THE POPULAR ARTS IN AMERICA: THE HISTORY OF ROCK AND ROLL - THE 1950S
The Popular Music Forum: Assignment #1
A minimum 500 word Position Paper on "Thinking About Rock and Roll as a Musical Melting Pot"
To be followed by a 350 word Response Paper
THINKING ABOUT ROCK AND ROLL AS A MUSICAL MELTING POT
Popular music has always found its roots in diverse sources and the idea that songs come only from the isolated invention of the songwriter is misguided at best. From the very beginning, songwriters like Stephen Foster drew from a variety of musical forms to create something new, different, and of interest to a popular audience. Classical compositions, art songs, minstrel show tunes, a passing familiarity with Negro spirituals and folk songs, and even country folk tunes were obvious influences on Foster's popular songs. Popular songs always have roots that reach out and touch upon other songs, other kinds of music, and frequently borrow rather shamelessly from other sources.
Perhaps more important than the simple reality of influence and cross-influence is the fact that the pattern of influence is seldom linear and is more often circular. Blues songs became country songs and, years later, those country songs would influence blues artists and once again became blues songs that, in turn, would again influence country artists...and go on and on in a dizzying pattern of influence and cross-influence that continues to this day. The Irish ballad "The Old Rose Tree" became "My Grandmother Lived on Yonder Little Green" in England, which became the country fiddle tune "Natchez Under the Hill" in America, which, in turn, became the minstrel show song "Old Zip Coon" that became, once again, a country tune, "Turkey in the Straw." The melody for the folk tune "Barbara Allen (Child #84) first appeared in France in 1475, traveled to Germany in the early 17th century, and arrived in England in the mid-17th century where it became associated with "Barbara Allen." It arrived in America in the 19th century with "Barbara Allen" and then drifted to Georgia where it became the melody for "Heavenly Dove," a choir song about the holy spirit.
Rock and roll is neither unusual nor atypical in its reliance on a varied and diverse set of influences to create new songs. When rock and roll first appeared in the 1950s, it had clear antecedents in boogie-woogie, jump blues, honky-tonk, hillbilly boogie, and Western swing...and all of those forms had their own antecedents in others. Rock and roll has also been more inclusive than most genres in popular music and has accepted influences as distant as opera (Jackie Wilson's 1960 hit "Night" came from an aria in Camille Saint-Saens' Samson and Delilah) and art song (Elvis Presley's "Can't Help Falling in Love" is an adaptation of Jean Paul Egide's 1780 art song "Plaisir d'Amour"). Rock and roll has also been defined loosely and principally by the acceptance of the audience rather than set characteristics and attributes. Put simply, when the audience accepts a song as a rock and roll song it becomes a rock and roll song, not because it conforms to some rigid definition, but because the audience recognizes it as belonging to that broader category in popular music. As a consequence, everything from romantic ballads like "Can't Help Falling In Love" to heavy metal nightmares like Metallica's "Enter Sandman" are frequently treated as "rock and roll songs" because the audience sees them as such. This year Guns N' Roses, Red Hot Chili Peppers, Donovan, Laura Nyro, The Small Faces/Faces, and the Beastie Boys will be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and only three of those inductees would be recognized as "rock and roll artists" in a traditional sense.
Perhaps the most important and influential aspect of rock and roll's inclusiveness is its ability to accept all comers, all colors, all genders, and all persuasions under its musical umbrella. In the 1950s, rock and roll was a swirl of black and white, rural and urban music that defied convention and accepted standards of "appropriate" content to redefine what the popular mainstream was to be from that time forward. Attitudes about race, sex, style, behavior, and lifestyle altered in the 1950s and rock and roll music played a significant role in changing those attitudes.
YOUR ASSIGNMENT
However, not everyone has seen rock and roll as a "melting pot" and there are many who saw rock and roll merely as an appropriation of black music by whites who "became rich on the backs of black artists."
From the very beginning, matters of race and American popular music have been inextricably tied together. The two great streams that fed American popular music - jazz and the blues - came from the experience of African Americans in the Deep South and almost all of our music - from country to gospel, rock and roll to mainstream pop - owes a profound debt to the contribution of African American singers, songwriters, and musicians.
One of the dilemmas of popular music in general and rock and roll in particular is that many believed and have continued to believe that white artists merely absorbed black music and robbed black artists of the fame, recognition, and financial rewards that were rightfully theirs. Many black artists, especially in the 1950s, believed that they received "obscurity in exchange for their music." Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup wrote three songs that were later recorded by Elvis Presley - "That's All Right," "My Baby Left Me," and "So Glad You're Mine " - but Crudup received scant recognition for his songs and never received the royalties that should have been paid to him. Elvis went on to become one of the richest and most successful artists of all time and Arthur Crudup left the music business and finished his life as a bootlegger and farm laborer. Not surprisingly, Crudup believed that his only reward was to be that his songs "had made a white man famous."
As recently as 2002, on the 25th anniversary of Elvis' death, Helen Kolawole, a black journalist and commentator on black issues, wrote in The Guardian, "As another celebration of a dead white hero winds up, in this hallowed Week of Elvis, shouldn't the entertainment industry hold its own truth and reconciliation commission? It needn't be a vehicle for retribution, just somewhere where tales of white appropriation of black culture, not to mention outright theft, can finally be laid to rest." She went on to say, "The Elvis myth to this day clouds the true picture of rock'n' roll and leaves its many originators without due recognition. So what is left for black people to celebrate? How he admirably borrowed our songs, attitude and dance moves?" (The complete article is available at https://www.guardian.co.uk.prx.proxywebsite.co.uk/music/2002/aug/15/elvis25yearson.elvispresley)
The question is "Did rock and roll unfairly rob black artists of their music, credit for their contribution, and their just due?" Is Helen Kolawole correct in claiming that Elvis - and by extension the other white rock and rollers of the 1950s - "cloud the true picture of rock'n'roll" at the expense of black artists? And is the claim that "rock and roll is black music" ultimately justifiable?
It is, of course, advisable to cite outside sources for support and frame your argument in the form of a formal essay (Look over "Presenting Arguments," "Tips On Writing Papers," and "Critical Thinking" in the Syllabus).