Roci{in' Out

Popular Music
in the USA
Reebee Garofalo
University of Massachusetts Boston

! 0i Ci'+

Allyn and Bacon

Boston London Toronto Sydney Tokyo Singapore

Crossing Cultures:
The Eruption of
Rocl( 'n' Roll
Trying to pinpoint the beginning of rock 'n' roll is
like trying to isolate the first drop of rai0 in a hurricane. The uniniti
ated may claim it began in 1955 when "Rock Around the Clock" by
BiIl Haley and His Comets became the best-selling record of the year.
Others may want to date the phenomenon from the first rock 'n' roll
record to make the pop charts, but there is no agreement about just which record that
waS. Charlie Gillett has said it was Bill Haley's "Crazy Man Crazy" in 1953.' Nick
Tosehes has argued for "Sixty Minute Man," which was recorded by the Dominoes in
1951.L vVriter Jim Dawson and deejay Steve Propes decided "to go down the long list of
great recordings that led up to the rock 'n' roll explosion of 1956 and pick out the mile-

'ltones which have elements of rock 'n' roll in them-and which influenced the music
chat followed" and ended up devoting 200 pages to debating among fifty contenders 3
Of course, part of the problem in determining the beginning of rock 'n' roll is the
"act that rock 'n' roll evolved over time; it was not a one-time event. There is also a prob~
em of definition. Which definition of rock 'n' roll should be used when trying to deternine its beginning? There is rock 'n' roll, the musical genre
Part of the problem in determining the
tnto itself; there is rock 'n' roll, the seemingly more acceptbeginning of rock 'n' roll is /he fact that
ble term for rhythm and blues; and there is rock 'n' roll,
rock 'n' roll evolved over time; it was not
he sexual metaphor. While Haley's "Crazy Man Crazy" fits
a onetime event.
he first definition well enough, the Dominoes' "'Sixty
vtinute Man" highlights all three definitions. "Sixty Minute Man" was a popular r&b
dease that crossed over to the mainstream audience. R&b releases that did this
ere often called rock 'n' roll to obscure their origins. The protagonist in the song is a

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legendary lover who "rocks" and "rolls" his partners "all night long," leaving little doubt
as to the sexual connotation of the term.
number of white r&b deejays to give rhythm
It is ironic that the term used by
and blues a more wholesome veneer in the mainstream market was a slang term for the

any

sexual act common in African American music for years. With this in mind, one might
date the start of rock 'n' roll from earlier releases that used the phrase in this way-Li'l
Son Jackson's "Rockin' and Rollin'" in 1950, for example, or John Lee H()Qker's"Rock
'n' Roll: in the same year. There is also Wynonie Harris' hit recording of Roy Brown's
"Good Rockin' Tonight" in 1948 and Sister Rosetta Tharpe's "Rock Me" recorded with
the Lucky Millinder Orchestra in 1942. For that matter, one could go all the way back to
Trixie Smith's 1922 recording of "My Daddy Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll):
Tosches, taking the exercise to the extreme, has traced the sexual origins of the phrase
, back to medieval times.

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Rock and Roll. Both verbs came to the English tongue during the Middle Ages, mrd were soon
used as skin-thrill metaphors. "My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and !light," wrote
Shakespeare jn Venus and Adonis. An carry nineteenth-century sea chanty included the
line, "Oh do, me Johnny Bowker, come rock 'n' roll me over." A /yricfound ill the ceremonial
Fire Dallce of Florida's obeah worshjppers was, "Bimini gal is a rocker alld a roller. "4

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Suffice it to say, lest we get lost in history, that the music that came to be called rock 'n'
roll began in the 1950s as diverse and seldom heard segments of the population achieved
a dominant voice in mainstream culture and transformed the very concept of what popular music was.

