Where Did Rock Music Come From
Rock-and-roll is a music genre that originated in the United States. In the mid-1950s and became the dominant form of popular music in the world. Though rock music has used a wide diversity of musical instruments, its core basic elements are one or several singers, heavily amplified electric guitars (including bass, rhythm, and lead), and drums. It started out as a simple style, relying on heavy, dance-oriented rhythms, simple melodies and harmonies, and lyrics appealing to its young audience’s concerns — young love, the tensions of adolescence, and cars.
Its beginnings lay primarily in rhythm and blues (R&B) and country and western music. Both R&B and country existed outside the mainstream of popular music in the early 1950s, when the Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed (1921 – 65) and others began programming R&B, which until then had been played only to black audiences. Freed’s success gave currency to the term rock and roll. The extremely rhythmic, sensual music of the likes of Chuck Berry, Bill Haley and the Comets, and in particularly Elvis Presley in 1955 – 56 struck a responsive chord in the newly affluent postwar teenagers.
In the sixties, various influences united to lift rock music out of what had already declined into an unexciting and mechanical format. In England, where rock’s development had been slow, the Beatles and the Rolling Stones were found to have retained the freshness of its very early years and achieved tremendous success in the United States., where a new generation had grown up unaware of the musical influences of the new stars, thus commencing the British Invasion.
Likewise, in the U.S. in the early 1960s, rock groups such as The Beach Boys and The Four Seasons were tremendously popular, preceding the British Invasion. Others, such as Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell, the Byrds, and others were blending the traditional ballads and verse forms of folk music with rock, and musicians started out to explore social and political themes. Performing artists such as the Grateful Dead, Jim Morrison of the Doors, and Frank Zappa of the Mothers of Invention united creative lyrics with instrumental virtuosity, commonly featuring extended solo improvisation. Janis Joplin and Jimi Hendrix won prominent followings with their exotic elaborations on R&B.
The 1970s saw the rise of singer-songwriters such as Paul Simon, Neil Young, Elton John, David Bowie, and Bruce Springsteen, and rock assimilated other forms to bring forth jazz-rock, heavy metal, and punk rock. In the 1980s the disco-influenced rock of Madonna, Michael Jackson, and Prince was balanced by the post-punk “new wave” music of performing artists such as Laurie Anderson, Talking Heads (led by David Byrne), and the Eurythmics — all of whom illustrated their songs with music videos. By the 1990s, rock music had incorporated grunge, rap, techno, and other forms.
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