The Roots of Rock and the Issue of Race in the United States

Posted by Jerald Rier on January 22nd, 2020

Rock music includes a lot of different sub styles, and not only the usual ones, such as new wave, heavy metal, Brit pop, punk rock, and psychedelic, but also other styles, such as soul, blues, and techno, where were its roots. Rock music has its special features; they are: riffs (short, recognizable, and easily remained melodic ideas, which are repeated several times during the song), verse (part of the song), chorus form (line or lines repeated with intervals in the song), beat (in rock, beats usually combine into groups of 4, and sometimes in 2, 3, or even 5), rhythm (the systematic pattern of musical sound), tempo (volume of the beat), backbeat (sharp, pulsatile sound on the second of every pair of beats), and hook (the most memorable riff). The rock music took its roots in the music of African Diaspora and the European music, and it is very integrated music, which combines the elements of different cultures. European music is smooth with piano accompaniment, also it includes folksongs, which told sentimental stories and had simple melodies, Moreover, European music has chords, long, flowing melodies, gentle beat and no syncopation. In distinction from European, African music has layered textures, open forms, percussion instruments, and unvarying beat. In addition, its elements are short phrases connected by long notes, have no chords, and have lots of syncopation in drum parts. At the beginning of the twentieth century blues, jazz, and ragtime created totally new, revolutionary, and contemporary type of popular music. The impact of blues, jazz, ragtime, and other early styles on the rock music is obvious. Their key elements became the main elements of rock sound, and they are the rhythm section, riffs, backbeat, and black rhythmic feel.

Blues music is the black American music, which was the answer to social, economic, and state sanctioned rejection and repression. Blues was sung in English, and it became in great request for the different people. Moreover, for some of them blues was the vision of America by the African descents. The original blues was called country blues, and it was a blend of native African music, religious songs, work songs, and ragtime. African music has a strong and constant beat, and uses drums or similar instruments, and the blues songs also have beats and singing motives. Work songs added different stories to the blues compositions and made the song lyrics very diverse. Since most of the black Americans went to churches, religious hymns contribute the deep to the blues lyrics and sound, and the ragtime brought a piano in it. Today, the widely distributed blues form is twelve bars, AAB lyrical structure, and a specific scale with the third and seventh notes wavered.

Blues has many different genres. The main of them are boogie-woogie, Chicago blues, country blues, delta blues, hokum, West Coast blues, and many others. Boogie-Woogie is the piano-based kind of blues that appeared and became popular in the late 1930s, and early 1940s. Famous artists, who played this kind of blues, were Meade Lux Lewis, Albert Ammons, and Pete Johnson. Chicago blues is the mixture of urban and electrified delta blues. This type has more extensive palette of notes, 9 chords, and heavy rolling bass. Famous singers are  Muddy Waters, Big Bill Morganfield Howlin’ Wolf, Willie Dixon, Earl Hooker, and Slim Harpo. Country blues is an acoustic, mainly guitar-driven type blues. Famous representatives of this kind of music are Big Bill Broonzy and Sonny Boy Williamson II. Delta blues is one of the earliest genres of blues, which originated in the Mississippi Delta. Its famous supporters are Skip James, Elmore James, Ma Rainey, Bessie Smith, and Mamie Smith. Hokum is the style of blues, which key feature is upbeat. This style is also good-humored and light-hearted. Artists representing this genre were Jim Crow, Josephine Baker, and Bill Monroe. West Coast blues was known for its jazzy guitar solos, strong piano-dominated sounds, and honey-toned vocals.

Blues music and rock music have a lot of resembling elements, and we can see these features at the examples, that is why we will compare some blues and some rock songs.

Let us start from the song of a famous bluesman, Ray Charles, which is called “Hit the Road Jack”. This song takes your advertence from the first bars, it has rushed, stubbed beats, and ominous descending horn. “Hit the road Jack” has gospel element, we can find it in the call-response raillery between Ray Charles and female singers. The chorus has brilliant syncopation with a burst of horns that powerfully accompanying the line “hit the road Jack and don’t you come back…” The song has 172 beats per minute. In this song, we have an interesting combination of male and female vocals, and we can bravely say that this blues thing has elements that are similar with rock style music, such as high tempo, fast rhythm.

The second song that we will characterize is “Red House” by Jimi Hendrix. For the creation of this song, he used different techniques and utilized stereo imagine effects. This song has drums and bass guitar elements, and these instruments are usual for the rock style, though this is blues song. It has 97 beats per minute. The composition starts with dominate, slightly corrupted electric blues lead guitar, which later follows the voices echoing it. The bass performs a laggard 12 bar blues chord, and the drum kit played with wire brushes. The most interesting and unusual effect used in the song is the utilization of stereo delay on vocals and guitar. This effect produces a discrete signal and then mixes with the original. So, we can hear the sound bouncing from the sides to the center. In this song, the vocals advisedly sound more remote and spacey than the drums and guitars. In some versions “Red house” has a long riff to interest the audience. This song also has backbeat, which is also the element of the rock style.

The next song is “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” by the Rolling Stones. It has 145 beats per minute. This song has soul and blues guitar base, but it is definitely rock composition. The key hook of “I Can’t Get No Satisfaction” is the guitar riff. It is fuzz-toned with increasing and decreasing notes. Mick Jagger presents the verses in a calm, equivocal tone that soars between commentary and vitriolic nastiness. In this song, we can find the elements of the rough changing of intonation, when before the line “and I try”, which exploding the chorus, artist uses the calm and quiet sound. In this song, we found rock beats, backbeats, fast tempo, and it makes people dance poe the doppelganger

The last song is “Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds” by Beatles. This thing has psychedelic sound and lyrics. Open lines of the song have gorgeous melody, whispery vocals, and the elegant unaccompanied keyboard. The tempo of the song adds up after the first lines, made more expressive by the entrancing of a pumping bass, then exploding into a chorus with harder rock melodies and exalted vocal harmonies.

The rock music is very popular genre that has a lot of sub styles. Its roots came from the mixture of different genres, such as blues, jazz, and soul. Blues music is the union of African and European music that become one thing, and made the revolution in the music world of that time. Blues music brings into the rock music tempo, rough beats, and backbeats.

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Jerald Rier

About the Author

Jerald Rier
Joined: January 22nd, 2020
Articles Posted: 1