Pop and Rock Music in the 60s
A Brief History
Essay by Jack Madani
Copyright 1998 Jack Madani. All rights rerved.
Published by permission of the author.
The Roots of Rock 'n' Roll: 洋金花的功效与作用
In 1945, World War II ended. By 1946, American rvicemen began returning home to start
up the families they had had to put on hold for 4 years. Thus began the unusually large bubble in the population curve of America known as the Baby Boom, as gazillions of babies were born all of a sudden in the span of five to ten years. Remember that all tho babies born in 1946-1947 would be 18 in 1964-1965 (and eventually 22 and out of college, and into the marketplace in the early '70's, to kick off the Me Decade). What that means is that American society would suddenly find itlf catering to a generation of young people in a way that had never occurred before.
Sixties rock finds its roots in veral places, starting as far back as the big swing bands of the pre-war era that the 60's kids' parents listened to as youngsters: Glenn Miller, Benny Goodman, Count Basie, 薛昌斗Tommy and Jimmy Dory, and Duke Ellington's bands are some of the most famous. Except for Duke Ellington, all tho bands were primarily dance bands, with big swinging backbeats. You can still hear some of their greatest hits today in such unusual places as the Chips Ahoy commercial (1,000 chips in every bag).
斯特拉斯堡大教堂
There were also the smaller, "rhythm combo" groups, usually of only four or five players.
Their tunes were popular on the jukeboxes of the day, but were not considered artistically important which is why we have mostly forgotten them today. The recent Broadway show "Five Guys Named Moe," which highlights the career of Louis Jordan, tells about one of the most popular rhythm combos of the day. Nat King Cole also had a small jazz combo that had popular success, before he became a Sinatra-style pop ballad singer in the '50's.
Then there was Country & Western--especially what was called "Texas Swing," of which Bob Wills & the Texas Playboys was the king. Hank Williams Sr. was another important singer/songwriter of that era and genre.
Over in Memphis there was Sam Phillips and his Sun Studios, where rockabilly and Elvis Presley were born. Besides Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, Carl Perkins, Johnny Cash and Roy Orbison all began their recording careers at Sun Studios一条短信.
Two other sources of modern rock'n'roll, absolutely esntial to the sound we think of as 60's rock, were, first, the Blues. Blues began as the music of black sharecroppers in the poor cotton-farming region of the Mississippi Delta, and traveled north to Chicago with th
e sharecroppers as thousands of them moved north in arch of a better life. It was in Chicago that the blues went from acoustic solo guitar music to electric guitar-electric bass-drums combos. Muddy Waters, Little Milton双重否定句20句, B.B. King, and Howlin' Wolf were just a few of the important Chicago blues artists.
The last source of modern rock'n'roll is actually a single man. Les Paul was a studio whiz and guitar player who designed the Gibson Les Paul electric guitar, and pioneered the technique of overdubbing, allowing one person to play more than one part on a recording. Working with his wife Mary Ford, who sang the vocal parts, Les Paul created a ries of two-person recordings that sounded like an entire band was playing--and the music was all guitar-bad.
墨梅古诗正确原文
The 1960's Begin:
As the late fifties gave way to the early sixties, the rockabilly stars of the previous decade
(the Everlys, Elvis, Roy Orbison) were still having hits, but the older pop-music stars were fading away as they struggled to find material that would click with this new and energetic generation of kids. Pop music gradually became controlled by new young "vocal"-groups, taking their power from a combination of the performer's charisma along with the songwriting talents of the production team, who operated behind the scenes. Eventually rock artists came to be expected to write and even produce their own songs, becoming responsible for everything about how their records sounded--but that would have to wait for Marvin Gaye, Brian Wilson and Lennon & McCartney.
In general there were four main pockets of early 60's pop:
哭的英文the East Coast DooWop and girl groups were singers and groups who origins are in the streetcorner a cappella groups found in many urban centers. With very rare exceptions, the groups did not write their own songs, but relied on their handlers to t up the recording ssions, pick the material, and produce the records. In fact, many of the behind-the-scenes people eventually became stars in their own right in the venties.
The R&B and Soul scene included many talented people who often didn't receive the popularity of less-talented white groups, becau of barriers and prejudices against buying "race" records. Later in the decade, after the British groups acknowledged their debt to soul music, and as the civil rights movement inspired black pride, the general American public rediscovered the performers.
