Part 6: Video Intro

 

Rock is the most important musical genre of the past 50 years, because it has gone beyond being a mere musical style to influence politics, commerce, fashion, and even vocabulary.  With lightening speed it has spread around the world to become a kind of lingua franca of music and culture. One reason for the wide appeal of Rock is that, historically, it has drawn upon many different types of music. In a way it has been an ingenious amalgam of musics, absorbing Pop (from Broadway to Top 40), Country, Rhythm & Blues, Folk, Gospel, and Jazz.

In the early 1950s hardly anyone had heard the term "rock and roll."  There were three main styles of music-- Pop, Country & Western, and Rhythm & Blues-- each with their own separate performers, separate record labels and separate audiences. But these separate, distinct, and even mutually exclusive styles soon came together in the synthesis we now call Rock n' Roll. Just a bit of background here:

POP MUSIC

The composers of Tin Pan Alley, from the turn of the century right up through the 1950s were churning out tunes for Hollywood movie scores, Swing bands, and Broadway shows. This Pop music was very lyrical and tuneful, the majority of it slow or moderate in tempo, and dealing with love.

By far the greatest wealth in the music industry was concentrated in this area because the composers of Pop music had the backing of the so-called "majors"-- the large record companies such as RCA Victor, Columbia, Capitol, Mercury, and Decca, who lavished money on "name" composers and sleekly orchestrated arrangements, played by professional musicians, and recorded with the finest equipment. Their distribution systems were tops, and often tied in with their other operations, such as sheet-music publishing, phonograph sales, and radio and TV networks. Pop music was largely produced by whites and aimed at the wealthiest consumer of the time: white adults. Some examples of this style from the 1950s include: "Vaya con Dios," "Goodnight Irene," "Mona Lisa," "Because of You," and "Doggie in the Window."  Pop singers included names like Perry Como, Patti Page, Tony Bennett, and Eddie Fisher, and occasionally a black artist like Nat "King" Cole.

COUNTRY & WESTERN

Contrary to the slick and well-heeled companies producing Pop music, the C&W market was run mostly by small independent record companies called "indies"-- low-budget affairs, often with a one-man distribution system. Though the indies were spread throughout the South, Southwest and Midwest, they came to be concentrated in Nashville.  The most important reason for this was the famous radio show broadcast on Nashville's WSM, "The Grand Ole Opry," that concentrated on C&W music.  Some C&W artists (notably the singing cowboys Gene Autry; Roy Rogers and Dale Evans; and Eddy Arnold and Hank Snow) managed to break through to the "majors" who released some C&W music on subsidiary labels.

The Country Music Book, ed. Michael Mason. New York: Charles Scribner & Sons, 1985.

The audience for C&W was also white but not particularly affluent. The music was harmonically and rhythmically more obvious than Pop, though the subject matter was also love-oriented. C&W music was not notated, and arrangements were worked out in rehearsals by the performers-- who were also often the composers. Unlike the lush orchestrations of Pop, C&W commonly presented a lead singer, with the backup of a vocal trio or quartet, and accompanied with a small band of piano, violin, bass, and electric pedal steel guitars.  The steel guitars gave a characteristic twang to the sound, as did the distinctive vocal quality of the singers-- a kind of nasal quality and a tendency to "crack" the voice and even break into yodelling. The typical instrumentation of C&W dispensed with drums, using bass, guitar and piano to lend any percussive and rhythmic effects.

RHYTHM & BLUES

The intense rhythm of R&B and the personal delivery of the lyrics -- a "shouting" style that dealt with topics like love, jobs, and "the school of hard knocks"-- had a much more immediate, visceral effect than either of the other two styles (Pop and C&W).  Because of this R&B is regarded as the most important link to Rock.  (It's even been said that Rock is basically an updated version of R&B.)

