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Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Nominees...well kind of Rock and Roll!


Sweet Jane 61

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Fact interlude...

rock and roll

Origin: 1951

A great advance in American civil liberties, as well as a revolution in music, took place as a result of the introduction of rock and roll in 1951. The introducer was Alan Freed, a disc jockey in Cleveland, who used the term to undermine the segregation of popular music into black and white. African-American popular music of the day, known as rhythm and blues, was increasingly influential, but radio stations and the record industry insisted on having white performers for white audiences. The only way a song composed and performed by blacks could reach a wider audience was for it to be remade by a white group.

Freed was able to get around the prohibition against African-American music on his radio station by coining a catchy name that was new and therefore all-encompassing. He wouldn't fight to play the forbidden rhythm and blues; instead, he would treat his audiences to what he called rock and roll. And while that term did not end music segregation overnight, it eventually made segregation impossible, as both black and white performers took up the phrase and together developed the new rock and roll. From the beginning it was also known informally as rock 'n' roll. By the mid-1960s the triumph of rock and roll was so complete that the name of the genre, now performed by musicians of all races all over the world, shrank to rock. No longer needed for music, the full phrase rock and roll recently has been used to mean "get going, move along," as in "Let's rock and roll."

Freed, who went on to greater fame and misfortune, is appropriately memorialized in Cleveland's Rock 'n' Roll Museum. But he did not actually invent rock and roll; he just gave it a new definition. Freed probably picked up rock and roll from the lyrics of a 1948 rhythm-and-blues hit called "Good Rockin' Tonight." Before that, both rock and roll had sexual meanings in jazz and blues, as in "My Man Rocks Me with One Steady Roll," recorded by Trixie Smith in 1922, which inspired Bill Haley's famous "Rock Around the Clock" in 1954.

Rock

The term, strictly defined, refers to a musical style that emerged in the mid-1960s; more broadly, it encompasses this and rock and roll, which prevailed in the late 1950s and early 1960s. The two styles have similarities both use amplified singing and electric instruments (usually a lead electric guitar, a prominent rhythm section of bass guitar and drums and often a rhythm guitar and keyboard instrument), have a strong rhythmic drive intended to encourage listeners to dance, and appeal principally to young people.

Rock and roll emerged in the USA in the mid-1950s as a development of rhythm-and-blues, but whereas rhythm-and-blues had an almost exclusively African-American audience, rock and roll appealed to a mass audience mainly of young whites. African-American rhythm-and-blues performers like Chuck Berry, Little Richard and Bo Diddley soon found success with this larger audience. But the greater popularity was for such white performers as Bill Haley and the Comets, Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent and the Everly Brothers, most from southern country-music backgrounds. Rock and roll quickly gained an international following and in the early 1960s British groups such as the Beatles, the Rolling Stones and the Who helped broaden its stylistic boundaries and ushered in rock - a more diverse musical category.

Key themes for the early rock movement were youth protest, the counterculture and hallucinogenic drugs. San Francisco became its leading centre. Californian groups of the late 1960s such as the Grateful Dead, Jefferson Airplane and the Doors broke away from the established format of the three-minute song and played loose, extended, improvisatory numbers. Eclecticism and experiment abounded.

By the mid-1970s, much of the experiment was felt to be self-indulgent and the political stances unrealistic. There were attempts to recapture the vigour of 1950s rock and roll and to work within the discipline of the short song, and the distinction between rock and pop music became blurred. Rock now became divided into several sub-categories such as heavy metal, punk and new wave, each with its own audience.

I did find this a little interesting...but in the end it is all rock and roll!!

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maybe it's just a matter of labeling things, but I always saw it as Rock'n'Roll (with Rockabilly) being the first genres of Rock Music from which the others (from Beat, Punk etc) evolved, but for me it's nonetheless only a part of "Rock" and so I'd feel weird to call the Sex Pistols, Nirvana or Radiohead as "Rock'n'Roll band"

:)

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Well the label "rock and roll" means so many different things today. Like hey I'm a rock and roller or I'm a rocker. And do you dig rock and roll music, and let's rock and roll....and so on. I think it being called The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame made sense to pay tribute to artists who are the roots of rock and roll and the artists who emerged from rock and roll, being rock, heavy metal, punk and so on, but Madonna??? Donna Summer??? Please, what a joke! Yes Madonna has had a kick butt career and is a great business minded woman but she does not need to be in the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. She is the queen of pop, nothing even close to rock. And Donna Summer....well I can't stop laughing.

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I think some are splitting hairs,so I will just go with some artists,not from the 50's,who used the term "rock and roll" in the titles of their songs:

I Love Rock and Roll - Joan Jett

Old Time Rock and Roll and Rock and Roll Never Forgets- Bob Seger

Rock and Roll - Led Zepp

Rock and Roll,Hoochie Koo - Rick Derringer

It's Still Rock and Roll To Me - Billy Joel

Just to name a few. If they say its rock and roll,that's good enough for me.

:rockon: :rockon: :rockon:

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I think some are splitting hairs

I don't dispute that either :grin:

and since I'm so good at that I'll just say that at least the songs I know all deal with the nostalgic quality of Rock'n'Roll as I see it :grin:

(CAUTION: the above statement was done in a jokingly manner, please do not try to start or continue a discussion / argument with it

Thank you ;) )

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I don't dispute that either :grin:

and since I'm so good at that I'll just say that at least the songs I know all deal with the nostalgic quality of Rock'n'Roll as I see it :grin:

CAUTION: the above statement was done in a jokingly manner, please do not try to start or continue a discussion / argument with it

Thank you ;) )

I will heed your caution but I will say that while there may be a technical difference between what's considered "Rock and Roll" and what's considered "Rock" as explained so well in this thread by Jane,to me rock and roll is also a expression that's used. One thing for sure,getting back to the subject of hall of fame nomineees,Madonna isn't rock. Neither are The Beastie Boys. If they made some contribution to rock music in some way,then they could be considered.Unless I am missing something,they haven't.

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I'm a bit late on this but I'm a bit unsure about the term 'rock'n'roll' too... it makes me think of the likes of Bill Haley. Rock on the other hand makes me think of bands like AC/DC... I have a real problem when people ask me what genres of music I like, because they all make me think of something different than what I have in mind; same with Classic Rock (sounds too Uriah Heep). British Invasion is quite accurate but sounds rather weird. :P

So anyway... not sure anymore what my point was... but I really don't know where to draw the line here.

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Also BnW songs from The Stones...I't Only Rock and Roll and AC/DC...Rock and Roll Ain't Noise Pollution...

It all comes down to every persons view of the term rock and roll....and when I think of some of the artists from the 50's I think more of rock-a-billy, and when I think of The Beatles, The Stones, Zeppelin, AC/DC, Aerosmith, and such...it's rock and roll man. "Sex, drugs, and rock and roll"....someone knew what was going on! :)

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I've always been a little foggy on what's considered rock and roll and what's considered pop, what's considered southern rock, what's rockabilly, etc. ad nauseum. That's why it's so impossible for me to define Roger's music - it's a little bit of everything thrown together.

I'm curious, though... does Lynyrd Skynyrd, for example, being a southern rock band, qualify for rock and roll? Does Elvis? Marshall Tucker?

This is where I go off the rails and my eyes start spinning around with confusion.

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