Volume 13 , Issue 5

Rock-N-Roll & Rockabilly - 1950's

Let us take some of you oldies out there back to the "Good Old Days" of Rock-n-Roll! Any Rock-n-Rollers out there from the 1950's?

Rock and Roll (often written as rock & roll or rock-n-roll) is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of the blues, country music, jazz and gospel music.


[Jerry Lee Lewis & Carl Perkins - Mean Woman Blues/Blue Suede Shoes]

Though elements of rock and roll can be heard in country records of the 1930s, and in blues records from the 1920s, rock and roll did not acquire its name until the 1950's.

An early form of rock and roll was rockabilly SEE The Official Rockabilly Hall of Fame), which combined country and jazz with influences from traditional Appalachian folk music and gospel. SEe Also Rockabilly Central for more information.

The term "rock and roll" now has at least two different meanings, both in common usage. The American Heritage Dictionary and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary both define rock and roll as synonymous with rock music. Some say that it refers specifically to the music of the 1950s.

In the earliest rock and roll styles of the late 1940s and early 1950s, either the piano or saxophone was often the lead instrument, but these were generally replaced or supplemented by guitar in the middle to late 1950s.

The beat is essentially a boogie woogie blues rhythm with an accentuated backbeat, the latter almost always provided by a snare drum. Classic rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars (one lead, one rhythm), a string bass or (after the mid-1950s) an electric bass guitar, and a drum kit.   |  View or Add Comments (0 Comments)   |   Receive updates ( subscribers)  |   Unsubscribe

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