Everything Everywhere Daily: History, Science, Geography & More - The Origins of Rock and Roll

Episode Date: March 14, 2023

In the early 1950s, a new type of music burst forth, which had its roots in blues, gospel, country, and swing.  This new music took the world by storm and was as controversial as it was successful.  This music has spawned countless variations, some of which are so different that it is hard to see how it evolved. Learn more about the origins of rock and roll and how it came to dominate music on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Subscribe to the podcast!  https://link.chtbl.com/EverythingEverywhere?sid=ShowNotes -------------------------------- Executive Producer: Charles Daniel Associate Producers: Peter Bennett & Thor Thomsen   Become a supporter on Patreon: https://www.patreon.com/everythingeverywhere Update your podcast app at newpodcastapps.com Discord Server: https://discord.gg/UkRUJFh Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/everythingeverywhere/ Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/EverythingEverywhere Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/everythingeverywheredaily Twitter: https://twitter.com/everywheretrip Website: https://everything-everywhere.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

In the early 1950s, a new type of music burst forth, which had its roots in blues, gospel, country, and swing. This new music took the world by storm, and it was as controversial as it was successful. The music has spawned countless variations, some of which are so different that it's hard to see how it originally evolved. Learn more about the origins of rock and roll and how it came to dominate music on this episode of Everything Everywhere Daily. Do you ever climb into bed ready to sleep, only to have your mind start racing the moment your head hits the pillow? thoughts bouncing around, replaying the day or jumping ahead to tomorrow? That is exactly why Catherine Nikolai created Nothing Much Happens. Each episode is a gentle, cozy bedtime story where, well, nothing much happens.

No drama, no tension, nothing you need to follow closely. Just soft narration, calming repetition, and soothing sensory details designed to help your mind slow down and your body relax. It's not about entertainment, it's about rest. And millions of listeners around the world use it every night to quiet their thoughts and finally fall asleep. If you've ever struggled to shut your brain off at night, this might be exactly what you've been missing.

You can listen to Nothing Much Happens wherever you get your podcasts. Episodes are every Monday and Thursday. I want to start by admitting the fundamental problem with this episode, and that is defining exactly what rock and roll is. On one hand, you sort of know when you hear it. However, once you go down the rabbit hole of trying to classify modern popular music, you run into a bunch of problems. Is hip-hop rock-and-roll? Is techno-rock-and-roll? Is pop music or heavy metal rock and roll? Is it all rock and roll or is none of it rock and roll?

For the purpose of this episode, I'm going to take the coward's way out and I'm not going to define it. Instead, I'm just going to focus on the early years of rock and roll when it was better defined, and then later on in future episodes, I'll focus on some of the various sub-genres of music that I've just mentioned. To that extent, it doesn't matter if techno and hip-hop are rock-and-roll, as I think they are clearly descended from rock-and-roll whether or not they still are today. So with that, the term rock-and-roll comes from the phrase rocking and rolling, which was a reference to ships at sea. There are written references to rocking and rolling being used by seamen in the early 19th century. In the early 20th century, the term rock and roll had found a dual use in African-American slang for partying and dancing, and also as a sexual metaphor.

The term rock and roll began appearing in songs in the 1930s. In 1934, the Boswell sisters had a hit song titled Rock and Roll, although the song itself would not be considered a rock and roll song today. It was used as a nautical reference. There were more and more references to rock and roll in the 1930s and 1940s, almost all of which came from black artists recording for what was known at the time as race music, which was just a term for records recorded for a black audience. Trying to draw a line for when rock and roll as a separate music genre began is impossible to do. Music historians can and do

draw the lines in different places. The year which most historians would pick as the start of rock and roll would be 1951. Two things happened that year that make it a good choice for the birth of rock and roll. The first was the recording of what is widely considered to be the first rock and roll song, Rocket 88 by Jackie Brenson and the Delta Cats. The Delta Cats were actually just Ike Turner and his Kings of Rhythm. The Kings of Rhythm actually started out in the 1940s as a swing band and existed all the way through 2007 until the death of Ike Turner. Rocket 88 actually sounds like other rhythm and blues songs from the era, which is why it's so difficult to pinpoint an exact start to rock and roll. The other big thing that happened in 1951 was disc jockey Alan Freed started a

midnight music show called The Moondog House on WJW in Cleveland, Ohio. Freed was an energetic DJ who played Rhythm and Blues music by black artists on a large major market radio station to a mixed race audience. This had never happened before. Previously, Rhythm and Blues would only be played on low-power radio stations in black neighborhoods, or major radio stations would wait for a white artist to record a cover version. He also began to use the term rock and roll frequently on the radio to refer to the music that he was playing. His radio program was a huge hit, and he created a community of what he called hipsters who were united by a love of this music. One of the landmark

moments in the history of rock and roll took place on March 21st, 1952 at the Cleveland Arena. Freed hosted a concert called the Moondog Coronation Ball, which featured five black R&B acts. On the schedule were Paul Williams and the Hucklebuckers, Tiny Grimes and the Rocking Highlanders, The Dominoes, Voretta Dillard, and Danny Cobb. It is considered to be the first rock and roll concert in history. The concert was a huge success. In fact, it was so successful that thousands more people showed up than the arena could hold, and the fire department had to shut it down after only one song by Paul Williams.

