The Rock n’ Roll of the 60’s and The Beatles

The sixties were the years when Rock n’ Roll started to spread all over the world, the reason why it began to have variations since the original thing of the fifties. Rock n’ Roll becomes world music.

Yet in 1957, even thought everything seemed to be on peace, the world was still resentful of World War Two. The people and the cities were damaged; men and women, in order to reconstruct their world, started to live in hard routines. But, instead, the young people refused to live like that. They started to follow the new American music genre and movement of Rock n’ Roll very closely (Sánchez, 1).

At the beginning of the sixties, Elvis Presley and Bill Haley had already produced their masterpieces that started Rock n’ Roll. Soon this music started to expand throughout the world, taking different forms depending on the place where it settled (Sánchez, 1). After the United States, the most significant country was the United Kingdom. As this music movement became more successful and the young generation felt identified with it, more teenagers wanted to be part of it, among them, the young John Lennon (Sánchez, 1). He is the official founder of the Beatles in 1957.

The development of the Beatles as a rock n’ roll band is parallel to the development of the movement in many ways, and at the same time the Beatles influenced changes in this music. They started their music career mixing the recently resurged “skiffle”* with the American rock n’ roll, contributing to the variations in rock ‘n roll music (Sánchez, 1). After the skiffle stopped being used, they looked for a new sound, the main characteristic that shaped the original rock n’ roll music in those days. The Beatles started playing at clubs, mainly in The Cavern, as many other bands would do in and since that time. The media realized the success to come for those new bands of the rock n’ roll movement and started promoting them through television, as The Beatles would appear in TV shows at the beginning of their career. By 1963 it was almost impossible to get a ticket for one of their concerts, and if you got one, you would see how police officers tried to stop the crazy fanatics. The “Beatlemania” would assimilate the feeling of collective hysteria that would come in the future for the next rock n’ roll bands and for the movement in general; this feeling would contribute to the increasing independence of the young generation from the adult people (Sánchez, 6). When the Beatles separate in 1970, rock music goes through new variations and changes, just like every member of the quartet changed their personal interests in music.

The Beatles were so successful and special in those years because of the things they pioneered in. They were one of the first groups of young boys that also wanted to compose their own songs and get their own new sound. They were revolutionary at their time, because they proposed a variation in Rock n’ Roll which was just what the young generation needed at the time, change, happiness and independence, brought by the Beatles through music (:

The revolution continues.. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uKHgVN7Bjww&feature=fvst

*Skiffle: “originally used in the U.S. in the 1930s to describe mixtures of blues, boogie woogie, and other popular black music” (allmusic.com).

Works cited

Sánchez Guarneros, Israel. Rock Stars. México: Guarnerius Editores, 2007.

“Skiffle”. allmusic.com. All Music, n.d., Web. August 31, 201.

The Rock and Roll of the 50’s and Elvis Presley

Well, from where we left, I consider Elvis as the one who created rock n’ roll, because no other artist has had the same impact and innovation on rock music and society as him. But first of all, let’s talk about the Rock n’ Roll of the fifties, the so-called “original Rock and Roll”.

This music attracted and took hold of the young generation of the United States as it shook their senses with a new rhythm, beat, energy and almost tribal passion and excitement they had never had before. At first only middle class “white” teenagers felt attracted to it and that it was their own (rocknrollzone.com), but with the fusion of “black” blues, Rock n’ Roll soon became music for everybody. Or maybe not for everybody: the society other than the teenagers, the elder people and the authority, completely disapproved it (rocknrollzone.com). Parents hated it; the cultural mix of white and black people presented Rock n’ Roll as “racial music” and caused its censure for being too rebellious, sexual and anti-social for the people in those years. The elder generation saw this music and heard it as a manifestation of evil itself (rocknrollzone.com).

The first stars to come up were musicians like Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard, and Carl Perkins. While Chuck Berry established the ground rules, Lewis and Perkins contributed with a country feel with Little Richard topping it all off with his showmanship. But if Elvis Presley is the King is because he put all these styles together in a way that changed popular music for all time: the original Rock n’ Roll consolidated (rocknrollzone.com).

Elvis possessed an amazing voice that could communicate any rock 'n' roll style almost to perfection; he connected with his music and his audience. His most successful era encompassed 1956-1963 (rocknrollzone.com). He mixed 'black' and 'white' styles and became popular and controversial because of his television performances. Teenage girls became hysterical over his sexual gyrations, particularly the one that got him nicknamed "Elvis the Pelvis" and which TV cameras were not permitted to film (imdb.com).

Rock n’ Roll music when it came up, besides from bringing new social attitudes, and rising a new generation of teenagers, brought new forms of artistic expression: new ways to perform and dance, as Elvis’ dances. A fifties’ Rock n’ Roll band used instruments such as basses, electric and acoustic guitars, drums, piano and saxophones to perform, typical of this new music. About dancing, the music’s rhythm and beat inspired new forms of it, many of which exist to this day (rocknrollzone.com).


My favorite Elvis Presley song ;)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VYsPqoDPjCI

Works Cited

“History Essay: Rock 'n' Roll in the Fifties”. rocknrollzone.com. The Rock ‘n’ Roll Zone, n. d. Web. August 25, 2011.

“Biography for Elvis Presley”. imdb.com. IMDb, n.d. Web. August 25, 2011.

What is Rock n’ Roll?

Rock n’ Roll can be defined as many things by dictionaries, but studying how it came up and developed through history affecting and changing culture and society, it can be defined better. It is normally defined as a music genre, but it involves more. For me, Rock n’ Roll is freedom. It is a music genre, a culture, and a way of living.

It is considered by many as not just a music genre, but an artistic, social, and cultural expression as well as a lifestyle (Univision.com). Since its start it represented a big change for music and culture, breaking schemes, and moral and behavioral traditions (Univision.com). Rock n’ Roll came up from the American culture of the mid-fifties, as a way of singing and playing music that excited the young people as they saw in it a way of releasing their disconformities and rebelliousness (esto.es). As a music genre, it is said to be the result of the fusion of other three: rhythm and blues, jazz, and country (esto.es).

The term “Rock n’ Roll”, generally, is used nowadays as a synonym of “rock”, and both words refer to all the variations or “last names” (esto.es) that evolved from the original Rock n’ Roll of the fifties. “Rock” began to be used after 1960, when the original thing changed for the first time (azheavymetal.com).

Two musicians are seen as the official creators, and it is argued about whether one was the creator or the other: Elvis Presley and Bill Haley.  They both recorded a song in 1954 that is considered as the beginning. Elvis is the worldwide known King of Rock n’ Roll; he recorded his song “That’s All Right” on July of that year (Univision.com) and made history: there had never been music like that before. However, others argue Bill Haley created it on April of the same year with his song “Rock around the clock”, because he sang with more rhythm and speed than he had ever done, mixing the styles of boogie woogie and blues, and creating the original Rock n’ Roll (azheavymetal.com).You decide who started it all ;)

Elvis Presley- That's All Right http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yWgprZu4Hk4

Bill Haley- Rock around the clock http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O21xFX7QBpE

Works Cited

“¿Qué es el Rock and Roll?” AZHeavyMetal.com. Historia del Rock n Roll. N.p., n.d. Web. August 18, 2011.

“Historia del Rock” Univision.com. Univisión. Univision Communications Inc., 2008. Web. August 18, 2011.

“Rock and Roll: Un apunte social” Esto.es. Rock and Roll. N.p, n.d. Web. August 18, 2011.