Cultural Diversity: The Roots of Rock 'n' Roll

In an age in which the virtues of multiculturalism constantly push against the limitations
of a narrowly Eurocentric woddview, it is quite fashionable to focus self-righteously on
the culturally diverse influences that gave birth to rock 'n' roll. Still, while there is no
question that rock 'n' roll was profoundly multiculUnfortunately, when rock 'nl roll is discussed
tural, an analysis of its characteristics must also acIn tenns of crossculfurallnffuences, it is often
described in a way that could be represented by count for the proportionate influence of various cultures. Applying too simplistic a formula can easily
an algebraic fonnula: r&b + c&w = r&r,
distort the ~ontributions of participating groups.
Unfortunately, when rock 'n'" roll is discussed in terms of cross-cultural influences,
it is often described in a way that could be represented by an algebraic formula:r&:tJ::F--c&w = r&r. The formula is elegant in its simplicity and not without an element of

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truth-rhythm and blues and country and western were the primary styles that gave
birth to rock 'n' roll-but it suffers from a number of shortcomings that render it less
than useful for critical analysis, as Robert Palmer has noted:

The c!ich{: is t/1I1t rock <...\c roll 11'I1S tl melding (;( (OlllltIJl"IIISil' tlJld "'lit'S, awl !f~ 1'011 Ill'(' talkillg about, S(~I', Chuck BeI'lJ' or EIFI.v Prcsl~v, fhi' dc.<;criptiol/, though simplistic. dot's}lt. But
the black iturercifY vocaL-group SOlllld. . had little to do Ivitlt either blues or cOlmt~l' lIlusic
ill their purerfonns.
The Do Diddl~v beat . .. /Vas ~froCt1rjbbeall in derivation. The most durable . .. bass
r!ff ill F!ftics rock & roll . .. /wd been pinched . .. from a Cuba'i son record. The screamillg,
tftltlt'tic saxophone pIrD'ing. .WIIS straigltt Ollt of l-IJ/ties bigband swing.
Traditional
A1exic{/n r/!ythms cntoni the rock & roll arena through Chicallo artists.
Rock & roll
proped an AllAmericall, multi-a/mit '!ybrid, its sources and developillg sllbs~yles too lIarious
to be lTplailied away ~Y "blues pillS COUlltIJI" or aJ~Y other reductionist formula. 5
Clearly, then, the r&b + c&w formula overlooks too much, including the myriad
of influences that comprise rhythm and blues and country and western, not to mention
[he other stylistic elements that contributed to rock 'n' roll. Also, in looking only at the
dimensions of race, ethnicity, and musical culture, issues of class and gender are

conve~

niently ignored. While rock 'n' roll certainly drew on a \vide range of cultural inputs, all
of its immediate musical sOllrces were firmly rooted in the tradition of popular working~
class styles. In fact, it resulted from a complex interplay of social and cultural forces that

can not be reduced to a simple algebraic formula. In attempting to capture this complexity, George Lipsitz has located rock 'n' roll at the intersection of urbanization, multicul-

uralism, and class:

Workers draWl! to citie.\" ~JI the 11/(1111JOII'l'I' needs ~FAJ/Ieric{//J indust')! retaillcd delllmt5 }l'OlJl
tlteir traditiollal cultures, bllt (/1.1'0 combilled Ivith otha5 to form ([ l'o~Jlglot, Ilrbal!, /vorkillg
class culture. The social IlIl'tlllil1g5 prepiolls!)' cOJ1P~yed in isolatioll by blrft's, COUI/tly, polka,
:;ydeco, awl Latin mU5icsjolllul IIOV expression as thry blmded ill an urball setting. .. Rock
and Roll music acceleraud al1d illtCllstfied the interactions among ethnic groups, becoming the
most Jlisiblc expression of the illcrctlsiJlg comlllOJtaliry of workingclass e,\perit'11te. (1
<

A final limitation of the algebraic formula has to do with the relative values of r &
band c & w. Without specifying the relative values of r&b and c&w, it may be inferred
th~lt

c't1Ch style contributed equally to the new genre. Such an inference invariably under~

values the African American contribution. After rock 'n' roll erupted fu!l~blown into the
national pop market in 1956, it presented itself as a refreshingly integrated phenomenon
with performers like Bill Haley and Elvis Presley sharing the stage equally with artists
like Fats Domino, Little Richard, and Chuck Berry. Accordingly, Steve Perry may paint
the early history of rock 'n' roll in racially glowing terms: "From 1955-1958, the roster
of popular rock 'n' rollers was more racially equal than at any time before or since.

