Music History Lecture Review

Flashcards covering key concepts, artists, genres, and historical events discussed in the music history lecture notes.

Bob Wills, Mopatze Montana, Ernest Tubb

Significant early artists who shaped country and western music.

Loretta Lynn, Patsy Cline, Johnny Cash

Artists credited with the blossoming of country music in the late 1940s and early 1950s.

Rock and Roll

A new type of popular music emerging in the early 1950s, characterized by uptempo beats, simple lyrics, and a danceable rhythm, influenced by swing and rhythm and blues.

Electric Blues

A temporary genre that arose with the transition from expensive big jazz bands to smaller, more cost-effective bands incorporating electronic sounds.

Alan Freed

A Cleveland disc jockey credited with coining the term 'rock and roll'.

Bill Haley

An early rock and roll artist known for hits like 'Rock Around the Clock' and 'See You Later, Alligator'.

'Rock Around the Clock'

Widely considered by many scholars to be the first true rock and roll hit.

Chuck Berry

A key figure from Saint Louis in 1950s rock and roll, credited for making the guitar the primary instrument in the genre, with early hits like 'Maybelline'.

Elvis Presley

The most celebrated and discussed rock and roll artist, whose style combined blues, gospel, and rockabilly, known for hits like 'Jailhouse Rock' and 'Hound Dog'.

Nashville

Often cited as the nexus of country music due to the influence of artists like Johnny Cash and Patsy Cline.

Johnny Cash

A legendary country artist who wrote 'Folsom Prison Blues,' was the first to record a concert in a prison, and the first artist inducted into both the Country and Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.

Patsy Cline

One of the most significant women performers in country history, known for hits like 'Walkin' After Midnight' and 'Crazy'.

Folk Music Revival

A period roughly from 1935 to 1965, experiencing a resurgence in popularity after a lull in the 1950s.

Payola Scam

An illegal practice where record executives bribed DJs to play their artists' songs on the air to boost popularity; Alan Freed was notably caught in this scandal.

Dick Clark

A prominent DJ and television host of 'American Bandstand' and 'Dick Clark's Rockin' New Year's Eve,' who remained untainted by the payola scandal.

1959 Plane Crash

A tragic incident that killed rock and roll up-and-comers Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and J.P. 'The Big Bopper' Richardson, famously known as 'The Day the Music Died'.

Buddy Holly

An influential rock and roll artist revered by later bands, known for songs like 'Peggy Sue'.

Ritchie Valens

The first Latino hitmaker in rock and roll, famous for songs such as 'La Bamba'.

J.P. 'The Big Bopper' Richardson

Originally a DJ who became a music artist, known for his hit song 'Chantilly Lace'.

The Beach Boys

A group that emerged in the early 1960s, filling a void in music with sounds associated with surfing, hot rods, and Hawaiian guitar, creating hits like 'Good Vibrations'.

Barry Gordy Jr.

Former boxer who founded Motown Records in 1960 with a $600 loan, promoting soul music and desegregation.

Motown Records

A record label founded by Barry Gordy Jr. that played a significant role in moving soul music into mainstream predominantly white areas and promoting desegregation, home to artists like The Supremes and The Jackson Five.

The Beatles

The iconic British band (John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Ringo Starr) whose arrival in America with 'I Wanna Hold Your Hand' launched the 'British Invasion'.

British Invasion

A musical phenomenon started by The Beatles, where British bands gained immense popularity in the United States, causing the folk revival to wane.

Bob Dylan (Robert Zimmerman)

An artist who inherited the folk music tradition of Woody Guthrie, known for crafting meaningful lyrics and protest songs for civil rights and anti-war activism.

Record Producer

A person integral to album creation, responsible for bringing together the right songs, songwriters, technical personnel, and performers.

Phil Spector

A record producer famous for creating the 'Wall of Sound' technique, producing hits like 'River Deep – Mountain High'.

Wall of Sound Technique

A production method developed by Phil Spector, involving surrounding a singer with a large, layered ensemble of musicians to create a dense, powerful sound.

Symphonic Rock

A subgenre of rock emerging in the late 1960s, characterized by complexity in sound and lyrics, often hard to dance to or play live, like The Beatles' 'A Day in the Life'.

Country Rock

A subgenre blending country, folk, and pop elements into rock, exemplified by artists such as The Eagles and Fleetwood Mac.

'Thriller' (Michael Jackson)

Currently holds the title for the biggest selling album of all time, with the most copies sold ever.

Southern Rock

A subgenre starting in the early 1970s, blending country and rock with grittier harmonies, featuring bands like The Allman Brothers Band and Lynyrd Skynyrd.

Lynyrd Skynyrd

A Southern rock band famously named after their high school coach, Leonard Skinner, as an act of defiance.

ABBA

A popular Swedish international rock band known for multilingual albums and significant global impact.

'Urban Cowboy'

A 1980 movie starring John Travolta, credited with helping to revitalize the country music genre.

The Carter Family

Ranked by Rolling Stone as influential in country music, credited with creating modern country by evolving white gospel and incorporating the banjo.

Merle Haggard

Ranked by Rolling Stone as the top country artist of all time, for his electric-tinged music's influence on rock fans and its translation into genres like rock, reggae, and rap.

Reggae

A genre emerging in the late 1960s/early 1970s, a blend of blues, soul from the US, and West African rhythms, finding a home in the Caribbean.

Bob Marley

The best-known and widely regarded 'king' of reggae music.

Rap and Hip Hop

Interchangeable terms for a genre that began around 1973, incorporating elements like B-boying, graffiti art, and DJ techniques.

Cool DJ Kool Herc

A performer credited with initiating rap/hip hop in 1973 by making technically non-danceable songs appealing for dancing.

Grandmaster Flash

An influential performer who added techniques of cutting and scratching records to create a continual beat in hip hop.

Robert Pittman

The DJ who, at 27 years old, launched MTV on August 1, 1981.

MTV

A television channel launched on August 1, 1981, with the original simple idea of playing music videos to put faces to performers.

'Video Killed the Radio Star'

The first music video ever aired on MTV, by The Buggles.

'I Want My MTV' Campaign

A highly successful advertising campaign utilized by MTV to convince resistant cable systems nationwide to carry the channel.

'The Real World'

MTV's first reality TV show, launched in 1992, featuring college students living together, often cited as the beginning of MTV's shift away from music videos and its eventual downfall.