Rock Tour

You can hardly be American without knowing the thunder of the drums and the scream of the electric guitar that is at the heart of American Rock and Roll. Rock music has been part of our culture since the fifties, and has since spread out into the world at large to cover the world musical scene and influence ethnic music in places like Ireland, Afghanistan, Morocco, and, of course, England – who can forget the Beatles?

In the dim, dark prehistoric ages of rock music, the genre was just beginning to emerge from the music of the swing era and World War II. Rock can find some of its roots in the boogie woogie style of piano; the lead instrument in the very earliest forms of music even possibly classified as ‘rock’ was quite often the piano.

The genre developed quickly and, by the fifties, the saxophone had taken the place of the piano as the rock musician’s lead instrument; the beat was light and steady; the voice a smooth croon epitomized by artists like Elvis and Little Richard.

There is actually some debate over whose record could actually be called the first “rock” album to hit the market. One artist, Sister Rosetta Thorpe, recorded a rhythmic album incorporating stomping and shouting in a rhythm that contained many elements of the rock that was to come. She performed as early as the 1930s, scoring big on the charts in 1938 with her popular gospel music. Other claims to fame include Big Joe Turner and the famous Fats Domino.

It wasn’t until the early fifties that rock really began to splinter off as its own genre. The earlier records were produced by such influential artists as Chuck Berry, Bill Haley, and Little Richard. In his twenties during the beginning of the rock music movement, Little Richard was a singer, songwriter, and pianist and combined gospel, boogie-woogie, and blues with an accentuated back beat and a funk rhythm. His singing style included some of the breathless volume that would come to characterize rock music in decades to come.

And then there was Elvis. Elvis Aron Presley, born in 1935 in Tupelo, Mississippi, took the world by storm with his flashy and rebellious hip swinging new style of music. Regarded by many as one of the greatest performers of the twentieth century, “The King” lives on today in memory and legend with hordes of fans modern artists can only hope to eventually reach.

Elvis got started in the rhythm and blues (R&B) and country genres, but quickly began to introduce the bluesy vocals and strong back beat that are such a clear mark of the rock genre. With a wide range of vocal capability, Elvis was able to tackle an equally wide range of musical accomplishments, making him one of the best rock artists in American history. When he died on August 16, 1977, at the age of forty-two, he had risen from mere pop star to legend and his death was disbelieved – indeed, is still disbelieved – by thousands of his adoring fans.

Elvis’ rebellious new style of performance and music had an enormous effect on the forming genre. Rock music, especially in the seventies and eighties, emphasized rebelliousness from authority, parental and otherwise. Elvis’ relatively mild hip swinging and ‘raunchy’ lyrics – “You’re the cutest jailbird I ever did see” – helped craft the match that would be lit by the Vietnam war in another decade and a half.

Towards the end of the fifties, other rock music idols were beginning to arise as well, often taking enormous rock tours across the country to play live concerts for their adoring fans everywhere. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper were famous rock music artists who were killed suddenly in a plane crash, leading to a wealth of American cult mythology about the deaths of famous rock musicians – the wild, rebellious style of rock music led many to speculate about the devil coming to collect the souls of those who played his “devil music.”

One thing Buddy Holly and Elvis Presley brought to rock music was the absolute domination of the guitar as the lead instrument. Almost without exception throughout classic rock all the way through modern performers, the guitar has remained the mainstay of the rock and roll band, especially with the development of the electronic amplifier and distortion effect.

With the onset of the sixties rock music began to shift even more from its bluegrass and country roots. Artists like the Beach Boys sang light hearted ballads about surfing, cars, and, that most productive of music topics – girls. The sound of the Beach Boys had come a long way even from the hip-swinging performance art of Elvis and Little Richard. Hit songs like “Good Vibrations” and “California Girls” focused on a light pop rhythm and harmonic vocals, very much reflecting the easy going “flower power” feel of the era.