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.
Chuck Berry, Little Richard, the Coasters, the Platters, Fats Domino, Lloyd Pricemajor stars all, and on a rough par with the likes of Bill Haley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and
Buddy Holly.'" But this only happened after it had begun to expand to disruptive proportions among mainstream fans. As Greil Marcus correctly points out: "Most of the
first rock 'n' roll styles were variations on black forms that had taken shape before the
white audience moved in. "8
The athletic honking saxophone, reminiscent of Illinois Jacquet ("Flying Home")
.~

and Big Jay McNeely, found its way into rock 'n' roll through Jackie Brenston's spirited

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solo on "Rocket 138" in 1951. That classic sound was soon echoed.on countless rock 'n'

roll records by such towering figures as Lee Allen and Herb Hardesty in New Orleans

""

and King Curtis and Sam Taylor in New York. T-Bone Wal~rrC;i!lLlt$J9imyJ"'on
day") practically invented electric blues guitar playing in the 1940s on the West Coast 9

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His picking style, which Robert Palmer has described as "clean, with a terse, dry tone,

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and minimal vibrato and sustain," had an obvious effect on Memphis-based B. B. King
("Three O'Clock Biues," "The Thrill Is Gone"), whose so-called bent notes and single

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string nrns influenced generations of rock guitarists.!O By merging T-Bone Walker's

playing with jazz and pop influences, Chuck Berry created the definitive rock 'n' roll gui-

tar style and, mixed with it, universal odes to teenage life: "School Day," "Rock 'n' Roll

J\tlusic," "Sweet Little Sixtj;!en," and "Johnny B. Goode." This list of influences does not

'-'1

even include Muddy Waters ("Got My Mojo Working"), who had "electrified" the coun-

0:

try blues in Chicago just to be heard above the din in the noiSY hanky-tanks and juke
joints where he performed. Shortly thereafter, Bo Diddley ("Bo Diddley," "Say Man"),
another Delta-born Chicago transplant, crossed over into the pop market as a rock 'n'
ron star with a distinctive Afr():7,~,':l!ibbeanyariant of the style. New Orleans boogie pianist Professor Longhair, who described his own playing as a "combination of offbeat
Spanish beats and calypso downbeats" and "a mixture of rumba, mambo and calypso,"
was a major influence on Fats Domino whose successful r&h career was transformed into
rock 'n' roll legend with such hits as "Ain't That a Shame," ''I'm in Love Again/, and
"Blueberry Hill.""
On the vocal front, the assertiveness of such r&b performers as Joe Turner, Ruth
Brown. and LaVern Baker helped to create the rock 'n' roll style. The emotional intenSity of Roy Brown ("Good Rockin' Tonight"), for example, was carried to an extreme in
the outrageous on-and-off-stage antics of archetypal rock 'n' roll screamer Little Richard
("Tutti-FlUtti," "Long Tall Sally," "Rip It Up"). The jazz/gospel fusions of Ray Charles
("Hallelujah, I Love Her So," "1 Got a Woman") and the more pop-oriented gospel
stylings of such vocalists as Clyde McPhatter ("'Treasure of Love," "A Lover's Question")
and Sam Cooke ("You Send Me," "For Sentim,ntal Reasons") brought the traditions of
the black church into the secular world of rock 'n' roll. The elegant harmonies of urban
vocal harmony groups like the Orioles ("Crying in the Chapel"), the Crows ("Gee"), the
Chords {"Sh-8oom"), and lhe Penguins ("Earth Angel") ushered in a \vhole sub-genre of

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rock 'n' roll thJt was known as doo wop. Thus, in the well-intentioned Jnd largely accurate celebrat.ion of rock 'n' roll's mongrel character, it is important not to lose sight of
the fact that most of its formative influences, as well as Virtually all of its early innovators, were African American. Among all of the artists who could have been considered
rock 'n' roll musicians prior to 1955, there was only one white act of note-Bi!l Haley
and His Comets.

