Rock And Roll Music In The 1950's

During the 1960’s and 1970’s rock music took the nation by storm, again. With its new wave of music, evident in the more dynamic tempos and uplifting sound, rock and roll had a much more impactful message to spread than it had in the 1950’s. In the 1950’s the music was simply made for fun, whilst in the 60’s and 70’s, although the music was still fun, in was proving a much more specific criticism on racial disputes. There was a notable spilt in the industry between black rock and roll and white rock and roll. Many youth grew obsessed with the new Rock’n’Roll music. Rock and Roll represented a loud and fun way to express people’s disapproval of anything. The new anthems of the young society were ones that were yearning for change and uproar. …show more content…
Although white artists contributed very small amounts to the creation of rock and roll, their version of rock songs were the most popular. White artist took music that was Rock and Roll, made by black artists, and combined it with country music, which came to be known as Rockabilly music. The most know Rockabilly artist was Elvis Presley. Billboard, the main music news resource and the creator of the “Top 100 Hot Songs List”, confirmed that Elvis had the most songs on the list for a rock artist, 208 and had the 3rd overall about of songs around all artists. Moreover he also has 126 Billboard cheated albums and held 61 weeks at the top of Billboard Top 100 Hot Songs. Rockabilly at its time was a very popular genre and as usual was wild dominated by white artists. From this very brief genre came much more clearly Rock and Roll. Elvis songs slowly became more blues based rather that country based. His music contained the “rhythmic feeling of blues and the strummed rhythm of guitar.” Elvis was able to become as successful as he was because of Sun Records. Sun Records, originally a “black label” was home to many Rockabilly and Rock and Roll artist. In the early 1960s, it suffered sever financial woes because their “Race Records” weren't selling. To help them out they incorporated white artist such as Elvis and Carl Perkins. When white people …show more content…
After the majority of the Second Great Migration had passed, Berry Gordy created the first primary African American record label, Motown Records. Motown, a popular music genre, however was not the most important type of music that was recorded and produced there. The most prominent in fact was rock and roll. Berry Gordy, a relatively popular Rock and Roll artist, founded the record label with money from his own winnings. Many believe that he created his empire of the music business to showcase the work of black artist who would otherwise never be known. Motown records was able to sign many artist who became the pillars of what we now know as Rock and Roll. Some of the noticeable artist on this label were: the Supremes Jackson 5, Stevie Wonder, Marvin Gaye, The Temptations, and even Diana Ross. By critics the music was described as “screaming loud, jammed, and mainly black” In the record company itself most of the people working were the black urban population that was growing in Detroit and it was almost entirely black run, something that at the time, for any type of company was quite unusual. This was revolutionary for artist and for the genre, finally there was more opportunity to be seen if you were a black artist, and there was less of a monopoly on Rock and Roll music, held by other record