Both the performers and audience for R&B were black and it was not originally a big money-maker. R&B performers started out in the South, but spread through the Southwest, Midwest, and into urban areas. The most famous of the R&B indie record companies were Atlantic (in New York), Chess (Chicago), and Specialty and Imperial (both in Los Angeles). Though traditional songs were passed from generation to generation in R&B, most of the songs were originals, created by the performers themselves (as opposed to Tin Pan Alley professional composers writing for professional singers). Like C&W (and unlike Pop), R&B artists did not notate their music or arrangements, instead working them out in rehearsals and recording sessions. A typical R&B combo could contain guitars, acoustic bass, piano, drums, saxophone and harmonica. The harmonies were based on the 12-bar blues scheme (see Lecture 3), a favorite of jazz artists, though not worked out with the complexity of jazz style.

THE SYNTHESIS: ROCK 'N ROLL

In the early 1950s, white and black markets were still firmly separated, each with their own music and musical stars. By the early-to-mid 1950s, however, these separate markets were beginning to show signs of merging. R&B hits were actually working their way up the Pop charts; Pop "covers" (a new version of a song) were being made of C&W and R&B hits; and a new market for music was emerging: the youth market. Films like Rebel without a Cause, Blackboard Jungle and Rock Around the Clock (with Bill Haley and his Comets, of See you Later, Alligator fame) seemed to signal a new culture of youthful power and economic clout.

The one person who represented this new culture-- who literally gave it its voice-- was Elvis Aron Presley (1935-1977).  What was important about Elvis from the start was that he had been immersed since childhood in pop, C&W, R&B, bluegrass, and gospel, and he could put across a song persuasively in a mixture of styles that crossed racial boundaries.  Once, a record executive had said that if only he could find a white musician to play with the sound and feel of black musicians he'd make a million dollars-- in Elvis Presley his wish came true. Elvis' first record (on the Sun label, 1954) had both R&B ("That's All Right Mama"), and C&W (Blue Moon of Kentucky"). He became an enormous hit on the C&W circuit-- at the same time, though, his performances were infused with R&B and gospel spirit, all crossed with a sexually evocative performing style that really appealed to the younger market.

Elvis' recordings set new records for sales, his first national hit, "Heartbreak Hotel" selling more than 1 million copies in just a few months. Sales orders for "Love Me Tender" outstripped 1 million copies even before it was released. By the time of his death in 1977 his records had sold more than 500 million copies.

In an excellent synopsis, author Joe Stuessy (Rock and Roll: It's History and Stylistic Development) explains Elvis' ability to reach such a broad audience :

"Elvis was many things to many people. If one wanted a sex symbol, Elvis' good looks, sneer, and bodily movements filled the bill. If one wanted the teenage "hood" image, one could find it in Elvis' sideburns, black jacket, open shirt, upturned collars, and greasy ducktail. If one valued respect for God, Elvis was your man. He was unashamedly religious and in fact recorded many hymns, Christmas songs, and gospel albums. If you liked patriotism in your starts, you had to like Elvis: he willingly served in the military and always paid his income taxes without the usual dodges practiced by so many millionaires. If you were impressed by respect for elders, you were impressed by Elvis. He never lost the politeness his mother Gladys instilled in him as a young southern boy. Even at the age of forty, he addressed his elders 9and others) as "Mr." or "Mrs." and always said "Yes, sir," and "No, ma'am." If your musical tastes ran toward shoutin' rock and roll, softer rock, romantic ballads, hymns, gospel, country, patriotic anthems, social commentary, escapism, or tearjerkers, you could find an Elvis song to your liking."

Other 50s Rockers-

One of the important artists of the 1950s was Little Richard (born Richard Wayne Penniman in 1932), whose shouting style and wild performance manner was in the stream leading to later performers such as Jimi Hendrix, James Brown, and the Rolling Stones.  Little Richard grew up in Georgia performing pop, gospel and R&B.  His first big break came with Specialty records, recording the crazed 12-bar-blues tune, Tutti-Frutti, with nonsense lyrics. Tutti-Frutti sold about a half million copies and rose to No. 2 on the R&B charts, appealing to black and white teenagers both. Other Little Richard hits included Long Tall Sally, Good Golly Miss Molly and The Girl Can't Help It.