Rock music also began to cross the Atlantic. The first true British rock and roll single is generally held to be “Move It” by Cliff Richard and the Drifters. This song both proved that British groups “had what it took,” but also began to define the unique flavor of British rock music.

One British group, the Quarrymen, seemed to especially take to the new genre, and quickly grew in popularity. Along the road to fame they also changed the name of their band – to the Beatles. Paul McCartney and John Lennon skyrocketed to world fame by the end of the decade, taking England and America by storm.

This melding of cultural borders was partially due to the prominence of rock tours, taken by both British and American artists. American stars performed rock tours in Britain; British rock stars performed in America. Together they built the immensely powerful foundation of rock and roll. The Beatles were of course a major part of this, and attracted such a level of fanaticism as to have a term coined for it: “Beatlemania.”

The format of rock music presentation itself began to shift with the advent of the seventies. In previous decades, music had primarily been presented as singles – single songs which, if they were good enough, would make it to the “top 40” style lists.

Beginning with the Beatles’ Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band album, radio stations began to realize that demand was changing. The Lonely Hearts album spawned no real hit singles, but was popular in its entirety. In response, stations began to play selections from the album, thus helping to forward the format now called “Album Oriented Rock” or “Album Rock”. This format utilizes album cuts, but focuses on presenting more playlist-oriented content.

This era also ushered in a new staple of the radio music industry – the disc jockey. As rock music shifted from AM to the higher quality FM radio stations, stations began to use disc jockeys to provide commentary and switch albums and work the first playlist formats, often using playlists built with stacks of color coded index cards.

The seventies also marked the genesis and rise of the dozens of legendary rock bands such as Led Zeppelin, the Rolling Stones, AC/DC, U2, Aerosmith, and The Who. These bands quickly came to dominate the rock music scene. Their wild stage antics, strange clothes and stranger hair added immensely to their rebellious image and helped form the image with which we view the time.

The Rolling Stones are perhaps the most famous trademark band of this era. They are, in fact, still playing shows today that continue to draw larger crowds than all but the most popular modern bands. Rising to prominence during the British rock music revolution in the sixties, the Stones released album after album. “Sticky Fingers,” released in 1971, contained some of the Stones’ greatest hits including “Brown Sugar” and “Moonlight Mile.”

By now drugs and the American under-culture had truly entered and melded with the rock and roll scene. Bands like the Beatles and others in the sixties experimented with narcotics, of course, but in the seventies the experimentation began to get darker. America was already reeling from the Vietnam war and the last entity anyone wanted to trust was the government and others in authority; the rebelliousness and drugs of the rock music revolution was in part a direct reaction to this fact.

The Stones also began to take advantage of a new element of rock performance – stage shows. In the rock tours of bands like the Stones, Queen, and Elton John, fantastic stage magic were all part of the show, and worked in competition with each other until the shows were more fantastic than ever. Mick Jagger of the Stones would often mount a cherry picker to soar out over the audience during live performances.

The true golden age of rock music, however, didn’t really begin until the eighties. It was in 1981 that the term “classic rock” was first coined and used on air by WYSP of Philadelphia, in January of that year. This station was also one of the first to utilize the playlist system of radio music.

The legendary rock bands that had begun in the seventies matured in this decade, growing to almost mythical status among fans across America. Disillusioned after the failure of the Vietnam War, music lovers everywhere fled with open arms into the embrace of the rebellious classic rock. Classic rock was much less about the soft topics of the sixties – like the Beach Boys’ surfing and girls – and more about hard and fast relationships, one night stands, and rebellion against authority. Songs like “We Ain’t Gonna Take It” by Twisted Sister and “Dirty Deeds Done Dirt Cheap” by AC/DC focused on the new rebellious nature of America’s youth – indeed, “Dirty Deeds” seems to be aimed at adolescents, with lyrics like “Having trouble with the high school head …”.

Love, as always, was still a topic. Unlike the coy flirting of sixties music, however, eighties classic rock often involved innuendo and more suggestive themes, with songs like “Hot for Teacher” by Van Halen or “She Shook Me All Night Long” by AC/DC.

