1950s expansion & 1960s transitions

Little Richard

Little Richard was a legend that made a name for himself with his nonsense lyrics and flamboyant personality and performance style. He lived a life in conflict - secular rock and superstardom in opposition to his strong faith. In fact, he twice left the limelight and a rock and roll career for life in the church. He was also conflicted about his sexual orientation. He has proclaimed that he was gay, and lived a gay lifestyle, but then renounced it and called it a sin in an interview near the end of this life. He came to prominence and stardom in the early to mid 1950s, but in 1957 he renounced show business and turned back to chruch, away from the stage.

But that's neither here nor there - what is important is the influence he had on rock and roll and performance styles. In 1962, on one of his come-back tours in the UK, he met up-and-coming groups The Beatles and The Rolling Stones, and left an indelible impression on both of them. The lyrics for his songs are somewhat nonsensical - the original lyrics for Tutti Frutti were very explicit lyrics about gay sex, so the record company hired an outside songwriter to clean them up and make them palatable. This became the model for most of his other songs as well.

He was not quite shout-singing, but he had a rasp and edge to his voice. In comparison, one artist who didn't hold back from the shout singing was Little Richard:

• Little Richard - Long Tall Sally / Tutti Fruitti - this is a link to a youtube video. Tutti Fruitti is on the spotify playlist as well. But I want you watch the video, see what is clearly a lip synced performance. As an aside, this is NOT called "lip singing". The correct terminology is "lip syncing" because you are synchronizing you mouth and lips to pre-recorded music. Please banish "lip singing" from existence.

Spotify links:

• Tutti Fruitti - audio only, how does this compare to the video above?
• Rip It Up

Excursion - lip syncing in the 50s and beyond - for *most* 1950's *live* videos, you can see that the bands are not really playing (as in the above lip-synced video). Or they may be playing, but that's not what we're hearing. This is a tradition that has continued for years, with pop superstars like Britney Spears or InSync or whomever else doing complicated dance moves and faking the audio. The more outlandish the moves, the harder it is to play and sing live, and sometimes it's impossible. Playing an instrument is hard enough, singing in tune and in time is hard enough, people spend their whole lives practicing to be able to do just one of those things. Add in energetic dancing which takes all your energy and wind, and the case for lip-syncing can be understood. An additional pressure is that many concert producers and promoters want the concert to sound perfect, exactly like the recording. For most artists, that's simply not possible without pre-recorded and pre-produced tracks. Another tactic used in modern concert video productions is to film a real live performance, and then re-record everything in a studio and replace the live concert audio with this new and cleaned up audio.

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Rockabilly

About the time when Elvis was an up-and-comer for Sun Records, there were also C&W and R&B performers who were trying to emulate Elvis's early success, and a turned to the lighter and more mainstream style called Rockabilly. From around 1955-1959, Sun Records released recordings of Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Johnny Cash, amongst many others. To be clear, at this time, Elvis was straddling the line between pure "rock" and "rockabilly". Rockabilly style was an attempt to make rock a little more acceptable, but to some it seemed to "dilute" the "purer" style of hard-driving rock.

Compare the above Little Richard songs to this rockabilly Jerry Lee Lewis song:

• Jerry Lee Lewis - Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On - (youtube link) - this one is recorded live. Compared to the Little Richard songs, the form and chords are quite similar between the two. Point to ponder - how does this sound different tonally from the Little Richard song?
• Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (audio only Spotify link)

Regarding Jerry Lee Lewis - you may have heard about his rather scandalous personal life - for his third marriage, he married his 1st cousin, who was 13 at the time (he was 22). She later said "...that she “has been subject to every type of physical and mental abuse imaginable”; Jerry Lee later said that “it was all my fault—she caught me cheating." (Medium.com - Ballad of the 13 Year Old Bride).

I bring this up not for the titillation or schadenfreude aspect, but to say that although his career rightly suffered major setbacks because of this, he is still out and performing and has had several comebacks. Many of our rock and roll stars turn out to be problematic, and we would be best served to know and acknowledge and confront their negative sides and include that in our own personal calculus of who we listen to going forward. I include his one song mostly because it is one of the most popular examples of rockabilly at the time, and because it allows us to bring up this discussion.

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Chuck Berry

Somebody who did not play the Televised lip-syncing game if he didn't have to was Chuck Berry, another pioneer of rock and roll and master of the electric guitar. He influenced nearly everyone in rock and roll, and his iconic playing of Johnny B. Goode was probably his most famous work, and was covered in the 1980s movie "Back to the Future". His first breakout hit, however, was Maybellene.

This article has a great behind the scenes story about Chuck Berry's ascent and writing of songs: https://www.npr.org/2000/07/02/1076141/maybellene

A couple of choice quotes:

Joe Edwards is the owner of Blueberry Hill, the St. Louis club where Chuck Berry still performs every month. He says Berry was not only a rock 'n' roll pioneer, he was its first great poet. "Chuck Berry was the first artist that really did it all, like wrote the songs, he wrote the lyrics of the music, he choreographed the stage show. And no one did that."