Little Richard's manic performance style with its raucous sexual content was his signature, but interestingly, it was an image he was extremely ambivalent about.  In 1957, during the height of his fame, he chucked show business altogether to become a preacher. The tension between the sacred and profane in his character was one that he was never able to adequately resolve and, despite a comeback in the early 1960s, his personal life remained troubled and his career never achieved the same level of success as earlier.

Chuck Berry was another 50s Rocker who had an influence on later styles and performers. Berry's guitar playing featured the instrument the way a jazz player would-- as a melodic partner rather than a strictly accompanimental instrument.  In this sense he was in the lineage leading to Jimi Hendrix. His performing style was not as hysterical as Little Richard's, nor was he a "shouter." Most of his songs used 12-bar blues form and a string of hits -- Rock and Roll Music, Johnny B. Goode, Back in the U.S.A., Roll Over Beethoven-- hit the tops of the R&B charts.

 

Chuck Berry: The Autobiography. New York: Simon & Schuster, 1987

Ray Charles became an icon of Rock starting in the 1950s. Blinded by glaucoma at the age of 6 he nonetheless learned to play the piano, trumpet, saxophone and clarinet, and to read and write braille music. Though Charles never sang gospel in church his style was heavily influenced by it (he used the call-and-response of gospel, and a gospel piano style, for instance, and his lyrics were sometimes a gentle derivation from gospel songs), blending it with the blues, country (as in for, example, using storyline texts), and jazz. He used large bands with a polished set of female singers to supply harmonic backing. One of his most famous hits was What'd I Say, which was released in two different versions (on each side of a single record). In the late 60s he did covers of the Beatle's Yesterday and Eleanor Rigby.

Brother Ray: Ray Charles' Own Story. Ray Charles and David Ritz. New York: Dial Press, 1978.

Other Rock artists of the 1950s include Buddy Holly, Fats Domino, and Jerry Lee Lewis; The Everly Brothers and Rickie Nelson, whose style could be called Rockabilly (a kind of cross between C&W and R&B); and the "soft-rock" collection of young teen idol singers such as Pat Boone, Fabian, Paul Anka, Bobby Darin, and Frankie Avalon.

THE EARLY 60S

 

Look back at the list of performers in the previous paragraph from the vantage point of the "folk" generation in the early 1960s-- performers like Peter, Paul, and Mary, the

Kingston Trio, and Joan Baez, for instance-- and we can see what a difference a few years made. Suddenly 50s rock seemed superficial, both from the point of view of lyrics and the musical style itself. Folk music was based in the campus culture and appealed to older (i.e., college age, or the 18-24 year old marketing group) listeners who were becoming more involved in national issues of politics, government, social structure, and war-- as opposed to obsessing on boy-girl issues. Some classics of the 60s folk generation influenced public opinion and galvanized an entire generation in opposition to the Vietnam war.

 

Folk music of the 1960s was not literally folk music in the sense of traditional music handed down from generation to generation.  But it was inspired by that style of music, particularly Appalachian folk ballads. The aesthetic and the sound-world itself were based in acoustic instruments-- for instance, Peter, Paul, and Mary's style was strictly au natural, from the literally unplugged acoustic guitar sound to their personal look (the proto-hippie long, straight hair of Mary Travers and the bearded style of Peter Yarrow and Paul Stookey).

Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman, b. 1941) started out in New York City coffeehouses with just the accompaniment of his acoustic guitar, singing traditional folk songs and his own material. Blowin' in the Wind, which first became known in its version by Peter, Paul, and Mary, became a classic of 60s culture, arguing for racial equality and peace; A Hard Rain's a-Gonna Fall became a famous anti-war song. In the earlier part of his career Dylan was apparently offered a spot on The Ed Sullivan Show, but declined it when he learned that he would not be able to sing his Talking John Birch Society Blues.

