Alan Freed, American radio disc jockey
Moondog rock n roll party radio show
“Rock around the Clock” - Bill Haley and His Comets
“Shake, Rattle, and Roll” - Big Joe Turner
“The teenager” issues and J. Edgar Hoover
Payola - a crime when a record label bribes a disc jockey on radio to pay their music. The radio waves were owned by the federal government and you can’t bribe people to pay music with federal law.

Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Blues
Gospel
Singer and GUitarist
“Godmother of Rock and Roll”

Fats Domino

Cross over success (R&B)
Piano
“Blueberry Hill”
AABA form

Chuck Berry

Cross over success R&B
Guitarist
Influenced by Country Music
Duck Walk
Double Stops
“Johnny B. Goode”

Little Richard

Cross over success
Piano
Aggressive piano playing
Sexual innuendo in lyrics
“Tutti Frutti”
Begins with chorus, simple verse-chorus

Pat Boone Sucks

Elvis Presley

Sun Records to RCA
Not a songwriter (covers)
“That’s All Right (mama)”

Rockabilly

Associated with White performers
Combination of blues and “hillbilly” music
Electric guitar is the primary solo instrument
Most common instrumentation included guitar, upright bass, drum kit, and singer
Singer employs a wide range of vocal inflections
Artists associated with rockabilly : Carl Perkins, Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison, The Everly Brothers, Johnny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Eddie Cochran

Jerry Lee Lewis

Sun Records
“Great Balls of Fire”
Married his 16yo cousin…

Buddy Holly and The Crickets

“That’ll Be The Day”
Died in a plane crash

Roy Orbison

“Only the lonely”
Sun records

Link Wray

Native American (shawnee)
early rock and roll/rockabilly guitarist
early use of the power chord
“Rumble” - banned on radio, instrumental

Ritchie Valens (Richard Valenzuela)

Chicano Rock

“La Bamba”

Native Americans In Popular Music

Charley Patton (1934)

Delta Blues musician
“Pony Blues”

Mildred Bailey

(1907-1951)

Jazz Singer
“The Queen of Swing”; “Blues in My Heart”
attributed to the style of Sinatra and other jazz musicians

Jimmy Hendrix

Guitarist
“Star Spangles Banner” live at Woodstock (1969)

Buffy Sainte-Marie (d1941)

Indigenous Canadian American singer-songwriter
“Universal Soldier”
nixon admin cut her career short

Robbie Robertson (1943-2023)

Guitarist (Ronnie Hawkins and the Hawks, Bob Dylan, The Band)
“Up on Cripple Creek”

Jessie Ed Davis

Guitarist (Tak Mahal, Eric Chaplin, John Lennon, George Harrison, Jackson Browne, Rod Stewart)
“Doctor, My Eyes” guitar solo

Redbone

“Come and get your love”
they would often wear pow-wow clothing
often mic the floor and do traditional native american dance

Randy Castillo (1950-2002)

Heavy Metal drummer (Ozzy Osbourne)

Brill Building Sound

Located at 1619 Broadway New York
Set the stage for the rise of the singer-songwriter in the later 1960s
Housed the offices of some of the most commercially successful songwriters, producers, and music publishers
included girl groups, bubblegum pop, vocal doo-wop, Latin pop, and soul music
Vertically integrated production structure, songwriters, pitched theur work to publishers, producers solicited songs for their artists, hired musicians and arrangers, and made recordings in-house
songwriters and producers Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller “Searchin” The Coasters
Producer Phil Spector: “wall of sound”/”wrecking crew” “be my baby” The Ronnets

Soul Music

Race Music, Rhythm and blues, soul music
1960s
African American pop music genre
utilized vocal techniques from black gospel music

James Brown

“papas got a brand-new bag”/”(i feel good)I got you”

STAX Records (Memphis)

FAME studio (muscle shoals, AL)
- Muscle Shoals Rhythm Section
Atlantic records

Motown (soul music)

Motown is both a record label specializing in sould music and a musical style
Record label was founded by Berry Gordy in Detroit in 1961; moved to LA in 1971
Gordy trained songwriters and producers in an attempt to reach both black and white audiences
Distinctive sound development from using the same teams of songwriters and producers, the same musicians (funk brothers) and the same studio for nearly every recording
Backbeat was often minimized
the basic pulse was always articulated by a variety if instruments
aided by handclaps and foot stomping rooted in gospel music
the lead instrument was commonly a non-rock or rhythm nd blues instrument such as bassoon, English horn or vibraphone
the production tended to emphasis the lead singer in the mix and then the instrumentation
influenced by the dense “wall of sound” of Phil Spector
The high end of the sound register was often favored
lyrics tended to be rich in internal rhyme, alliteration, metaphor and other poetic devices
songs tended to have multiple hooks

