Rock Tour Iowa

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.”