In 1965 Dylan surprised (and lost) some of his fans when he 'went electric,' appearing with drums and electric guitar at the Newport Folk Festival.  But his new rock-oriented style did not dim his interest in social commentary and one of his greatest songs, Like a Rolling Stone, emerged from that period. After a serious motorcycle accident Dylan spent his long recuperation making tapes in his home (The Basement Tapes, released in 1975).  When he emerged again in public it was with a new style again, a kind of country-rock.  Dylan released John Wesley Harding and Nashville Skyline, and worked with other country-rock musicians, including members of the Byrds.  After becoming a fundamentalist Christian he released three albums dealing with his new-found religious beliefs. A later album, Infidels, moved away from Christianity, and he has subsequently begun to rediscover his Jewish roots.

Dylan had a big influence on the Beatles (particularly John Lennon) and other musicians, not to mention the political and cultural atmosphere of the time. That famously craggy voice, his poetic lyrics and memorable tunes made him a spokesperson for a whole generation. His initially controversial switch to folk-rock sound had an impact on other artists like the Byrds and the Mamas and Papas, and eventually served to legitimize the use of electronic instruments in folk. Simon and Garfunkel were also among the more prominent artists to embrace both the pure acoustic sound of folk and folk-rock style.

About the farthest thing from the lyrics of social protest was the sun-and-fun sound of groups like The Beach Boys, based in southern California. (They originally called themselves Kenny and the Cadets for their first recording, Barbie (1961), as a play on the Barbie and Ken doll mania!) Their earliest songs were part of a genre now called surfing music or surf-rock, and the group specialized in clean, clear vocal harmonizations. With their 1966 hit, Good Vibrations, the group began to steer in the direction of greater experimentation, particularly with recording techniques. One album of theirs, Pet Sounds, was not the audience hit their earlier work was, but was known for the innovation of being built around a single theme. The Beach Boys have been compared to the Beatles in their experiments with recording studio technology, as well as the "theme" album idea. However, by the late 1960s the image of the group was somewhat tarnished and outdated, and they never regained the kind of popularity they had earlier.

Other surf-rock groups of the 60s included the Surfaris, the Chantays, the Pyramids, the Ventures, and the vocal duo Jan and Dean.

ENTER: THE BEATLES

 

Five thousand people waited at the airport in New York City for the touchdown of four English "lads" sporting rather original hairstyles, a different look in fashion, a brazen sense of humor, and a brand new sound: the Beatles. They were slated to perform on the TV variety program, The Ed Sullivan Show, before 700 lucky people who managed to secure seats out of an estimated 50,000 requests.  Starting out with three guitars and a trap set, the Beatles invented a fresh, infectious musical style, tuneful and with a driving rhythm. Early on they did covers of Chuck Berry, Carl Perkins and Little Richard songs, and their own original songs were influenced by American artists and styles.

(my own autograph photo of the Beatles.  I saw their Shea Stadium concert, too!)

Paul McCartney and John Lennon (playing bass and rhythm guitar) were also the composers for the group, an electrifying musical combination if there ever was one. What is so interesting about the two was how different their musical personalities were. Both had a sophisticated harmonic vocabulary, but McCartney was the tunesmith, writing symmetrical, almost pop-like melodies, while Lennon was less of a melodist and more rugged in his musical personality. With the phenomenal success they had early on they could have been content to rest on their laurels for the remainder of their careers.  Instead they constantly pushed the envelope of rock style, taking chances and experimenting. Their record albums trace a fascinating development of them as people and artists the way a photo album would tell the story of your life-- from adolescent insouciance through stages of searching, striving, argumentation, resolution, and accomplishment.

Some of the areas the Beatles explored:

• unusual instrumentation, as in the classic McCartney song, Yesterday, which incorporated a string quartet.  A later McCartney tune, Eleanor Rigby, used a string octet, and the piccolo trumpet (a mostly baroque instrument) was used in Penny Lane. John Lennon's In My Life had a famous instrumental interlude mimicking the sound of a harpsichord (harpsichord sound also appears in Because), while George Harrison's discovery of Indian culture prompted him to incorporate the sound of the sitar in Norwegian Wood.

