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'Rock 'n' Roll' and the songs that changed the world


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Hrmmm. As cheesy, and absolutely horrible as it is, the first one that popped into my head is USA for Africa's 'We Are The World'. I mean, they fed a bunch of starving kids, so that was cool. What a pile of crap that song was though.

 

I'd say John Lennon's 'Give Peace a Chance', but we have a long way to go on that.

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Hrmmm. As cheesy' date=' and absolutely horrible as it is, the first one that popped into my head is USA for Africa's 'We Are The World'. I mean, they fed a bunch of starving kids, so that was cool. What a pile of crap that song was though.

 

I'd say John Lennon's 'Give Peace a Chance', but we have a long way to go on that.[/quote']

 

Yeah, didn't Geldoff write that and "Do They Know It's Christmas"? Which, in turn, led to the whole Live Aid thing.

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1. Rock Around The Clock- Bill Haley/ Beginning of the rock and roll era.

2. Heartbreak Hotel- Elvis/ As Lennon said "That looked like a good job"

3. All My Loving- The Beatles/ Or any of the other songs they performed on Sullivan before 73 million people. The surge in guitar and drums sales(not to mention records) for weeks after this changed both music and culture.

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Since the Western World was singing along with Dean Martin and Frank Sinatra until they heard these Phrases...

 

"Well it's One for the money....Two for the show....Three to get ready, Now Go Cat Go..."

 

I have to say Blue Suede Shoes by Carl Perkins changed the Music World and Pop culture.

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No particular song(s)....But, The Beatles and Bob Dylan have probably done more, to "change the world,"

than any musician(s), before or since. "The World," seems to do what it does, regardless or in spite

of, music! Sure glad we have that music, though...to continue to plant the seeds, at least.

"And, where there's life, there's hope" (John Lennon)

 

CB

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I'd say almost anything pre-Beatle.

 

The Beatles added a bit of Brit vaudeville "music hall" style and stuff changed a lot. The "I love American Blues guitar players" from the UK never really got it if you've watched/heard the real thing. Good try, but something different.

 

Notice how Chuck Berry, etc., are still kinda emulated today?

 

I'll take Berry's version of "roll over Beethoven" any time over the Beatles.

 

But then... Rock Around the Clock probably is what really did it. And rhythmically it's almost more "swing" than "rock."

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In it's beginnings, "Real" Rock & Roll, was really just Gospel or Blues music, with a "Country" back beat!

 

Billl Hayley, Chuck Berry, Jerry Lee ("The Killer") Lewis, Little Richard, Fats Domino, Buddy Holly, Elvis, Johnny Cash,

ALL made "Rock & Roll," Rock! But, with Payola, the loss of Holly, The Big Bopper, Richie Valens, and some personal

scandals of some of the others, the very late '50's and early 60's were pretty dismal, for "Rock & Roll!" We were

listening to "lilly white" versions of some R&B songs, done by Pat Boone, and other "Pretty Boy," singers, of that

era. Black song writers, and musicians, couldn't break into the mainstream, back then...unless their songs were

done by those white artists. Unjust/Wrong?...Absolutely...but, that's the way it was!

Dylan was great, but still "Folk" at that time. The Beatles (and later, the rest of the British Invasion) changed all that, and brought back "Rock & Roll," to American audiences, and helped in no small way, bring R&B (AKA"Race" music), to the forefront, instead of leaving it relegated to relatively few specialty stations. It's interesting that on their first trip to New York, they requested only their "black" music heros records, mostly. And, because they were white, and "English," it made it all the more acceptable, to "White" audiences, there....and, all over the country.

 

As to the "British Boy Blues" players not getting it?! I disagree! They GOT IT! It's easy to criticize them, now....but, at the time, they too, did a lot to bring that type music forward, as well. "Blues" you didn't hear, except by specialty stations, in the large Urban areas, and the "South!" It wasn't played, much at all, otherwise. But, after the second wave of the first British Invasion ("Cream" era), as well as some influential white American players (Mike Bloomfield, for one) "Blues" suddenly got very poplular and accessible, to a much larger audience. Was it "as good as" the originals? Maybe, maybe not? That would depend on one's personal preferences, and one's familiararity at that time, seems to me. But, the British Blues people loved American blues originators as much, if not more, than we did, here. We had to discover (or rediscover) that music, again...through the British! So...they "Got it!" Jazz has always been more popular in Europe, than here...and Jazz and Blues are really THE American Music. But, like so many things, we don't appreciate them enough, quite often, until they're reintroduced from somewhere else. Let's not forget, Hendrix couldn't get arrested as a guitar player (after Little Richard's gig), for a time, until he was "discovered" by Chas Chandler of The Animals, brought back to England, repackaged, and THEN became famous, because (at first) everyone thought he was English! ;>b

 

;>)

 

CB

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I can't agree Charlie Brown...

 

I was listening to blues before the Brit "invasion," and I was playing it.

 

The post WWII era brought huge changes in the economics of music toward the smaller combo and the new technology of the electric guitar.

 

It also brought major changes in terms of racial attitudes.

 

Dixieland was "black" music. It was awfully popular. Hell, what of "St. Louis Blues?" Ragtime was "black" but in forms roughly the same as "white" classical short form music. Basie and Ellington were "mainstream" even if they went through hell trying to find a place to eat or sleep on tour - and not just in the south.

 

I don't see much difference in Pat Boone or Elvis doing "covers" of black musicians and the Brit guys doing it. Both increased the inevitability of some increased popularity of blues and black musicians. It's the same thing. Why are certain American "black" blues artists lionized today and few hear of Mississippi John Hurt or Gary Davis as "blues" guitarists? Because they didn't get into the "rock" paradigm in the UK as passed over to the US in the '60s.

 

And yet... yeah, we know about BB. How many have recordings of Howlin' Wolf or Sunnyland Slim, though, outside a very select "community" of musicians or blues "nuts?"

 

Why didn't BB outsell the Stones? Or why didn't John Lee Hooker outsell the Animals? In fact, why were younger black "R&B" groups outselling John Lee in the 60s even in the black community?

 

Why did a few swing bands in the 30s and 40s push so hard to break the "color line?" In the '50s there was a big to-do over "mixed bands" and whether they were good for the music or bad?

 

Louis didn't hate Bunny Berigan because Bunny freely admitted his artistic admiration and emulation.

 

The Weavers, Pete Seeger, etc., were doing blues for a long time before the Beatles.

 

And then also comes the question "what is Blues?" How about "Irene Goodnight?" The folkie classic "Dink's Song?" Is a "field holler" a blues? That stuff was all out there in the 40s and 50s.

 

In spite of "race records" and such, there's no question in my mind that what we call today "blues" is black modified by white then modified by black and then modified by white and then modi.....

 

To be really blunt, consider that "blues" as we know it today is a heavily guitar, organ, bass, drum, harmonica, brass and woodwind art.

 

How "ethnic" do you want to get? Early fretless gourd banjo playing a rising and falling English variation of some half-remembered African tune heard from one's grandmother? Is that blues?

 

Ah, well...

 

<grin>

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Actually I think the history discussion has relevance...

 

Songs that changed the Rock world? Gotta be seen in historical context.

 

I don't think some of my favorite 60s and 70s stuff could have happened without some of the 50s stuff.

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