View source for Roots of Rock: R&B, C&W, Pop

Link to Spotify playlist: [https://open.spotify.com/playlist/0mUVfJrCWibCa0bpVee6UQ?si=33649ecfd1d0426b Mus 115 - 1950s R&B, C&W, and Pop]
----One question to keep in the back of your mind while reading these posts is: why *do* I like rock and roll? What is it about this style of music that appeals to me? 

To discuss the roots of rock, we have to get into Pop music, Rhythm and Blues, and Country & Western, and also the general culture of the 1950s.

Let's start with the 1950s: In the United States, this decade is often looked back upon as a time of stability and well-being, when a decent path through life was clear (go to college, marry, own a home, own a car, take vacations, and enjoy the new invention of the TeleVision set). Of course, this only generally applied to one segment of the population, but we'll get into that a little later in this post.

Part of the reason that the 1950s were viewed like this has to do with the decades prior: the 1929 stock market crash and depression made the 1930s a decade of financial hardships and bleak outlook, and in the late 1930s war started breaking out around the world, first in 1937 in the Pacific with the Second Sino-Japanese War, and then in Europe in 1939.*

<nowiki>*</nowiki> ''There is debate about which military actions to include in the beginnings of WWII, I'm just putting in the ones I've come across most commonly.''

With the United States' full entry into the war after Pearl Harbor in 1941, this war became truly global. From 1941 - 1945, World War 2 became the most destructive war the world had ever known, with between 40 - 70 million people perishing. 

The post-war period was a bit of calm, but unsettled, with the beginning of the cold war between the US and Russia, and a "police action" in Korea from 1950-1953. But following the armistice agreement in 1953, the United States returned to a period of peace and prosperity. At least, if you were Caucasian.

If you were a person of color living in the 1950s, the picture was much less rosy. Even though the Supreme Court ruled (in Brown vs Board of Education) that "separate but equal" was unconstitutional, racial segregation was still rampant. Because of this, the musical styles of the time were quite separate as well.

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'''Pop music'''

The music style of "mainstream" society (i.e., white suburbia) was Pop (which was an evolution of Tin Pan Alley songs), which was generally comprised of pretty and simple melodies, mostly moderate to slow tempos (although there were faster tunes that seemed more bouncy and cute), and innocent boy-girl lyrics. Essentially a non-offensive, pleasant, and comfortable style, reflective of the relative serenity of mainstream 1950s society.

'''Audio examples:'''

* [https://open.spotify.com/track/68ZOKozM9xmlp1iwaQSwY7?si=754547df077a4831 Theresa Brewer - Music, Music, Music] - a medium fast tempo "cute" type of song.

* [https://open.spotify.com/track/73NzX0cvYyCFdZjX6da3nf?si=6a3b87147cb747ae The Weavers - Goodnight Irene] - a medium tempo "sweet" song.
* [https://open.spotify.com/track/0hNwfLcROljm0Wk9zWIQ6z?si=f3cdb4f7a00f42fc Rosemary Clooney - Hey There] - a medium slow tempo show tune, from The Pajama Game.
* [https://open.spotify.com/track/09MoQoHYnyusI79AeulNQK?si=7d98e4db6b814c82 Nat King Cole - Too Young] - a slow tempo song, a rarity in this era because it spoke directly to the youth, and also because Nat King Cole was one of the few rare black artists to achieve success in Pop.
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'''Subcultures'''

In most mainstream historical society studies, there are cultures that are not included in the "mainstream society" reports. They are often called subcultures, although that name implies a particular viewpoint. Certainly for the groups in the "subcultures", the cultural environment is anything but "sub". Just keep that in mind as we use textbook style definitions of subcultures. The two main musical genres from subcultures that we are going to investigate are Rhythm & Blues, and Country & Western.

----

'''Rhythm & Blues'''

In the African-American culture of the 1920s, 30s, 40s, and 50s, the main musical styles were jazz (not to be confused with the big band era of the 1940s, which is also a form of jazz), gospel, and Rhythm & Blues (R&B). R&B has a different meaning today, but in these eras leading up to Rock and Roll, the R&B style would more likely be recognized as Blues style.

Specifically, the 12-bar blues style (note - "bars" today can be associated with rap verses, but in general music lingo, it has to do with the subdivision of a musical phrase. I have a bit of an explanation at the end of this post, feel free to try and read that before continuing if the musical terminology seems confusing. Anyway, while there were (and still are) 8-bar blues and 16-bar blues, this 12-bar blues style has become a very standard and basic form, and heavily influenced Rock and Roll forms to this day.

The 12-bar blues is broken into three "phrases" of 4-bars each. Before I get to the specifics, we should be familiar with the term '''[[wikipedia:Key_(music)|key]]'''.