• experimentation with recording studio techniques and extra-musical sounds. The recording studio itself became a major point of inspiration starting with the album Rubber Soul. Recording technology provided the means to record, erase, and re-record, not to mention mixing, and a multitude of special effects such as feedback, and running sounds backwards, changing their register, or splicing them. Recording sessions became a deliberate part of the creative process, with songs artfully constructed layer upon layer.  Ironically, these bold new studio techniques offered tremendous possibilities-- but at the same time they made it harder for the Beatles to reproduce an album on stage and on tour. As a consequence, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club Band, with its host of special effects and extra-musical sounds such as crowds cheering, was pioneering in recording technique, and one of the Beatles' best loved albums-- but it pretty much signalled the end of their touring days.
• expansion of song length and introduction of the "concept album," or "theme album." Revolution 9 was over 8 minutes long, as was I Want You, while Hey Jude (the biggest seller of all Beatle songs) clocked in at slightly over 7. A Day in the Life is 5 minutes long and ends with one single phantasmagoric chord which fades into silence over the space of 45 seconds-- just one chord, 45 seconds! The Beatles had earned the right to write a song as long or short as they wished, and often exercised the prerogative. In that sense they set an important precedent for artists who have tried to expand the relatively short length of the average rock song. Sgt. Pepper is also "longer" in the sense that the whole album is based on one topic, developed throughout the course of the songs-- the rock musician's discovery of the song-cycle, a form pioneered by Franz Schubert in the early 19th century.
• explorations in counterpoint and meter. She's Leaving Home is probably one of the most beautiful examples of counterpoint in rock music. It tells the story of a young girl who has run away from home and looks at the story from the point of view of the girl, her parents, and a narrator. The different voices are represented by different threads of counterpoint, as technically proficient as any Baroque master outside J.S. Bach! Aside from the counterpoint, She's Leaving Home has a few other inspired strokes: it is filled out by an instrumentation of string ensemble and harp; and is also in triple meter, an atypical (for rock) meter that lent the song a gentle, disembodied sound. George Harrison's Within You Without You also explored rhythmic and metric shifts, going from quadruple to quintuple and then to triple meter, and undulating in irregular phrase groupings. One of the most famous examples of metric shifting is Good Morning, Good Morning, which switches between 5/4, 3/4 and 4/4.  Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds, shifts from triple meter in the verses to quadruple for the choruses. There are plenty of examples of Beatles songs that don't have the typical rock "back-beat" (that is, accents on beats 2 and 4 of 4/4 meter.)
• harmonic sophistication.  Peppering their music with stark shifts from major to minor, and modal and chromatic harmonies, The Beatles shifted away from the formulas (i.e., 12-bar blues or the I-vi-IV-V progression of so many "soft rock" 50s songs) that had been the basis of rock music since its inception. Their harmonic experimentation did not include anything that classical and jazz composers had not tried before, but it was new to a rock context and therefore important. It also influenced songwriters after them.

  I want to add a really important point here concerning rock harmonies and a mistake I found in the Study Guide! If you look at the textbook on p. 382 it says, "the harmonic progressions of rock are usually quite simple, often consisting of just three or four basic chords." But the Study Guide says that rock music harmonies are limited to only 1 or 2 chords. This is a mistake in the Study Guide--beware of this, because this question is in the testbank and you will NOT get credit if you give the incorrect SG answer. Forewarned is Forearmed.

Above all, the Beatles are known for their innovation. In a field where artistic risk-taking is not always commercially rewarded, they confounded all expectations, managing to experiment and be creative while still producing best selling albums.