If the tendem.--y to systematically underestimate the African,American contribution

to rock 'n' roll is enough to give you pause, a consideration of what rock 'n' roll did to
women can stop you in your tracks. The revolution that was rock 'n' roll just about eliminated women from the ranks of the best-selling
recording artists. In the years immediately preceding the rock 'n' roll assault on the pop market, female vocalists had accounted for as many

Iftlle tendency to systematically underestimate the

African American contribution to rock 'n' ro/l is enougt
to give you pause, a consideration of what rock 'n' 10/,
did to women can stop you in your tracks,

as one-third of the best-selling Singles in a given

year. Of course, these were women in the pop Tin Pan Alley mold who performed suitably inoffensive material, Patti Page ("Doggie in the Window," 1953), Kitty Kallen
("Little Things Mean a Lot," 1954), Rosemary Clooney ("Hey There," 1954), Doris Day
("Secret Love," 1954), and so forth. By 1957, however, only two women appeared on

Cashbox's list of the twenty-five best-selling records of the year, Debbie Reynolds
("Tammy") and Jane Morgan ("Fascination")!'Not a single rock 'n' roll record in the
year-end top twenty-five list lVas by a wom"ukThe breakdown for the following year was
exactly the same unless Connie Francis' recording of "Who's Sorry Now" is counted as
rock 'n'. roll. Occasionally, female performers did penetrate the weekly bestseller lists
with rock 'n' roll material-Baker's "Tweedlee Dee" in 1955 and "Jim Dandy" in 1957

and Brown's "Lucky Lips" in

1957~but,

overall, a pattern of overwhelming male domi-

nation prevailed.
Clearly, the sexuality that characterized rock 'n' roll's initial burst of energy was a
male sexuality. Women did not sing; they were sung about. Most often, they were

re~

ferred to as babies-"Since I met you baby," "Honeycomb, won't you be my baby," "'Be
Bop a LuIa, she's my baby," "Since my baby left me," "There goes my baby," and so
forth. Without any models to make theln question the double standard of the day,
young male rock 'n' rollers were caught between the macho posturing of the "Sixty
Minute Man" with his "Great Balls of Fire" and passionate, even vulnerable, declarations
of unconditional romantic love, delivered in teenage idiom. According!y, in some instances, a woman could be portrayed as a wild "Party Doll," a promiscuous "Butterfly,"
or a "Devil in Disguise." Alternatively, she could be a heavenly goddess, "Venus" or
"Diana," a "Dream Lover" with "Angel Eyes" sent to earth by a "Little Star" or a uBlue
Moon." Either way, she was almost never a mature, down-to-earth person with a real
personality. At best, women were treated as totally dependent creat.ures or ideal, unreal
apparitions, perched high atop celestial pedestals.

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Structural Changes in the Music Industry

Whatever else may be said about rock 'n' roll, in the early 1950s, the appearence in the
mainstrean1 market of African American artists recording rhythm and blues for indepen~
dent labels turned all the rules of the music industry--especia!ly those concerning artist
and repertoire, recording techniques, marketing strategies, national distribution, and
consumer preference-upside down. In 1953, for example the Orioles, a black group
originally from Baltimore, recorded "Crying in the Chapel," a.sentiIT\~r~tal country:'song,
for Jubilee, an independent record label. Although there were already"~h;~e \,e'rsions of
the song on the best-se!ling lists at the time, the Orioles' release with its sparse accompaniment, a slight gospel tinge, and wordless falsetto swoops in the background, went to
number one on the r&.b charts and then crossed over to the pop market .