In a '''key''', there are certain chords that occur when you combine notes from that key together. For instance, in the key of C Major, the chord built off of the first note of the scale (C), is called a '''C Major Chord'''. The chord built off of the fourth note of the scale (F) is called an '''F Major Chord''', and the chord built off of the fifth note of the scale (G) is, unsurprisingly, called a '''G Major Chord'''. Typically, in music theory, we shorten all of this using roman numerals: '''I''' for the chord built on the first note of the scale, '''IV''' for the chord built on the fourth note of the scale, and, unsurprisingly, '''V''' for the chord built on the fifth note of the scale. (remember roman numerals? I = 1, II = 2, III = 3, IV = 4, V = 5, VI = 6, VII = 7, etc...).

All that was so that we could get to the 12-bar blues construction:

Phrase 1: 4 bars of the '''I''' chord (C Major if we're in the key of C)

Phrase 2: 2 bars of the '''IV''' chord (F Major), then 2 bars of the '''I''' chord (C Major again)

Phrase 3: 1 bar of the '''V''' chord (G Major), 1 bar of the '''IV''' chord (F Major), and then 2 bars of the '''I''' chord (C Major)

If you are a guitar or piano player, go ahead and try this out. It'll sound close-ish to a blues. What will really make it blues-y is if you use 7th chords (C7, F7, and G7). The construction of such chords, along with the fact that they use notes not in the basic Major key, are discussions beyond this class. But for a simple blues progression, you could have:
{| class="wikitable"
|Phrase 1
|C7
|C7
|C7
|C7
|-
|Phrase 2
|F7
|F7
|C7
|C7
|-
|Phrase 3
|G7
|F7
|C7
|C7
|}

Or, if we're in a different '''key''' (in this case, the key of G, where the I(1) chord is G, the IV(4) is C, and the V(5) is D), possibly:
{| class="wikitable"
|Phrase 1
|G7
|G7
|G7
|G7
|-
|Phrase 2
|C7
|C7
|G7
|G7
|-
|Phrase 3
|D7
|C7
|G7
|G7
|}



'''Blues Lyrics'''

In general, the lyrics form a '''couplet''' - two lines that rhyme. But we have three musical phrases! So the standard solution is to repeat the first line on phrase 2, when the chord underneath the vocalist changes. You can hear this really well in the Robert Johnson example below. The Bessie Smith example puts the '''IV''' chord in bars 2 and 4, and adds a few additional chords at the end of the 3rd phrase (a "turnaround"). This was actually recorded and popularized before the Robert Johnson piece, which had a simpler form.

'''Audio Examples:'''

*[https://open.spotify.com/track/6T3ksjC4K8IPqw1hvH5SKJ?si=5650d9fb676d4e78 Bessie Smith - St. Louis Blues] -1925, written by W.C. Handy, performed by Bessie Smith. Helped establish 12-bar format.
*[https://open.spotify.com/track/1TrGdXSgiBm8W68D2K1COG?si=a8e4ae6e19444279 Robert Johnson - Crossroads] - 1936 or 1937, Delta Blues Style. Reworked and recorded by Cream in 1968
*[https://open.spotify.com/track/3KSchPNSklO5McIqRH3qYX?si=f84a5891fdd54adb Muddy Waters - Hoochie Coochie Man] - 1954 - Urban blues, aka Chicago blues.
----'''Country & Western'''

Another "subculture" that influence the roots of Rock was country and western - the music of the poorer whites in the South. An offshoot of folk, it added it's own western swing style, imported an electric Hawaiian steel guitar in 1931 (yes, 1931, not a typo), and had it's own '''timbre''', or '''timbral style''', specifically a nasal quality. Also, rather than singing a single note perfectly in tune, the performers would slide from pitch to pitch. Male performers would also yodel, essentially a controlled cracking of the voice, or rapid alternation between normal voice and falsetto.

Like R&B, Country and Western market was quite separate from the Pop market, with it's own performers, recording companies, and consumers. Occasionally, C&W songs and performers would break into Pop (much like todays country cross-over artists), but it was pretty rare.

Roy Rogers was probably one of the most famous C&W artists, singing and acting in ''The Roy Rogers Show'' with his horse "Trigger". You can find old episodes on youtube.

'''Audio Examples:'''

* [https://open.spotify.com/track/4eePcTiLO6o5W4ejSQ7uSn?si=c5fc7f7c8f134085 Gene Autry - Back in the Saddle Again] -1939, originally written by Ray Whitley for a film. Eventually became Gene's signature tune.
* [https://open.spotify.com/track/1X9edt6uD6k4OBOJi6LflT?si=7fdee2efc2ca4bd0 Jimmie Rodgers - Blue Yodel No. 1 - aka T is for Texas], this is modeled on a 12-bar blues format, except he doesn't really stay within 4 bar phrases. Kind of all over the place with his form, but it is a live performance.
* [https://open.spotify.com/track/2IsEbZRHA2GGLMR0T6bJ7t?si=becc9969a64d4c2a Marty Robbins - Streets of Laredo]- possibly written in 1910 with two different people claiming authorship, it was covered by many an artist. It was supposedly originally called 'The Dying Cowboy', but there are disputes about all of this. Either way, it has become a folk-ish C&W standard. I recognize this song from a slightly altered comedy version performed in an episode of the TV show Boston Legal (Season 5, Happy Trails, broadcast in 2008).

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