A GREAT DIVIDE

 

If 'imitation is the sincerest form of flattery,' the Beatles may have been the most flattered rock group in history. Even those groups wanting to distance themselves from the Beatles style and image imitated them. Further, the Beatles had staked out so many different areas-- from hard rock sound to soft pop tunes, from electronic elements to folk, from psychedelic to innocently nostalgic-- that there was virtually no way to make music without reference to something they had already tried.  Nonetheless there was a proliferation of good American and English groups with an individual sound during the 60s "British Invasion" period, including The Kinks,  Peter and Gordon, Freddy and the Dreamers, The Hollies, the Byrds, and The Yardbirds.

The major contenders to vie with the Beatles, however, were The Rolling Stones. Both their look and sound were at odds with the Beatles, because they cultivated a deliberately rough, scruffy, even menacing image. Fans soon became polarized-- you either loved the Beatles and hated the Stones, or loved the Stones and loathed the Beatles.

The Stones had started out as a blues band, originally covering Muddy Waters and Buddy Holly songs, in addition to Motown songs. Aftermath (1966) was their first all-original album, written by Mick Jagger and Keith Richards. It mixed American blues and soul influences with experiments with Indian sitar, harpsichord, and marimba. From then on, the Stones would make their musical mark as an eclectic band using many styles, from American folk ballad (Sister Morphine), to gospel style "call and response" vocals (I Got the Blues), Country (Loving Cup), Blues (Shake Your Hips), disco (Miss You), Motown covers (Aint too Proud to Beg, of the Temptations), and Reggae (Too Rude). In their album Black and Blue they used rhythms and vocal devices from Kenya and Tanzania.

The nihilistic, drug-infested spirit of the group infected other bands and particularly spread to fans. The low point of the Stones' career was their concert in Altamont, California, where they had decided to cap off their American tour with a free concert -- a kind of west coast answer to Woodstock. A free concert may have been a nice idea, but the irrational way it was put together could only have led to disaster: the group did not decide on the site for the event until the day before the concert-- and then asked a chapter of the local Hell's Angels to provide "security" for it! The concert turned into mayhem, with fisticuffs, weapons, and finally, the murder of a fan during the concert by one of the Hells Angels guards. As Philip Norman, author of Symphony for the Devil: The Rolling Stones Story, wrote, the Stones "made destruction cool and the Devil a rock star."

The legacy of the Stones led through hard rock to heavy metal and punk rock, as opposed to the Beatles legacy, out of which came art rockers, jazz-rock, and other softer rock styles. The appearance of the Stones was the beginning of a divide in rock, between these two different strains of styles.

Another group to be identified on the Stones' side of the fence was the Who, a group that had started out with jazz background, morphed through a few identities, including a period when they called themselves the High Numbers (reverting back to the Who later). They eventually distinguished themselves for really giving the fans a 'good show,' including strumming the guitar with huge arm circles, jumping and screaming, and ending with a grand finale in which they smashed their instruments to smithereens. On a more strictly musical note, the Who are remembered for first exploring the idea of rock-opera, beginning with Pete Townshend's 10-minute "Rael" on the Happy Jack album of 1967.  In 1969 they produced the first full-length rock opera, (Tommy, the story of a deaf, dumb and blind boy) on a double album. It was later made into a film by Ken Russell in 1975. Townshend followed with another rock-opera, Quadrophenia (1973).

The drug culture that had taken hold in the 1960s was fully, and ultimately, tragically embraced by rockers. Between September 1970 and July 1971 the rock world lost three top stars who had all been highly visible and habitual drug users: Jimi Hendrix, Janis Joplin and Jim Morrison (coincidentally all three singers were 27 years old when they died). In spite of these losses the drug culture was still prominently at the root of many groups such as the Grateful Dead.  It was obvious in their music, with its long instrumental improvs and incessant Indian sitar droning, and was visible in their album covers, inspired by psychedelic colors and images.

