[78-L] Evolution of 'rock 'n roll'

[Cary Ginell]

> CGinnell
>  
> So the imitator gets the credit? I really don't get the point unless you're saying that if it's not whites imitating Black music, it's not rock 'n roll? 
>  
>

Bill Haley's "Rocket 88" was not an imitation. Haley was combining influences. I don't think rock 'n' roll could have existed without the influence of country music. Without it, records like Big Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle & Roll" and Wynonie Harris' "Good Rockin' Tonight" were R&B records of the day. Haley added the country element to Jackie Brenston's recording, which was not much different from what other blues artists on Chess were doing at the time. Haley had been playing country music in the Philadelphia area for some years, using an amplified steel guitar and a more pronounced 2/4 western swing beat. Haley was doing "Rocket 88" his way for his audience. He wasn't trying to copy anyone. 

Country music was the final ingredient needed to turn black music into rock 'n' roll. Few blacks played country music, but Chuck Berry admitted doing so, which is why I consider him to be the first black rock 'n' roll artist (He's said on more than one occasion that "Maybellene" was his attempt at playing the old Bob Wills fiddle tune "Ida Red"). Elvis combined R&B and country in a way no one had done before. Can you name a black version of a Bill Monroe song? I can't. The self-righteous historians try to give blacks credit for rock 'n' roll the same way Wynton Marsalis talks about jazz. It just wasn't that simple. Like almost every new genre that is introduced, "it takes a village" to create something new. Black music of the 1950s wasn't rock 'n' roll, but it contributed to rock 'n' roll. You needed the other influences as well to complete the stew, and that included country, gospel, jump, R&B, and blues. It is my opinion that Haley did this first with "Rocket 88." Everyone has their own reasoning for naming one song or another as the turning point of rock 'n' roll's development. This is mine. I'm not saying it's right or wrong. It's just how I see the history.

Cary Ginell
 		 	   		  
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