.S:

Lead singer Somry Til's wavering tenor and the sighs and cries of the group were familiar to
the black audience, but sounded appealinglY strange to the popular music audience. Perhaps
lIid,d by the fact that Til didll't soulld very "black," the record bro/r,inur'titl'whitir-popular
!III/Sic market, thereby establishing
black singers. 12

precedent for illdepcndent!J produced records featuring

Prior to this, the mainstream market had been dominated by the major labels. It
has been estimated that in 1948 and 1949, RCA, CBS, Decca, and Capitol released
more than 80 percent of all the weekly Top Ten hits,13 Company executives were firmly
convinced that audiences responded favorably to gentle changes in popular styles, which
made the market somewhat predili.able. Accordingly, marketing categories were as simple and straightforward as they were narrow and limiting: there was popular music for
the national market, country and western for the regional market, and rhythm and blues
for the African American market. The advent of rock 'n' roll swept away this conventional wisdom in one fell swoop.
Of course, the major labels had been able to keep their hold on the market in part
because they controlled the entire production process. Everything from songv,rriting,
artist ,1IlU repertoire, arranging, production, and engineering to mastering, pressing, promotion, marketing, distribution, and, in some cases, retail sales, were in-house functions
and performed according to a strict division of labor. The independent labels that came
to life in the 1940s and 1950s had a far less highly organized system of production, Rock
lore is rife with stories of enterprising label owners like Leonard Chess and Sam Phillips
who perf(}fJned aU the technical functions of prodUcing and ;ecording and then distributed their records from the trunk's"'of their cars. There were, however, two events that
permitted the independent labels to compete successfully for a significant share of the
market. First was the creation of a series of poorly capitalized independent radio stations
that were desperate for inexpensive programming. These stations had come into exis~
tenee as the FCC had begun to clear away the baCklog of applications for radio licenses

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After Sonny Til and the Orioles crossed over into the mainstream market in 1953, the floodgates
opened for African American artists produced by independent labels. This new trend in popular
music took the established powelS of the music industry totally by surprise.

that had been put on hold during World War II. Second was the development of the
lightweight "unbreakable" 45 rpm record. Although Jack Gutshall, a Los Angeles distributor, had set up the first national independent distribution system in 1945, it was, for
the independents, prohibitively expensive to ship

shellac~based

78 rpm records because

of their weight and fragility. With the introduction of the 45 rpm record, national

distri~

but ion became a viahle and costeffective option for independent companies, which
promptly began to supply independent radio stations \'\'ith their music, thus introducing
specialty music to the mainstream market.
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Following the decline of network radio in the early I 950s, patterns of ownership
in independent broadcasting began to change from individual stations to "chains," individually programmed stations that were brought together under one corporate roof.
Chain owners were first and foremost businessmen for whom radio was just another
investment. Said George Storer, the president of Storer Broadcasting,

