies of the single. The song became a symbol of teenage rebellion.
1956
Elvis Presley covers “Hound Dog,” a Willie Mae “Big Mama” Thornton song.
Texan, Roy Orbison has an early hit with “Ooby Dooby.”
1957
Texan, Buddy Holly and the Crickets have their first of a string of hits with “That’ll Be the Day.”
1964
February 9, Beatles appear on the Ed Sullivan Show.

13. Reaching White Audiences
Which two important mediums brought the music of largely segregated black Americans to white Americans?
radio
television
Who was Allan Freed?
white disc jockey on Cleveland radio station WJW
credited as the first person to use the term “rock and roll” for music that was essentially rhythm and blues
brought the music of black Americans into the homes of white audiences
What was the name of Freed’s radio show?
Moondog Rock ‘n’ Roll Party
By 1956 there were 400 “black appeal radio stations.” Two of the most famous were:
WDIA (Memphis)
WLAC (Nashville)

14. The Influence of Country Music
Early rock ‘n’ roll was virtually synonymous with rhythm and blues. What influences added to rock ‘n’ roll around the mid-1950s contributed to its emerging distinctiveness?
White country music
What country music influences can be heard in Elvis Presley’s early recordings?
All five of his first releases on Sun Records ( ) all combined one rhythm and blues song with one country song.
In the country songs, Elvis added rhythm and blues elements
In the rhythm and blues songs he added country and pop elements.
simple, unobtrusive strumming
absence of a heavy backbeat and rhythmic complexity

15. “That’s All Right” - a country-inflected rhythm and blues number.
What are the rhythm and blues elements?
the emotion-laden bluesy inflections in the voice
the occasional flourish on the electric guitar
the hint of a boogie-woogie bass in the background

16. Trends from the 1960s to the Present
Rock becomes an umbrella term for a broad variety of amplified musics marketed for young white audiences. What are some examples?
Folk rock, bubblegum rock, psychedelic rock, punk rock
The Early 1960s
Emergence of “teen idols” exemplifying a groomed and packaged, wholesome, clean-cut look promoted or marketed as the new face of rock

17. What was the “British Invasion”?
American blues and rhythm-and-blues were cultivated by British youth and essentially reintroduced to America.
Beatles
February 1964: appearance on Ed Sullivan Television Show
Influences:
Chuck Berry
Carl Perkins
Buddy Holly
Rolling Stones
The survivors.
Bluesmen Muddy Waters and Howlin’ Wolf

18. The Beach Boys Who formed the Beach Boys?
Brian Wilson (b. 1942)
What evidence suggests that the Beach Boys were one of the most experimental groups of the 1960s?
Pet Sounds (1966)
may be rock’s first concept album
an album conceived as an interrelated whole
“Good Vibrations” (1966)
has been called “one of rock music’s greatest masterpieces” contrasting soundscapes (NOT twelve-bar blues form)
instrumentation atypical of pop or rock:
organ, flutes, and theremin

19. What is a theremin?
electronic instrument invented by the Russian Leon Theremin ( )
a box with projecting antennas that are “played” by moving the hands closer or farther away, but never touching them
The Beach Boys’ “Good Vibrations” contrasting soundscapes
polished vocal harmonies
theremin