Rock Music in its Early StageRock music, which is short for rock 'n' roll, in its true sen

Rock Music in its Early Stage

Rock music, which is short for rock 'n' roll, in its true sense, refers to the music of the young. Rock music is American on both sides of the family if you trace its pedigree far enough. Its technical elements have come down through the commercial rock-and-roll and rhythm-and-blues of the 1950s from the two deepest fountains of American popular music, black blues and white country music. But in 1965, the two traditions fused to create the genre now widely known as rock music, largely thanks to the emergence of Bob Dylan. Now, rock is a part of popular music today. It is played and listened to in almost all the countries of the world.

Until the 1950's, American popular music was divided into three separate styles, each with its own performers, musical content, and audience. One style. was called "pop", and it served most Americans. Pop songs came from movies, Broadway musicals, and pop composers. The songs were mainly simple, 32-bar melodies whose words were about love. They were played by bands in dancehalls, restaurants, nightclubs, and on radio. The bands consisted of any where from six to more than 20 musicians playing combinations of trumpet, trombone, saxophone, and clarinet, with a rhythm section of drums, guitar, string bass, or piano. Soloists or small vocal groups generally accompanied the bands.

In the late 1930's and 1940's, there were hundreds of "big bands". The most popular included the white bands of Artie Shaw, Benny Goodman, Glenn Miller, and Woody Herman. There were also the more jazz-style. black bands of Jimmie Lunceford, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington. After World War II, individual singers such as Frank Sinatra, Perry Como, Nat ("King") Cole, Doris Day, and Patti Page, most of whom had been band singers, became much more popular than the bands themselves.

The second style, "rhythm-and-blues", came from the blues sung by black performers along with the fast dance music that had grown out of ragtime and boogie-woogie. It was the popular music of the black people of the United States, played and sung in taverns and clubs or listened to on records in jukeboxes(自动点唱机). (Once called "race" music, it is now called "soul".) Two of the most popular rhythm-and-blues performers of the 1940's and early 1950's were Chuck Berry, B. B. King.

Both the white pop bands and the black rhythm-and-blues musicians were influenced by jazz and by Negro spirituals and gospel music(福音音乐).

The third style. is now called "country-and-western", but before World War II it was often called "hillbilly" music. It includes the commercialized folk music of the rural South and the cowboy music of the Southwest. The main center of the music has always been Nashville, Tennessee. It is performed largely by soloists accompanied by guitar and sometimes by horns and a rhythm section. The popular singers of the 1940's and 1950's included Hank Williams.

Rock and roll was the name given to the music that developed when these three separate styles came together in the early 1950's. It is widely believed that the term "rock and roll" was first used by a Cleveland disc jockey(流行音乐节目主持人) named Alan Freed. He was one of the first people to bring rhythm-and-blues to white audiences. He did this on his radio program and through concerts he produced, beginning in 1951, which presented black and white performers to audiences of black and white teenagers. That year, Alan Freed began a regular program featuring rhythm-and-blues music; Freed called the program "Moondog's Rock and Roll Party". The show became an instant hit among local white teenagers. Between 1951 and 1954, the white adolescent fascination with rhythm-and-blues that Alan Freed championed and popularized became a nationwide phenomenon. But not any one person created rock and roll. Rock was born as a result of changes in the music, broadcasting, advertising and e

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