Syllabus Fall 2013
Instructor: Brad Ard, Office, Kimbrough 241; Telephone: 335-7122; email: Bradley.ard@wsu.edu. Messages may also be left at the Music Program Office; Telephone: 335-8524 Office hours: by appointment.
Catalog Description: MUS 262 Rock Music: History and Social Analysis 3 Credits: History and analysis of rock music related to its African American origins, its societal role, and its diverse development and impact.
Meeting Schedule: M/W/F 10:10 AM – 11:00 AM Kimbrough Concert Hall. Angel access.
UCORE Designation: [ARTS] Inquiry in the Creative and Professional Arts
Learning Outcomes
University Learning Goals
At the end of this course students should …show more content…
The class will help students understand their cultural/social positioning including how the changing cultural/social positioning of the races in the US has affected the development of rock music.
The class will help students analyze how both culture/society and cultural differences are influenced by factors such as history, politics, power and privilege, communication styles, economics, institutionalized discrimination and inequality, or cultural values, beliefs, and practices including how the history of American diversity led to the creation of rock music (the paradox that without discrimination and oppression, there would be no rock music), how the music is catalyst for social and political change, how power and privilege influenced the direction of the music, how rock music is an alternate style of musical communication, how white musicians were favored economically at the expense of African-American innovators, how rock music has had a profound, positive impact on the level of discrimination and inequality in the US, and how rock music has impacted cultural values and …show more content…
Country & Western Styles
Western Swing – Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys
Bluegrass – Bill Monroe
Rhythm and Blues
Jazz, boogie-woogie and the Swing Era
Decline of the Big Bands and the splintering into sophisticated bebop and dance-oriented rhythm & blues.
Louis Jordan (the jump band)
Big Joe Turner / Big Mama Thornton (blues shouters)
Text Reading Assignment: pp.– 3 to 20
Weeks 2 & 3: The Dawn of Rock & Roll: The First Renegades of the 1950’s.
Crossovers & Covers: popular music in the 1950 's and R&B "crossover" hits.
Bill Haley and "Rock Around the Clock." Whitewashed cover versions of R&B hits Pat Boone: King of the Covers
The emergence of teenagers as a social and economic class.
Disc Jockeys and the airwaves as battleground.
Memphis: Sam Phillips and Sun Records
Elvis Presley
The Sun Records Years (1954-55)
Scotty Moore and Bill Black
Rockabilly style traits.
The move to RCA and Col. Tom Parker.
The Army & Hollywood, the 1968 comeback, Las Vegas and the final descent.
Text Reading Assignment: pp. – 21 to 36