As we listen to and learn about the musical examples in this unit, you will read about and hear some musical threads? among certain musical artists. Choose one of the following two groups

40-3Bill Haley’s “Rock Around the Clock”

One of the first big rock and roll hits came from an unlikely source, by way of an unlikely place, and took an unlikely path to pop success. Bill Haley (1925–1981), who recorded it, grew up in Pennsylvania listening to the Grand Ole Opry and dreaming of country music stardom. By the late 1940s, he had begun fronting small bands—one was called the “Four Aces of Western Swing”—and enjoyed some local success. Over the next few years, he began to give his music a bluesier sound and chose—or wrote—songs with teen appeal. “Crazy, Man, Crazy” (1953) was his first hit. In 1954, he had some success with a song called “Rock Around the Clock.”

A year later “Rock Around the Clock” resurfaced in the soundtrack to the film The Blackboard Jungle. The connections among film, song, and performer were tenuous. The film portrays juvenile delinquents in a slum high school, but “Rock Around the Clock” is exuberant rather than angry, and Haley, at almost thirty, looked nothing like a teenaged rebel. But it was music for and about teens (parents weren’t likely to rock around the clock), and that was enough for the producers. With the release of the film, the song skyrocketed to No. 1. It was Haley’s big moment. He had a few other minor hits, but he never repeated his chart-topping success.

40-4The First Rock and Roll Record?

“Rock Around the Clock” is often identified as the first rock-and-roll record because it was the first big hit clearly associated with rock and roll. And it was a different sound—at least for pop. The sound is a light version of jump-band rhythm and blues. Haley’s voice is bright, but it has little of the inflection that we associate with blues singing. The band supports Haley’s voice with a small rhythm section that includes a guitar played in a high register and drumsticks tapping out a brisk shuffle rhythm. The band plays riffs underneath Haley, then alone. In retrospect, we consider this energetic, upbeat music to be not rock and roll, but rockabilly, a country take on postwar rhythm and blues.

Even as Haley’s record zoomed to the top of the charts, Elvis Presley was recording a grittier kind of rockabilly at Sam Phillips’s Sun Records. We consider the relationship between Elvis, rockabilly, and rock and roll next.

Listening Cue

“Rock Around the Clock” (1954)

Max Friedman and

James Myers

Bill Haley and His Comets.

STYLE Rockabilly ⋅ FORM Verse/chorus blues form

Listen For …

INSTRUMENTATION

Voice, electric guitar, acoustic bass, drums, and saxophone (accordion)

PERFORMANCE STYLE

Haley’s voice is light and friendly but not bluesy or country—and not pop crooning either

RHYTHM

Shuffle rhythm at a fast tempo

Syncopation in vocal line, guitar riff, and instrumental riff in sixth chorus

TEXTURE

Light, layered texture with most instruments and voice in a high mid-range contribute to bright sound

Remember …

LIGHT-HEARTED LYRIC

“Rocking” here is simply about dancing the night away; nothing suggests a more intimate involvement between partners

LIGHT-HEARTED MUSIC

The brisk tempo, discreet shuffle beat, and generally high register of Haley’s voice and the guitar give the song a bright feel

SOUND OF ROCKABILLY

A “lite” version of rhythmic R&B: faster tempo, higher register, less rough-edged vocal

Listen to this selection in the unit playlist.

CH. 41

Elvis Presley

Chapter Introduction

In the summer of 1953, a young truck driver named Elvis Presley walked into the Sam Phillips Recording Service in Memphis to make a demo record. Phillips wasn’t in, so his assistant, Marion Keisker, handled the session. Perhaps to make him feel at ease, she asked him about himself. The conversation went something like this:

Marion:

“What kind of singer are you?”

Elvis:

“I sing all kinds.”

Marion:

“Who do you sound like?”

Elvis:

“I don’t sound like nobody.”

Marion:

“Hillbilly?”

Elvis:

“Yeah, I sing hillbilly.”

Marion:

“Who do you sound like in hillbilly?”

Elvis:

“I don’t sound like nobody.”

