Rock 'N' Roll Music Emergence

Zach Brunner
Music in World Cultures
Kevin Hoeschen
Research Paper
9 Dec. 2013
The Emergence of Rock 'n ' Roll Aside from the invention of Velcro, rock 'n ' roll music is one of the few things introduced in the 1950s that is still common today. There were a number of great things introduced back then, but after 60 years things tend to get outmatched or forgotten. Rock 'n ' roll is not one of those forgotten things. Rock 'n ' roll is still one of the most popular genres of music in the 21st century, and a lot of sub-genres have split off from that. Rock ‘n’ roll is a term that was first used in blues music. For them, it was just a more artistic version of saying sex. This term stayed in the lyrics of early blues music until the mid-50’s
Before this invention, radios were big, expensive, power consuming, heat producing, and had big vacuum tubes. Families usually only had one radio in their households because of this, and people rarely had portable radios. People did not have these portable radios because they were fragile and heavy from the large batteries that they used. When families have only one radio, it is most likely going to be in the living room and controlled by the parents who do not like rock 'n ' roll music. The transistor radio came out in the mid-1950s. These radios were shipped in from Japan and were cheap, small, and used smaller lightweight batteries. This meant that every teenager was able to have their own and listen to whatever radio station they chose. They were small enough for the teenagers to bring to the beach, school, to parties, or work. In other words, they could listen to rock 'n ' roll whenever that wanted to (Peterson 102). As these radios were gaining more and more popularity, a music director of an independent radio station in Omaha, Nebraska had the great idea to develop the top 40 format for radio stations (Peterson 112). This meant he would take the top 40 hits at the time and play them on loop all day. If a rock 'n ' roll artist like Elvis Presley gained enough popularity from his performances in concerts or on television to make it into the top 40, he would have his songs
A lot of the acting out that these teenagers did related to race in one way or another. At this point in history, there was still a lot of hostility between white and black people. This type of music was viewed as inappropriate, and a lot of times viewed as black music. It was tough to get your hands on a rock ‘n’ roll record while this music was still working on becoming mainstream media. Many of the white teenagers had to sneak over to the black part of town and buy it in one of the record stores without their parents knowing. It eventually became somewhat acceptable for white people to go and see black musicians like Chuck Berry perform, because it was like he was performing for you as your personal entertainer. At first there would be a specific white show, then there would be a black show, or vice versa. Eventually, they would combine the shows and put a rope down the middle segregating the crowd. At one specific show, a security guard remembers both of the crowds beginning to dance, and then these teens knocked down the ropes and they all danced together (Hayden). This type of thing was unheard of. This blew up in the media and infuriated the rock ‘n’ roll haters even more. Even though this upset many people, there was nothing that could derail this train. Rock ‘n’ roll just kept