Rock and Roll

When Rock arrived on the music charts in the 1950's, a merging of African-American and White music, it made a huge impact on society. As a general rule I am not heavily into music, but I was drawn to Rock for some inexplicable reason. It is just the music I like. This genre will be difficult to write about because the origin of Rock is unclear; there are traces of Rock's style back into the 19th Century. It is also a very broad subject and I will have to compress a lot of information into as few pages as possible. Be that as it may, Rock is, in my opinion the best music genre on the charts.

There is so much information on Rock that I will have to have questions I want to find the answers to about the music. My first question will be, "What instruments are commonly used in a rock band?" This will not be hard to answer as it is a very easy question that has a definite answer. The next question will be, "Who were the first artists to produce Rock music?" This is also an easy question were I will discuss the first Rockers. Continuing on, my next question will ask, "How was the term 'Rock and Roll' created, and by who?" This may turn out to be a hard question to answer because I am sure there a multiple answers. "Has Rock become more or less popular since its inception?" will be my next question. For this question I will have to look for a survey or poll of some type and present its data. My final question will be, "How has the Music been changed over the years and who changed it?" This will also be an easy question, albeit a long answer. For that question I will be referring to Alternative and Grunge Rock, my preferred form of the music.

For my information I will mainly be using the internet. I also may get some of my answers from a dictionary or encyclopedia. My main sources on the internet will be the online encyclopedia at wikipedia.org, and anything I can find at google.com. I will also be asking my father who is more into classic rock, but a fan none the less. He has been listening to rock since the 60's when he was about my age. Thus far, Wikipedia has been the most helpful resource I have found, although I should probably go to the library or something and find a book about early Rock and Roll, just to be balanced in my research.

Before moving into my research questions, I would like to discuss the origins of Rock music. Rock first surfaced as its own genre in 1953; a time of racial segregation in the United States. It was thought of by White people (for lack of a better description) as an "evil music" due its blend of African American and White cultures. However, that did not stop it from becoming to biggest thing since nuclear energy (which was the biggest thing since sliced bread). The first huge concert in Rock's history was "The Moondog Coronation" put on by Alan "Moondog" Freed, a DJ from Cleveland, which nearly sparked a riot, due to thousands of fans trying to get into the sold out show. In the next few years, the Rock movement took a large swing toward White youth when "Bill Haley & His Comets" played one of the biggest hits ever, "Rock Around the Clock". At the same time, Elvis Presley was gaining popularity playing "Rockabilly", a blend of Rock and Country music that became very popular in the south. He became the world's first music superstar. In 1957, Rock became a worldwide power when Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis toured Australia. Due to immense history, of which I could write a whole paper on, I will only go this far in rock's history.

Instruments in a Rock band can vary from band to band. For example, Mick Jagger of The Rolling Stones sometimes plays a harmonica in his songs. But for the most part bands use 4 main instruments, the guitar, the bass, and the drums. The guitar can be either electric or acoustic but is most often electric. There are often two people in the band to play this instrument. They are also the people who sing in the band in most cases. To continue using The Rolling Stones as an example, the people who would play guitar and sing are Keith Richards and Mick Jagger. The Bass looks like a guitar except for shape differences and has a lower pitch. In The Rolling Stones this instrument is played by Ron Wood although he plays guitar as well. The Drums are the most important part of a band. Wikipedia.org says"A basic beat for rock and roll has the bass drum played on the first and third beats of a bar of common time, with the snare drum on the second and fourth beats, called "back beats"." This is why it is so important. It is the backbone of all the other music played. The Rolling Stones drummer is Charlie Watts, completing The Rolling Stones roster.

Early Rock musicians were mostly African Americans, such as Fats Domino and Little Richard. They were the first to produce Rock music, "[the music they made was] characterized by the use of electric guitars, a strong rhythm with an accent on the offbeat, and youth-oriented lyrics" says history-of-rock.com. How ever, White people soon got in on the action as well, people such as Ritchie Valens, Buddy Holly and The Big Bopper. They were very popular artists and they produced many songs that are still played on oldie radio stations. The artist I mentioned above all died in a plane crash on February 3, 1959, The Day the Music Died.

"Where did the term Rock and Roll come from?" is the next question on my list, so I went looking around on wikipedia.org and google.com for an answer. The answer I found was less difficult then I expected because every website I saw had the same answer. The answer from answers.com was, "The introducer was Alan Freed, a disc jockey in Cleveland, who used the term to undermine the segregation of popular music into black and white. African-American popular music of the day, known as rhythm and blues, was increasingly influential, but radio stations and the record industry insisted on having white performers for white audiences." He began calling the music Rock and Roll to get around his radio station's ban on R&B. He got the term from Trixie Smith's "My Man Rocks Me with One Steady Roll" which was recorded in 1922.

Rock and Roll has gone through many changes over the years, which is apparent from there being about 70 sub-genres of the music. Because there are so many changes in the history of the music I will focus on Grunge Rock for this portion of the essay. "Grunge