This now-legendary encounter gives us some insight into Elvis’s success. Imagine yourself—barely out of high school and with no professional experience—having such a clear sense of who you are and what you can do. Elvis truly didn’t sound like anyone else. Less than three years later, he would be a household name.

41-1Elvis Presley: The First Rock-and-Roll Star

Elvis Presley (1935–1977) recorded his first local hit for Phillips’s Sun Records in 1954. The record, a cover of bluesman Arthur Crudup’s “That’s All Right,” sparked interest on country-western radio (although some stations wouldn’t play it because Elvis sounded too black). Within a year he had reached No. 1 nationally on the country-western charts with “Mystery Train”—one of Elvis’s most enduring early hits. In late 1955, he signed a personal management contract with Colonel Tom Parker (actually Andreas van Kuijk, an illegal immigrant from Holland), who arranged a record contract with RCA. RCA quickly got Elvis in the studio. “Heartbreak Hotel,” his first No. 1, topped the charts in March 1956. Soon, Elvis was a national phenomenon. By 1957, he had recorded several No. 1 hits and made numerous television appearances, most notably on The Ed Sullivan Show.

Elvis quickly became the symbol of rock and roll for millions, for both those who idolized him and those who despised him. With his totally uninhibited stage manner, tough-teen dress, greased pompadour, and energetic singing style, Elvis projected a rebellious attitude that many teens found overwhelmingly appealing. To the audiences of today, Elvis may seem almost wholesome. However, his seeming lack of inhibition when performing contrasted sharply with white pop singers who stood in front of microphones and crooned. In his day, this was bold stuff, and he took a lot of heat for it because he refused to tone down his style despite the criticism. In sticking to his guns, he gave rock and roll a sound and a look—both of which immediately set the style apart from anything that had come before. Elvis was rock and roll’s lightning rod. For teens he was all that was right with this new music; for their parents he symbolized all that was wrong with it. And for all intents and purposes, he stood alone.

Elvis performs on The Milton Berle Show, April, 1956.

41-2Elvis at Sun

Elvis could not have picked a better place to start his musical career than at Sam Phillips’s studio. By the time Elvis arrived at his door, Phillips had been operating his recording service for over three years and had recorded numerous blues-based acts, including Jackie Brenston, Junior Parker, and Bobby Blue Bland. Elvis brought only himself, his rudimentary guitar skills, and his remarkable voice. Although he didn’t play much guitar, he played the radio really well. He was an equal-opportunity listener with an insatiable appetite for music. And what he heard, he used: Elvis could emulate almost any style—pop, country, gospel, R&B—and still sound like himself. For Sam Phillips, he was the “white man with the Negro feel” that he had been searching for. Phillips recruited guitarist Scotty Moore and bassist Bill Black to back up Elvis, and advised him on what songs to record. Several were covers of rhythm-and-blues songs: “Mystery Train” was a cover of a 1953 recording by bluesman Junior Parker, who also recorded for Sun. Elvis’s version transforms rhythm and blues into rockabilly.

41-3Rockabilly

Carl Perkins, perhaps the truest of the rockabilly stars, once explained his music this way: “To begin with … rockabilly music, or rock and roll… was a country man’s song with a black man’s rhythm. I just put a little speed into some of the slow blues licks.”

Listening Cue

“Mystery Train” (1955)

Elvis Presley

STYLE Rockabilly ⋅ FORM Blues form with modified harmony (both first and second phrases start on IV) and phrases of variable length

Listen For …

INSTRUMENTATION

Voice, electric guitar, acoustic bass, drums

PERFORMANCE STYLE

Elvis’s high, lonesome sound, plus occasional special effects in vocal asides

RHYTHM

Two-beat rhythm with “rebound” backbeat at fast tempo

HARMONY

Different take on blues harmony: start on IV chord

TEXTURE

Open sound, with light bass and drums, guitar just under Elvis’s voice

Remember …

FAST TEMPO WITH A MODIFIED TWO-BEAT RHYTHM

Drums maintain a light, fast rhythm very much in the background; the distinctive feature is the “rebound” backbeat in the guitar, which comes with, then ahead, of the backbeat

ELVIS’S SOULFUL SINGING AND UNIQUE SOUND

Elvis’s singing is bluesier than traditional country singing, and without a twang. At the same time, it is distinct from the timbres of 1950s R&B singers

MODIFIED FORM OF THE BLUES PROGRESSION

Each chorus starts on a IV chord instead of a I chord; in the vocal sections, the first two phrases are of variable length instead of the customary four bars

Listen to this selection in the unit playlist.