If the leg(1ld still persists that a radio station is some kind of art center, a technical museum,
or a little piece of Hollywood transplanted strangely to your home town, then the first offiCial
act of the second quarter century [of commercial broadcasting] should be to list it along with
the local dairies, laundries, banks, restaurants, and filling stations. 14
Of course, these businessmen expected their investments to be profitable. thus programming not only had to be inexpensive but also had to appeal to a wide range of listeners.
Although there was a lot of talk about a new youth market, astute businessmen could
not help noticing that teenagers constituted only about 12 percent of the population and
that they were unavailable as listeners (potential consumers) during school hours. While
it was true that teenagers constituted a disproportionately large share of th~ record-buying public, it was not entirely clear that they paid their way in advertising dollars for
other products. It was To\tq;Sto~:aIid Gordori MCLeridon, both of whom owned radio
chains, who found the solution to this dilemma in a new format-iop"'Forty radiowhich placed the forty best-selling records in constant rotation all day long.
There are,pfcourse, numerous stories about how the Top Forty fonnat came into
being. One storyhas the fonnat beginning as a cost-cutting measure at Storz's YVTIX in
New Orleans in 1953. According to this story, Mclendon's KLIF in Dallas followed soon
after. 15 A more dramatic story has the fonnat
In the spirit of giving the public what It wants, Todd
originating in Omaha, Nebraska. when Storz and
Stan reasoned, why not treat radio like a jukebox and
Bill Stewart, his program director at KOWH,
play only the best-seiling records. The Top Forty Ionnat
were
in a bar drinking and noticed that the
was essentially Your HH Parade on records.
patrons kept playing the same song in the jukebox over and over again. When at closing time one of the cocktail waitresses who
had been subjected to the song all day walked over to the jukebox and selected it yet
again, a new format was born. In the spirit of giving the public what it wants, Storz and
Stewart reasoned, why not treat radio like a jukebox and play only the best-selling
records. The Top Forty fonnat was essentially Your Hit Parade on records; the weekly live
broadcast simply became a daily programming concept. .As a to.tal "sound," the format
integrated jingles, special effects, promotional gimmicks, and hourly news broadcasts
into the music that was used. The format proved so successful that it soon dominated
pop radio.
With the success of Top Forty radio, the deejay became a replaceable element in
a total sound formula. Naturally the personality jocks railed against the increasing
rationalization. George "Hound Dog" Lorenz, the most popular deejay in Buffalo, left

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WKBW because, he said, "[t)his concept of radio programming is helping to kill the single-record business, is lowering radio listenership, and is decreasing a new artist's chances
of making it. "16 To many. the inescapable conclusion was that the new format would restrict audience access to new music. While this would be the case over time, there is,
paradoxically, ample evidence to suggest that in its initial stages, the format had pre-

cisely the opposite effecL As Richard Peterson has explained, "because the charts were
based not only on radio airplay but also on jukebox play and record sales, many r&b
records as well as some country music records charted. Thus, for the first time, these
sorts of records began to receive wide exposure via the radio."17
Because the aesthetic that had guided network radio programming had not kept
pace with changes in popular taste, the format based on public appeal that had been ere
ated by independent chains had the effect, at least in the short nm, of broadening the
range of musical offerings that could be heard on a given station. Imagine hearing Little
Richard's "Long Tall Sally," Patti Page's "Allegheny Moon," Carl Perkins' "Blue Suede
Shoes," and Morris Stoloffs "Moonglow and Theme from Picnic" all on the same radio
station, indeed, on the same show. It was possible in June 1956, when all four recordings
were in the Top Forty simultaneously. In the heyday of rock 'n' roil, there was a greater
diversity of music heard on the radio than had ever before been the case.

stop here Sept. 8

Sounds of the Cities

The music that became rock 'n' roll issued from city centers in just about every region in
:he country. It was as disruptive in its degree of decentralization as it was exciting in its
unpredictability. While there is always the temptation is to trace the roots of rock 'n' roll
to the South, perhaps because of the r&b + c&w formula, in the end, (his tendency does
not do justice to the geographical dispersion of the music or the variety of cultural in
puts. In fact, .:here is no wholly satisfactory way to chart the course of the music. The
one thing that can be said with certainty is that rock 'n' roll was an urban sound. Beyond
that, the music often O\ved its characteristic sound to the magical ingredients of some be
witching musical brew-the distinctiveness of a particular region or city, the exceptional
quality of a specific recording studio or record company, a unique vocal or instrumental
style, even the creative genius of a particulc1r writer, performer, producer, and/or engi
neer. One place where all these elements came together was New Orleans.

New Orleans: The Fertile Crescent of Rock In' Roll

New Orleans is one of those places where diverse cultural elements periodically come together to produce a distinct sound. The city had been home to people from incredibly
varied backgrounds (French, Spanish, African, English, Native American, Cajun, and
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