When Berry finally got his hands on a copy of the record, he saw he was listed as only one of three songwriters. Alan Freed, the disc jockey who had so aggressively promoted the song, was another. The third was Russ Fratto, a man he'd never heard of. Trading credit for airplay, known as payola, was a common practice at the time, especially when the song was by a black artist. And Berry didn't ask any questions. After all, his first royalty check for "Maybellene" had been more than twice what he'd paid for his house. It was only later that he learned sharing songwriting credits also meant sharing the song's earnings. While there's no doubt Freed's promotion of "Maybellene" was crucial to its success nationwide, Berry fought for years to recover the full rights to the song.

"I didn't even know that you could use lawyers to correct these things, you know, then, you know," Mr. Berry says. "So it goes on and on and on, but that happens to rookies, if you want to call a new musician a rookie."

In 1986, more than 30 years after he wrote "Maybellene," Chuck Berry was finally credited as the song's sole composer.

Below is a link to a live concert video, with each song and section listed by a timestamp. Please take the time to watch as much of it as you can. This was a man who could actually dance and play at the same time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lhoyMlX5avU

0:20 - 1:03 band plays him in

1:03 - 1:24 Maybellene intro

1:24 - 3:47 "Maybellene"

4:15 - 4:46 Intro to the Blues <- watch this for sure.

4:47 - 9:02 "The Blues" (really titled "The Things I Used to Do")

9:23 - 9:56 Roll Over Beethoven into

9:57 - 14:16 "Roll Over Beethoven" (watch for his signature dance / playing moves in the middle)

14:17 - 14:41 Intro and "Olay! Olay!" with audience

14:42 - 18:13 "Memphis, Tennessee" 14:45 weird sound, 17:50 neck tapping

18:13 - 18:57 Memphis Tennesse back story, Riding along in my automobile intro

18:58 - 21:05 "Riding Along in my Automobile"

21:06 - 21:25 Speaking as much French as he can

21:26 - 24:04 "Promised Land" + segue to Johnny B Goode

24:05 - 27:09 "Johnny B. Goode"

Compare the sound of Johnny B. Goode at the end of the last video with this one here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aKCt8ssC7cs&ab_channel=VisageClub80s

This was another example of the 1950s "dance while you lip-sync" technique. Can you hear and see the difference?

Chuck's Arrest

In late 1959, Chuck was arrested for violating the Mann Act, a law against transporting a minor across state lines for immoral purposes. Berry picked up a 14-year old girl, who had previously worked as a waitress and prostitute, and had her join his tour across several states. At the end of the tour, he put her to work at a hatcheck girl in his club in St. Louis. When she proved unreliable, he fired her. In retaliation, she filed a complaint with the police.

Chuck was arrested and convicted in a 1960 trial, whose verdict was overturned, only to be convicted in a second trial and sent to prison in 1962, and released in 1964.

Till his dying day, Chuck Berry denied having any relations with the girl. But he also denied having gone to prison until later in life as well. I've read several articles on the matter to see if I could find a better picture of what actually happened, and they each have a different interpretation. So I'll leave it at that. The video above is from 1965, after he had been released from prison.

Spoitfy song links to Chuck Berry songs:

• Maybellene
• Johnny B. Goode
• Rock and Roll Music

Buddy Holly

Like Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly wrote most of his own material. This helped establish the trend for rock and roll going forward. Buddy, unlike other rock and rollers, had a more conservative lifestyle, without any of the drinking, drugs, or womanizing problems pioneered by Elvis and followed by many rock stars since. Buddy's appearance, lyrics, and musical styles reflected his clean living - he was much more uncomplicated in his lyrics and had a softer edge to his sound. He experimented with studio techniques like double-tracking ("Words of Love"), and paid attention to other technical aspects of the recording process, often bringing in new sounds (like a Celeste, or having his drummer provide percussion by slapping his hand against his leg, both heard in "Everyday"). His instrumental lineup (with his band, The Crickets) of lead guitar, rhythm guitar, bass, and drums would set the basic rock instrumentation for years to come.

Buddy Holly also had a vocal habit possibly derived from Elvis, called the "hiccup" style (more correctly "glottal stop"), where they would transform one syllable of lyric into at least two. Have a listen to Peggy Sue, or as Buddy sang it: "Pe-heggy Su-hue-ue-ue".

• Everyday
• Words of Love
• Peggy Sue

Buddy Holly had quite a lot of changes in 1958 - he got married, split from his manager, and arranged to start a new group with a new sound, and started a tour, and started recording new music. Following a concert in Clear Lake Iowa in Feb 1959, the plane that Buddy, guitarist Ritchie Valens, and "The Big Bopper" J.P. Richardson were on crashed, killing all aboard. An unreleased song from Buddy's recording sessions "It Doesn't Matter Anymore" was released posthumously, and in the 1971 hit "American Pie", by Don Mclean, he referenced this day as "the day the music died". Buddy Holly, his Crickets, and their short run would nevertheless influence many rock groups to come.