Elvis’s singing is the magical element. In both its basic timbre and its variety, his sound is utterly unique—the purest Elvis. It ranges from a plaintive wail on the opening high notes to the often-imitated guttural singing at the end of each chorus. Elvis positions himself not only between country and rhythm and blues, but beyond them. We don’t hear the nasal twang so common in country music, nor do we hear the rough-edged sound of a blues singer. Elvis draws on both but sounds like neither (“I don’t sound like nobody”).

41-4Elvis in Hollywood

Elvis’s sound brought him radio attention, but it was his looks and his moves that propelled him to stardom. Shortly after breaking through with “Heartbreak Hotel,” he made his first Hollywood film, Love Me Tender. He would make three more, including Jailhouse Rock, before his induction into the army. Among the songs featured in the film was “Jailhouse Rock.” Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller, an up-and-coming songwriting/ producing team, wrote the song for Elvis. Released in conjunction with the film, it went to No. 1 in the fall of 1957. In the film, it serves as a soundtrack to an extended dance number.

We get some sense of his presence and his appeal in the scene from his 1957 film Jailhouse Rock where he sings the title song. In staging the scene, choreographer Alex Romero wisely asked Elvis to perform some of his songs, then choreographed the movements of the other dancers to mesh with Elvis’s moves. In the scene, we see that for Elvis, all of this is fun. He moves freely, spontaneously; the other dancers seem routine by comparison. Elvis’s uninhibited movement, evident in film and television clips, contrasts sharply with pop singers—white and black—who simply stand in front of microphones and croon their songs.

“Jailhouse Rock” highlights the qualities that made Elvis so appealing and evidences the craft of Leiber and Stoller, who wrote and produced the song. The song begins with guitar and drums marking off a stop-time rhythm, which continues as Elvis begins to sing. The beginning of the song is, practically speaking, all Elvis, and he makes the most of it. There is an exuberance and a lack of inhibition in his singing that jumps out of the speakers. In this song, Elvis communicates fun—the exhilaration of moving to the beat (even when it can only be felt)—in a way that was unprecedented in pop. There is an emotional honesty to Elvis’s singing that transcends the staginess of the scene in the film. The story may be fake, but Elvis’s enthusiasm is real. Elvis found this kind of realness in the blues, and in songs like “Jailhouse Rock” he brought it into the mainstream.

Rhythmically, “Jailhouse Rock” shows rock and roll in transition. The most rocklike feature is the guitar pattern, which divides the beat into two equal parts. By accenting and slightly lengthening the first note of each pair, Elvis creates a rhythmic feel (evident especially in the stop-time verse sections) that is somewhere between a standard rock rhythm and a shuffle rhythm. And even though the bass player is playing an electric bass, he is still walking—one note on each beat, like a swing-era or jazz bassist. Most strikingly, the band switches to a swing rhythm in the instrumental interlude; we can almost hear a sigh of relief from the guitarist and drummer as they let go in a rhythm that they know how to feel. Because of the rhythmic inconsistencies, “Jailhouse Rock” is rock and roll commercially, but not quite rock and roll rhythmically.

Eight-beat rhythm

Volume 90%

©Michael Campbell/Cengage

The musically significant part of Elvis’s career lasted only three years. It ended in 1958, when he was inducted into the army. Although still a major public figure in the sixties and seventies, he seldom recaptured the freshness of his earlier years, and he seemed out of step with 1960s rock and rhythm and blues. Still, during his ascendancy, he was crowned the king of rock and roll. What justified his coronation?