Martha and the Vandellas

heat wave
holland-dozier-holland

Philadelphia Sound: “Soft Soul”

Philadelphia International Records
Kenny Gamble and Leon Huff
1970’s
modeled after Motown
Extravagant Instrumental introductions
Lush orchestrations with strings and horns and focused on the beginning of the music to catch attention
polished recordings, complex textures
octaves on guitars
novel instruments: Vibraphone, Harpsichord, or Latin percussion
frequent use of falsetto voices
Moderate tempos
utilized session musicians: in-house band MFSB (mothers father son brother)
bass guitar and kick drum on every beat
topics of love as well as society conscious lyrics
led to new genre, Disco!

The O’Jays

“For the love of money”

Surf Rock

beginning 1959 peaked 1962-64
Started in SoCal orange county
often utilized close-harmonies
heavy reverd (fender showman amp)
Lyrics about surfing,girls, and fast cars
Musical antecedents: ukelele, flamenco, early rock, and rockabilly
“lets go trippin”: Dick Dale
“Bustin surfboards” Tornadoes

Unit 2 Exam

The Beatles

Liverpool, UK

The Quarry Men - before “"the beatles”
Skiffle Music- folk-ish with homemade instruments
Early Rock & Roll
Formed in 1957 (John Lennon & Paul McCartney)
George Harrison joined in 1958
Stuart Sutcliffe (bass guitar)
Pete Best (drums)

Hamburg, Germany

1960-1962 Hamburg, Germany
Ringo Starr joined
6-8 hour sets
American Pop, Rhythm & Blues, Country & Western

Cavern Club

Liverpool, UK
1961-1962
Brian Epstein becomes manager in ‘61

“Fifth Beatle”

Decca rejects record deal with the Beatles
George Martin, EMI record producer -1962, was the 5th Beatle

Beatlemania

1963-1966
Ed Sullivan Show (February 9, 1964)
3 American Tours (64,65,66)
1966 end of public performances

Beatles & India

Beatles traveled to India in 1968
“Norwegian wood”
Sitar

Albums

Please Please Me (1963)
With The Beatles (1963)
A Hard Day’s Night (1964)
Beatles For Sale (1964)
Help (1965)
Rubber Soul (1965)
Revolver (1966)
A Collection Of Beatles Oldies (1966)
“Michelle” (Rubber Soul)
“Tomorrow Never Knows” (Revolver)
Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band (1967)
Magical Mystery Tour [EP] (1967)
The Beatles: White Album (1969)
Yellow Submarine (1969)
“Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds”
Abbey Road (1969)
Let It Be (1970)

Movies

Hard Days Night (64)
Help! (65)
Magical Mystery Tour (67)
Yellow Submarine (68)
Let It Be (70)

Billy Preston

American Keyboardist
“Get Back” by the beatles with Billy Preston
‘Fifth Beatle”

British Invasion

Prior to 1964

American popular was dominant, British was secondary
UK imported more American music than exported to US
British had infatuation with American folk music, blues, r&b, jazz, country & western, and rock&roll

The Beatles et al

Gerry and the pacemakers “How do you do it”
The Dave Clark five “Glad all over”
Hermans hermits “Im into something good”
Freddy and the dreamers “Im telling you now”
The Hollies “Bus Stop”
The Animals “House of the rising sun”

British Blues Revival

The Rolling Stones (named after a muddy waters song)
Brian Jones (guitar), Mick Jagger (Vocal), Keith Richards (guitar), Bill Wyman (bass guitar), Charlie Watts (drums)
Covers
a rival to the beatles (riff based blues)
“(I cant get no) satisfaction”

Yardbirds

Eric Clapton “slowhand” (lead guitar)
Later replaced by Jeff Beck (lead guitar)
Long improvisatory passages at the end of songs called “rave ups”
“For your love”

The Kinks

“you really got me”

The Who

formed in 1964
Vocals Roger Daltrey, guitar Pete Townshend, Bass john entwistle, &drums Keith Moon
Perfired at Monterey Pop Festival (1967) and Woodstock (1969)
Rock opera Tommy “pinball wizard”
“My Generation”

Note