Other radio stations around the country began to take note of freed success. A recording of his show was being replayed on WNJR in Newark, New Jersey, which covered the New York City market. 1952 also saw the opening of a small record label in Memphis, Tennessee, by a record producer by the name of San Phillips, Sun Records. Phillips had been recording Black Rhythm and Blues artists for the previous two years because he liked the music. He was the one who produced Rocket 88 the year before and had worked with the likes of Howland

Wolf and Bee King. Sun Records became the engine that drove early rock and roll by signing some of the biggest names in the 1950s. Roy Orbison, Charlie Rich, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, and James. Johnny Cash were all signed to Sun Records. Oh, and he also signed a young singer from Mississippi called Elvis Presley. Perhaps the most legendary moment in the history of Sun Records happened spontaneously on December 4, 1956. Carl Perkins, who previously had a hit in 1955 with his song Blue Suede Shoes, was in the recording studio. Phillips had a new kid come in to play the piano for

the session by the name of Jerry Lee Lewis. In the afternoon, a former Sun Records talent, Elvis Presley stopped in to say hello. He laughed at. He laughed at. and returned later to take part in a jam session when Johnny Cash showed up. The four played several songs that were recorded by the engineer Jack Clement, who felt that this was something important that needed to be captured for posterity. Presley, Perkins, Lewis, and Cash became known as the Million Dollar Quartet. Already by 1952, 40% of the sales of rhythm and blues records, almost all of which were recorded by black musicians,

were now being purchased by white consumers, indicating to record labels that perhaps this was something that they should pay. attention to. While rock and roll was gaining in popularity, it was still a niche market. 1954 saw the release of the first single by Elvis Presley. That's all right. It wasn't a hit upon its release, selling only 20,000 copies. It did not chart nationally and only hit number four in the local Memphis charts. However, some music historians point to this song instead of Rock at 88 as being the first rock and roll song. The first big rock and roll hit was Rock Around the Clock by Bill Haley in the Comets.

It was recorded in 1954, but became the theme of the 1955 movie Blackboard Jungle. It became a smash hit and was the number one song in the pop music charts for two months in late 1955 and early 1956. It also reached number three on the R&B charts as well. And at the time, the only difference between the pop and R&B charts was the demographics of where they collected data. The pop chart was for white audiences and the R&B chart was for black audiences. Rock Around the Clock opened the floodgates for rock and roll. In January 1956, Elvis Presley recorded

and released his first hit song, Heartbreak Hotel. Both Rock Around the Clock and Heartbreak Hotel climbed the charts in the UK as well, showing that rock and roll wasn't just going to be limited to the United States. 1956 saw a string of hits by Elvis Presley, including Don't Be Cruel, Love Me Tender, and Hound Dog. However, it also saw other artists under the rock and roll label start to find success as well, including Fats Domino and the Platters. By 1957 and 1958, rock and roll had come to fully dominate the pop charts. Not just Elvis, but other acts began to rise in prominence. Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, The Coasters, Bobby Darren, Buddy Holly, and many others.

1957 also saw the national launch of American Bandstand, hosted by Dick Clark. It featured rock and roll artists every week and introduced the genre to a new group of listeners. Parents. Kids were already listening to rock and roll, but now a clean-cut boy in their living room was able to make it acceptable. Already, this early in the history of rock and roll, you were beginning to see sub-genres develop. Duwop music, which was mostly acapella groups, became popular. Elvis and Bill Haley were performing what later became known as Rockabilly. Even country music was affected by the new rock and roll influenced artists like Johnny Cash and Conway Twitty. While the pop and R&B charts were originally designed to measure different

audiences by race, the rock and roll revolution showed just how much things had changed. In 1954, only 3% of the songs on the pop charts were by black artists. In 1957, it was 30%. Whites were buying records and attending concerts of black artists in large numbers, which was unheard of just a few years before. Likewise, some acts such as the Del Vikings and the Impala's had both black and white members in their group, which again would have been unheard of just a few years prior. It's not an exaggeration to say that rock and roll was the vanguard for the civil rights movement which was to come. Rock and roll was one of the first areas of American culture which became integrated. There is a lot more to the story of rock and roll, as I'm sure you are all aware.

For decades, there were innovations and changes in music which were all lumped under the banner of rock and roll. It became the single biggest cultural export of the United States for the rest of the 20th century. In the late 1950s, kids in England were listening to American rock and roll who would just a few years later form the core of the British invasion. Rock and roll became the first genre of music to define a specific generation. A teen culture developed around rock and roll, which really was never a thing before. Communications and transportation hadn't allowed for cultural trends to spread as fast, and this culture went beyond music to clothing and hairstyles as well. The idea of teenagers having a separate culture is something that we take for granted today,

but it really wasn't a thing prior to rock and roll. During the Cold War, rock and roll came to define the United States. People living behind the Iron Curtain would smuggle records and listen to illicit radio stations just so they could enjoy rock and roll music. Regardless of how you define what is or is not rock and roll, you can't deny the powerful cultural influence it's had. All modern music owes some debt to rock and roll. It is arguably the most important cultural innovation of the last century.

The executive producer of Everything Everywhere Daily is Charles Daniel. The associate producers are Thor Thompson and Peter Bennett. Today's review comes from listener Gervor Khrer-Hur-Huh, over at Apple Podcasts in the United States. They write, fantastic way to learn history. History in the form of entertainment. I love it. Interesting, informative, and even humorous at times. I look forward to learning something new every day.

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