Rock Music In The 1950's

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Rock and Roll is one of the most popular music genres in the world. Everybody has heard or has their own interpretation of what rock music is. In the last 70 years rock music has gone from the minority of music, to the most successful and diverse music there has ever been. Rock music has been around since the 1950’s, and since then it has changed and spread all over the world.
Rock music’s first pioneers begin playing back in the 1950’s. People like Elvis Presley and Chuck Berry were huge music icons during this time. But who were their influences? Rock and Roll’s origin come from R&B and blues of America’s south. People like Muddy Waters, Howlin’ Wolf, and Albert King were popular in this genre (Giggs). People like these blues musicians inspired …show more content…
The people mentioned before are still playing and are popular: however, there are plenty of newcomers to change music. These musicians would walk in on the stepping stones that were placed by musicians from years before. The 1960’s sparks the beginning of the British Invasion of music on America. Bands like The Beatles, The Who, The Rolling Stones rose in popularity. The Beatles were more of a traditional band from the 1950’s. They presented themselves as a group of nice boys wearing suits playing music that was friendly to the ear (Powell). However, The Who and The Rolling Stones began as The Beatles did. They were being the nice boys and performing in suits. But, by the middle to late 1960’s they were living the sex, drugs, and rock and roll lifestyle.In fact, Keith Richards, (lead guitarists for The Rolling Stones) is almost as well known for his drug intake as he is for his guitar playing. However, people in other bands like Jim Morrison and and Janis Joplin were killed from these popular drugs (Frith). Bob Dylan is one of the most important figures in music history. He was the first to start singing about social issues and challenging authority. You can hear this in songs like “Blowin In The Wind” and “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall”. This music was appropriately named protest rock, and this music launched the counterculture and rebellion of the late 1960’s
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