The Grateful Dead were based in San Francisco (Ashbury Street) at the heart of hippie counterculture. The group was founded by Jerry Garcia who had started out as a guitarist and bluegrass banjo player. Musically, the Grateful Dead mixed a psychedelic brew of country, folk, blues, and Latin influences with rock. They were known for their long improvs called montunos which alternated basically between two chords. During the montuno, time seemed to stand still, for many fans enhancing the drug-induced dreamlike state of listeners.

Other psychedelic groups included Jefferson Airplane, with the distinctive voice of Grace Slick. They became one of the most commercially popular of the psychedelic bands with two hits, Somebody to Love and White Rabbit.

Another group to reach legendary status was the Doors, who chose their name as an abbreviation of Alduous Huxley's book entitled, The Doors of Perception, about the influence of drugs. The two pivotal members of the Doors were singer Jim Morrison who wrote poetry and guitarist Robby Krieger, who wrote the music for Morrison's words. It may be hard to believe now, but the Doors were actually invited to be on the Ed Sullivan Show, an invitation they accepted even though a restriction was placed on their hit song, Light My Fire: Morrison was to replace the word 'higher' with something else, to avoid drug references.  When the live performance came, however, Morrison not only used the word 'higher' but shouted it! The Doors, needless to say, were never invited back to the Ed Sullivan Show.  Eventually Morrison's wild stage demeanor began to pull the band down and caused the loss of numerous playing dates. After being arrested in Miami for public obscenity and indecency, Morrison toned down his act but also seems to have drifted away from the group. He took a break from the band and moved to Paris, where he died.

Hard rock and heavy metal are both loud, aggressive styles that developed mostly in the 1970s, with heavy influence from groups like Cream, Rolling Stones and the Who. Hard rock was closer to blues and folk-rock, and hard rock songs were often about love and love relationships. Some of the more prominent hard rock groups: Steppenwolf, Aerosmith, Free, and Bad Company. Heavy metal was more macho-oriented with extreme amplification and even feedback, and a screaming style. Heavy metal songs had a kind of rebellious appeal with a raucous sound and sometimes infantile fantasies of death and the occult. The music itself was often based on a short riff played in the bass part, repeated over and over throughout the piece. Some of the higher profile heavy metal groups: Led Zeppelin, Black Sabbath, Judas Priest, Alice Cooper, and Kiss.

Punk rock grew out of the rough sound of garage bands. In America it represented a music of teenage criticism and rebellion, dealing with drugs and urban life.  In its English incarnation, it was more political (verging on anarchistic), dealing with topics such as unemployment, racism, and police brutality. Some punk groups: the Sex Pistols, Clash, Police, New York Dolls, Patti Smith.

Many punk groups were influenced by Ska and Reggae, two styles coming from Jamaica. Ska reflected the R&B style of 1950s New Orleans, while Reggae used African polyrhythms with a stress on the bass line. Reggae became the music of the Rastafarian religious sect.

Reggae, Rasta, Revolution: Jamaican Music from Ska to Dub, ed. Chris Potash. New York: Schirmer, 1997

 

Jammin' Reggae Archives for anything and everything about different Jamaican musics.

A GREAT CONVERGENCE

 

"While we would like to think of music as a pure art form, we must never forget that it is also a business. Nobody is more acutely aware of this fact than the musicians themselves, who are constantly being reminded of it by their record company, their peers, the press (if they read their reviews), and, of course, mostly importantly, by the consumer. In the end, it is the people who buy the records and fill the concert halls and clubs; they determine who's at the top of the charts, who wins the polls, and so forth. Jazz musicians have only recently begun to display the trappings long associated with rock music, that is, gold and platinum records, personal managers, agents, accountants, and coverage by the media." Julie Coryell, in the book, Jazz-Rock Fusion.

During the late '60s and through the '70s many bands experimented with blending distinctly different art forms. One such "convergence"  is that of jazz and rock. It is called either Fusion (when come at from the jazz perspective, adding rock influences) or jazz-rock (when come at from the rock perspective, adding jazz practice and style to rock). Fusion, the more jazz-oriented style, began with Miles Davis in 1969 and included groups like the Mahavishnu Orchestra, Weather Report, and Return to Forever. Since it was more jazz-based, fusion was usually instrumental, and the rock influence was seen in the addition of electronic instruments and rock beat.

