r o c k m e o u t ! 33

Optimistic #3 (44) june 2010

This is an example of some crazy layout. Thank you for watching it.

ROCK ME OUT!

34 r o c k m e o u t !

Rock me out!

Rock music is a genre of popular music that

entered the mainstream in the 1950s.

The foundations of rock music are in rock and roll, w

hich originated in

the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to

much of the rest o

f the world. Its

immediate origins lay in a mixing together of

various popular musical genres of th

e time, in

cluding rhythm and blues, gospel

music, and country and western. In 1951, Cleveland, O

hio disc jockey Alan

Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, and is

credited with first using the phrase “ro

ck and roll” to describe the music.

There is much debate as to what should be considered the first rock and

roll record. O

ne leading contender is “Rocket 88” by Jackie Brenston and his

Delta Cats (in fact, Ike Turner and his band Th

e Kings of Rhythm), recorded

by Sam Phillips for Sun Records in 1951. Four years later, B

ill Haley’s “Rock

Around the Clock” (1955) became the first rock and roll so

ng to top Billboard

magazine’s main sales and airplay charts, and opened the door worldwide for

this new wave of popular culture.

Rock and roll had not disappeared at the end of the 1950s and some of

its energy can be seen in the Twist dance craze of the early 60s.

r o c k m e o u t ! 35

Optimistic #3 (44) june 2010

Rock me out!

Rock music is a genre of popular music that

entered the mainstream in the 1950s.

The foundations of rock music are in rock and roll, w

hich originated in

the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to

much of the rest o

f the world. Its

immediate origins lay in a mixing together of

various popular musical genres of th

e time, in

cluding rhythm and blues, gospel

music, and country and western. In 1951, Cleveland, O

hio disc jockey Alan

Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, and is

credited with first using the phrase “ro

ck and roll” to describe the music.

There is much debate as to what should be considered the first rock and

roll record. O

ne leading contender is “Rocket 88” by Jackie Brenston and his

Delta Cats (in fact, Ike Turner and his band Th

e Kings of Rhythm), recorded

by Sam Phillips for Sun Records in 1951. Four years later, B

ill Haley’s “Rock

Around the Clock” (1955) became the first rock and roll so

ng to top Billboard

magazine’s main sales and airplay charts, and opened the door worldwide for

this new wave of popular culture.

Rolling Stone magazine argued in 2004 that “That’s All R

ight (Mama)”

(1954), Elvis Presley’s first single for Sun Records in Memphis, was the first

rock and roll record., but, at th

e same time, Big Joe Turner’s “Shake, Rattle

& Roll”, later covered by Haley, was already at th

e top of the Billb

oard R&B

charts. Other artist

s with early rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo

Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Gene Vincent. Soon

rock and roll was the major fo

rce in American record sales and crooners, such

as Eddie Fisher, Perry Como, and Patti Page, who had dominated the previ-

ous decade of popular music, fo

und their access to the pop charts significantly

curtailed.

Rock and roll has been seen as leading to a number of disti

nct sub-genres,

including rockabilly, combining rock and roll with “hillb

illy” country music,

which was usually played and recorded in the mid-1950s by white singers such

as Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Buddy Holly and with the greatest c

ommercial

success, Elvis Presley. In contrast d

oo wop placed an emphasis on multi-part

vocal harmonies and meaningless backing lyrics (from which the genre later

gained its name), which were usually supported with light instrumenta-

tion and had its origins in 1930s and 40s African American vocal

groups. Acts lik

e The Crows, Th

e Penguins, The El D

orados and

The Turbans all scored major hits, and groups lik

e The Plat-