Some lyrics, though, contained deeper commentary on society at large. “Civil War” and “My Michelle” by Guns N’ Roses commented on themes like racism, war, and drug use. Songwriters used their art to comment on society at large and were quite influential in shaping the opinions of the youth of that era.

The classic rock genre continued to evolve into the nineties with bands like U2 and Tom Petty’s Heartbreakers taking the stage. U2, one of the most popular music groups even today, was formed in 1976 by an Irish group originally hailing from Dublin. They’ve sold more than fifty million albums in the United States alone, and around 170 million worldwide.

U2 also began to bring music back into the social interest stage, and has been politically active in human rights issues like the Make Poverty History campaign and various aid and relief groups for African charities. Throughout the seventies and eighties U2 experimented with lyrical depth and musical complexity and had, by 1990, become one of the most popular bands in the world.

By now, of course, the rock tour was a standard part of the rock scene everywhere. Bands like Bruce Springsteen and U2 traveled all over the world, performing shows and making millions. People still travel hundreds of miles just to catch a showing by their favorite bands. Seats are booked well in advance and sell for a premium over the week before the concert. U2 was made famous by its antics, including using vast, extravagant stage props in a mocking commentary of rock music excess. They were also famous for doing spur of the moment impromptu shows, including one performed on the back of a flatbed truck driving through Manhattan.

The nineties also saw the rise of some new types of rock, including the instrumentally heavy and vocally light music of Pearl Jam and Nirvana, or the hip hop and funk influenced work by the Red Hot Chili Peppers. These musicians performed in a manner much closer to the modern style of rock – some of their songs would seem almost indistinguishable from modern work.

Today’s rock music scene is still vibrant, though not quite so popular as it was during the classical era. Many modern fans have shifted to hip hop, rap, and Latino pop genres. Rock still holds a significant following, with bands like U2 and the Stones still performing quite successfully.

One good example of a rock musician who’s still producing classic rock style albums is the vastly successful Jon Bon Jovi. Now in his forties, Bon Jovi has sold over 100 million albums worldwide and continues to perform successfully. His most recent album, “Have a Nice Day,” has been amazingly successful with 4,500,000 sales over the last year alone.

Most modern rock is a style more reminiscent of the heavy metal bands of the eighties (like Judas Priest or Metal Church) and often has lyrics screamed so loudly as to be almost incoherently. Conversely, the lyrics themselves are often quite deep, delving into much deeper philosophical and psychological issues than any of the get-a-girl songs of the classic period ever did.

The rebellious nature of rock has never quite left the genre however. Some rock music groups like Rage Against the Machine have clearly anarchical lyrics, calling for the downfall of government and hinting at conspiracies against leaders like Martin Luther King and John F. Kennedy.

Others focus on more personal matters. Some, like Linkin Park, combine elements of rock with elements of hip hop and write heavy metal songs of introspective psychology.

Other bands like to stretch the lines. Bands like Evanescence have pioneered a new genre of music known as Gothic Rock, a dark, elegant musical style with themes like loneliness, psychosis, and love lost. Evanescence in particular has returned to the piano that was the main instrument of rock music half a century ago – though the haunting classical piano music of Evanescence is a far step from the swing-style ragtime of the forties.

Some groups like to experiment with sound itself. Sonic Youth doesn’t even always use the standard twelve tone chromatic scale, tuning their guitars to make new scales. This style results in a style almost more a painting of sound than a sound, an experience on the cutting edge of modern music.

Even U2 often falls under the category of ‘alternative’ rock, even though they’re one of the oldest and most successful bands in existence today. Their experimentation with atmospheric sound and philosophical lyrics is part of what makes them so successful.

Rock music has a large and varied history, and shows no signs of dying out. Listen to “Rock Around the Clock” by Little Richard and then listen to “Numb” by Linkin Park … if rock music has changed so much in only fifty years, how much will it change in the next fifty? Or ten? One thing is certain; it will be an interesting show to watch.