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1960s Transitions

The early 1960s were a time ripe for musical change. Bill Haley and his Comets had been eclipsed (sorrynotsorry) by new acts. Elvis was pulling back from live concerts, and by 1962 was rarely seen in person, although still popular in movies and radio play. Little Richard retired from music (for the first time) and devoted himself to religion. Chuck Berry had been arrested and was in jail. Buddy Holly died. A lot of the songs were sounding very similar, following a 12-bar blues format or the 1950s four chord progression.

It was like the explosion of new rock music in the mid to late fifties had been halted.

With this in mind, the market completely fragmented.

Some major categories that emerged:

Folk

Folk music rose out of Appalachian folk ballad. Most people think "slow" when they hear the term ballad, but that's not correct. It is a narrative story, usually passed down orally from generation to generation. All of the old American folk ballads I've encountered end in some sort of death or tragedy. From this emerged Pete Seeger and Woody Guthrie, ballad and folk singers whose subject matter ranged from the great depression, WWII, union movements, political perspectives, etc.

From these beginnings, we got groups like the Kingston Trio in the late late 50s, Bob Dylan and Peter, Paul, and Mary in the early 60s. They were followed by The Byrds, The Mamas and the Papas, and Simon and Garfunkel. But we'll get to all of these groups in a later unit. For now, just know that folk was starting to rise in popularity, and was a genre where albums sold better than singles.

Dance Music

This was also a style that filled some of the void left by the disappearance of some of the early rock heroes. Chubby Checker gained fame and notoriety for "The Twist". A hundred other artists filled the airwaves with other dance oriented songs. Not much else to say here, except this was another part of the rock fragmentation that had influence for later acts (including The Beatles).

Surf Music

We don't have a lot of artists to talk about in this category. While there were pioneering artists, this is a category dominated by the Beach Boys. Have a listen to their second hit:

• Surfin' U.S.A.

I hope you can clearly hear the roots of rock (Chuck Berry guitar tones), the instrumentation, the driving drums, innocent lyrics, etc... And I really hope you hear the Chuck Berry influence... because this was a Chuck Berry tune originally, just with different lyrics: Sweet Little Sixteen

Have a listen to a later single:

• I Get Around

This one shows some evolution while still keeping the surfer vibe - texture changes, key change, new instrumentation, tone changes. It's a lot more than the simple rock and roll idea of starting in one key with standard instruments, and keep it for the whole song. There's also a lot of high falsetto which is not a standard for rock and roll lead vocals, and also some really deep bass vocals which again, was not standard. I Get Around was good transitional style - surfer, with a bit of exploration into other soundscapes.

But the real Beach Boys evolution came with their mid 1966 concept album Pet Sounds. Listen to the opening track:

• Wouldn't It Be Nice

This album traced a relationship from one song to the next. Albums of the time were generally comprised of songs that had little to no lyrical relation to each other, but just look at the track listing on Pet Sounds - you can see the detailing of a relationship from the wistful "what if we were together", then actually starting, growing, conflicting, and ending, plus other themes that weaved in and out:

1. Wouldn't It Be Nice 

2. You Still Believe in Me
3. That's Not Me
4. Don't Talk (Put Your Head on My Shoulder)
5. I'm Waiting for the Day
6. Let’s Go Away for a While
7. Sloop John B
8. God Only Knows
9. I Know There's an Answer
10. Here Today
11. I Just Wasn't Made for These Times
12. Pet Sounds
13. Caroline No

More importantly, it was a sonic concept album, trying new ways of orchestrating and making each song a superb stand alone unit that also fit in perfectly with the rest of the tracks. It's a brilliant album, and I wish I had more time to get into it. If you have time, you should definitely take a listen from start to finish: Pet Sounds (full album), lyrics linked here: Pet Sounds Lyrics. "God Only Knows" is a masterpiece by itself, but in context adds just that little bit of extra depth. It was partially produced as an answer to The Beatles Rubber Soul album, and also served as inspiration for The Beatles Sgt. Peppers Lonely Heart Band.

One final song from the Beach Boys deserves a listen:

• Good Vibrations

This is the most experimental hit song that they produced. This song was recorded in four different studios, with 11 different versions, 90 hours of studio time, and even included a instrument called a theramin. This song almost didn't get released because of the massive amount of editing and re-recordings that were needed. It's hard to understate how completely different this song was, with six different sections, unique instrumentation, and all of the layers of sounds. This song was all Brian Wilson's brain child. For more, visit: https://www.npr.org/2000/06/19/1075634/good-vibrations

"That wasn't your normal rock 'n' roll. I mean, it wasn't 'Help Me, Rhonda' and it wasn't 'Surfin' U.S.A.,' " bassist Carol Kay says. "You were part of a symphony."

"Good Vibrations" is the last No. 1 song Brian Wilson wrote. Drugs and depression would make his life miserable. But now "Good Vibrations" is an American classic, and Pet Sounds, the record he cared so much about, has just been certified platinum.

The commercial success lead to the starting of work on a follow up album called Smile. This album was shelved, an album called Smiley Smile produced in it's place, which then flopped. Smile was eventually released in 2004. Sort of the ultimate in procrastination.