41-5The King of Rock and Roll?

Here’s a heretical thought: Elvis Presley, the king of rock and roll, sang very little rock and roll. Such a statement would have been literally incredible to teenagers living in 1956 or 1957; for them, and their parents, Elvis embodied rock and roll. As Carl Belz, the first important rock historian, noted in The Story of Rock:

Elvis Presley is the most important individual rock artist to emerge during the music’s early development between 1954 and 1956. His extraordinary popularity surpassed that of any artist who appeared in those years, and it remained as a standard for almost a decade…. For the music industry, Presley was “king” for almost ten years. He was the first rock artist to establish a continuing and independent motion picture career, the first to have a whole series of million-selling single records—before 1960 he had eighteen—and the first to dominate consistently the tastes of the foreign record market, especially in England, where popularity polls listed him among the top favorites for each year until the arrival of the Beatles.

Elvis gave rock and roll its most memorable visual images. His looks sent girls into hysteria and guys to the mirror, where they greased their hair and combed it into Elvis-like pompadours. His uninhibited, sexually charged stage persona scandalized adults even as it sent teen pulses racing. These images endure, as the legion of Elvis imitators reminds us. There had been flamboyant black performers, like T-Bone Walker, whose stage antics included playing his guitar behind his head while doing the splits, but no popular white entertainer had ever moved like Elvis did, and no one had ever looked like he enjoyed it as much. Even now, when we watch clips of Elvis performing, we sense that he is having fun. This was an extraordinarily liberating presence for a new generation of pop stars.

His musical contributions were less influential. Certainly, he brought a new vocal sound into popular music. In his various blends of blues, R&B, country, gospel, and pop, Elvis summarized the musical influences—and epitomized the musical direction—of this new music. But his musical significance stops there. He neither wrote his own songs nor consistently used the rock-and-roll rhythm and sound copied by so many late-1950s and early-1960s bands. The road from rock and roll to rock would follow a different path.

Listening Cue

“Jailhouse Rock” (1957)

Jerry Leiber and

Mike Stoller

Elvis Presley, vocal.

STYLE Rock and roll ⋅ FORM Verse/chorus blues form in which the first phrase is doubled in length

Listen For …

INSTRUMENTATION

Voice, electric guitar, piano, bass, and drums

RHYTHM

Primitive rock rhythm, kept mainly in guitar during refrain; Elvis and band not sure whether to rock or swing

Nice contrast between syncopated stop time in verse and rocking/walking in refrain

MELODY

“Talking blues” in verse; simple riff in refrain

TEXTURE

Wide spacing: guitar low, just above bass, Elvis in the middle, piano high

Remember …

ELVIS’S SINGING

Exuberant and uninhibited, influenced by blues and country, but a completely new vocal sound

FULL RHYTHM SECTION WITH PROMINENT ELECTRIC GUITAR

Rhythm section includes drums, bass, piano, and electric guitar; the guitar stands out in both its accompanying and solo roles

EXPANDED VERSE/CHORUS BLUES FORM

Verse-like section is extended to eight measures; the chorus remains eight measures in length

RHYTHMIC VARIETY

Stop time in the verse versus consistent timekeeping in the chorus

MULTIPLE RHYTHMIC CONCEPTIONS

Rock rhythm in the band during the chorus, swing during the instrumental interlude (one can almost hear the band relax back into a rhythm they’re familiar with), and Elvis somewhere in between: not really swing or the even beat division of rock

Listen to this selection in the unit playlist.

CH. 42

The Architects of Rock and Roll

Chapter Introduction

In the latter part of the 1950s, the most apparent distinction between rock and roll and rhythm and blues was racial: Most of the prominent rock-and-roll stars were white; R&B stars were black. So if one simply extrapolated the history of rock and roll from what had developed through the end of 1956, it would be reasonable to assume that rock and roll was simply white takes on black music, like rockabilly and the pop covers of R&B hits.

In fact, however, the crucial difference between rhythm and blues and rock and roll was