Jazz-rock has a rock orientation, predominantly vocal, with the jazz influence being mainly in the realm of instrumentation (adding a 'horn section' of trumpet, sax and/or trombone), and the addition of subtle jazz harmonies, unusual meters, changing meters, and complex rhythms. Examples of this style are found in groups like Blues Project, Paul Butterfield Blues Band, Chase, Dreams, White Elephant, and particularly Chicago and Blood, Sweat, and Tears. A good example of jazz-rock is the album Blood, Sweat and Tears 3. Besides having songs by lead-singer David Clayton-Thomas, there are songs by James Taylor (Fire and Rain) and Steve Winwood (Forty Thousand Headmen, which used themes by Bartok, Prokofiev and Thelonius Monk).

The success of combining art forms was not limited to jazz and rock. In a style called Art Rock there has been a crossing of classical and contemporary musics with rock. Early pioneers of this style were the Moody Blues with their album Days of Future Passed (1968), recorded with the London Symphony Orchestra, Deep Purple, Procul Harem, and Rick Wakeman. Perhaps the group that has pursued the idea the most, though, is Emerson, Lake, and Palmer. Their third album, Pictures at an Exhibition, was named for and based on the 1874 composition by Russian composer Modest Mussorgsky. Other classical works they adapted include Ginastera's Piano Concerto, the "Hoedown" from Rodeo of Copland, and Copland's Fanfare for the Common Man, the latter being one of the most famous works in all of the classical literature. (Aaron Copland was once asked what he thought of ELP's version of his Fanfare. Ever the diplomat he adroitly replied, "I like my version better.") Keith Emerson also wrote a piano concerto and there is a fugue in "The Endless Enigma." Frank Zappa is another rock musician who has worked in this area, trying to blend his understanding of Varese, Stockhausen and Cage with his own idiosyncratic style. He has written for The Mothers of Invention, and also on commission for numerous classical groups.

The history of rock is ongoing and continuous.  It obviously does not end with those artists, like the jazz-rockers and art-rockers, who have worked on the convergence of different art forms.  But this is, in my mind, a good place to end our survey of contemporary music, because the idea of crossing art styles--of melding and hybridizing--has become an important trend, one which gives every evidence of continuing for quite some time into the future.

The image of "The American Melting Pot" is making a comeback of sorts. Once a venerable metaphor, it has had a rocky history. There was a time, especially during World Wars I and II, when we fancied ourselves as so many crayons in a saucepan, melding together in the name of unity. The famous World War I tune, "Let's All be Americans Now," urged immigrants to put aside their native heritage to join the cause. In the 1960s, when unity came a little too close to uniformity, we recoiled from the melting pot. Then it was better to shut off the heat and ‘do your own thing'-- to bask in chartreuse as distinct from magenta. But lately it seems we are melding again, though not as before, not as one lump. Now we're busy crossing our colors, mixing and matching, fusing new shades of identity, style, and taste, in everything from our racial make-up to our clothes and even our cuisine. The summer of ‘99 marked the debut of America's favorite food, ice-cream, crossed with Sichuan peppercorn-- the combinations are apparently endless.

In music right now there is also a strong trend toward eclecticism. All different musics -- classical, jazz, rock, world musics-- are existing side-by-side, and sometimes even on the same program, each with their own unique appeal. Artists are mixing and crossing different styles, producing new 'hybrids' in music--both in classical and popular.

Audiences, too, are expanding their horizons, to encompass everything in their listening experience, like a gigantic smorgasbord. Not to stretch that metaphor too far, but I would say that this is a very healthy musical diet for all of us. Just as you wouldn't want to live on chocolate brownies alone, hopefully, after taking this course, you won't want to limit your musical intake either. The next (and last) lecture, which deals with Nonwestern Music, will hopefully expand your musical diet still further.

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