1950’s - The Birth of Rock N’ Roll
The Fifties were an exciting time in music history. Music began to take a turn into the rock and roll era and teenagers started finding themselves in a frenzy over the new sounds they heard. The variations of music styles from the early 1950’s through to the end of the fifties, made for an attractive decade of music tastes to fit each individual palate.
The Early Fifties
Bebop or bop is a form of jazz differing drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers. Bebop appeared to sound racing, nervous, and often fragmented. But to jazz musicians and jazz music lovers, bebop was an exciting and beautiful revolution in the art of jazz.
The majority of a song in bebop style would be improvisation, the only threads holding the work together being the underlying harmonies played by the rhythm section. Sometimes improvisation included references to the original melody or to other well-known melodic lines (”allusions,” or “riffs”). Sometimes they were entirely original, spontaneous melodies from start to finish. As bebop grew from its swing-era roots, these progressions often were taken directly from popular swing-era songs and reused with a new and more complex bebop melody, forming new compositions known as a contrafacts.
While contrafaction was already a well-established practice in earlier jazz, it came to be central to the bebop style. Musicians and audiences alike were able to find something familiar in this new exotic sound, but perhaps more importantly, small record labels such as Savoy, often avoided paying copyright fees for pop tunes. Popular music up to the early 1950s was mainly bebop and jazz variants. Jazz stars included Charlie Parker, Dizzy Gillespie, Miles Davis, John Coltrane, and Thelonious Monk.
The Crooners
A crooner is a singer of popular ballads and thus a “balladeer”. The singer is normally backed by a full orchestra or big band. Crooning is a style that has its roots in the Bel Canto of Italian opera, but with the emphasis on subtle vocal nuances and phrasing found in jazz as opposed to elaborate ornamentation or sheer acoustic volume found in opera houses.
Crooning is not so much a style of music as it is a technique in which to sing. Some crooners, most notably Nat King Cole, Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin, Bing Crosby or Jean Sablon, incorporated other popular styles into their music, such as blues, dixieland and even native Hawaiian music. Crooning became the dominant form of popular vocal music from the late 1920s to the early 1960s, coinciding with the advent of radio broadcasting and electrical recording. After 1954 popular music became dominated by a new music of choice on the horizon.
The Heart of Rock N’ Roll
Charles Edward Anderson “Chuck” Berry (born October 18, 1926 in St. Louis, Missouri) is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter. Chuck Berry is an influential figure and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame’s website, “While no individual can be said to have invented rock and roll, Chuck Berry comes the closest of any single figure to being the one who put all the essential pieces together.” John Lennon was more succinct: “If you tried to give rock and roll another name, you might call it ‘Chuck Berry’.”
The Beach Boys’ hit “Surfin’ USA”, while originally credited as composed by Brian Wilson, is in large part a direct copy of Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen”. Berry has since been given full writer credit (both lyrics and music) on the track. In 1964–65 Berry resumed recording and placed six singles in the U.S. Hot 100, including “No Particular Place To Go” (#10), “You Never Can Tell” (#14), and “Nadine” (#23).
Berry was among the first musicians to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on its opening in 1986. He received Kennedy Center Honors in 2000 in a “class” with Mikhail Baryshnikov, Plácido Domingo, Angela Lansbury, and Clint Eastwood. In 2004, Rolling Stone ranked Chuck Berry #5 on their list of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time. He was also ranked 6th on Rolling Stone’s 100 Greatest Guitarists of All Time. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame included three of Chuck Berry’s songs (Johnny B. Goode, Maybellene, Rock & Roll Music), of the 500 songs that shaped Rock and Roll.
A pioneer of rock and roll, Chuck Berry was a significant influence on the development of early rock and roll guitar techniques. He was the first to define the classic subjects of rock and roll in his songwriting; cars, girls and school. His guitar style is legendary and many later guitar musicians acknowledge him as a major influence in their own style. When Keith Richards inducted Berry into the Hall of Fame he said, “It’s hard for me to induct Chuck Berry, because I lifted every lick he ever played!”
Richard Wayne Penniman (born December 5, 1932), better known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter and pianist, who began songwriting and performing publicly (outside of the church) in 1945 and was a key figure in the transition from rhythm & blues to rock and roll in the 1950s.
Little Richard’s early work was a mix of boogie-woogie, rhythm and blues and gospel music, but with a heavily accentuated back-beat, funky saxophone grooves and raspy shouted vocals, moans, screams, and other emotive inflections that marked a new kind of music. His reputation rests on a string of groundbreaking hit singles from 1955 through 1957, such as “Tutti Frutti”, “Lucille” and “Long Tall Sally“, which helped lay the foundation for rock and roll music,and influenced generations of rhythm and blues, rock and soul music artists.
Little Richard has earned wide praise from many other performers. James Brown called Little Richard his idol and credited him with “first putting the funk in the rock and roll beat.” Smokey Robinson said Penniman’s music was “the start of that driving, funky, never let up rock ‘n’ roll;”, while Dick Clark described his music as “the model for almost every rock and roll performer of the ’50s and years thereafter.”
In 1969, Elvis Presley told Little Richard, “Your music has inspired me - you are the greatest.” Otis Redding, John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison, Mick Jagger, John Fogerty, Dick Dale, Bob Seger, Jimi Hendrix, David Bowie, and numerous other rock n’ roll icons have also cited Little Richard as being their first major influence. He was chosen as the 8th greatest artist of all time by Rolling Stone, although at least six of the seven artists that preceded him on the list were heavily influenced by his music, and, he was the person who cited himself as the 8th best artist of all time.
He was subsequently honored by being one of seven of the first inductees into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986 and was one of only four of these honorees (along with Ray Charles, James Brown, and Fats Domino) to also receive the Rhythm & Blues Foundation’s Pioneer Lifetime Achievement Award.
Ritchie Valens (Richard Steven Valenzuela; May 13, 1941 – February 3, 1959) was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. Ritchie Valens was born in Pacoima, a neighborhood in the San Fernando Valley region of Los Angeles, on May 13, 1941 of Mexican descent. His parents were Joseph Steven Valenzuela and Concepcion Reyes. Brought up hearing traditional Mexican mariachi music, as well as flamenco guitar, R&B and jump blues, he expressed an interest in making music of his own by the age of 5.
He was encouraged by his father to take up guitar and trumpet, and later taught himself the drums. One day, a neighbor came across Ritchie trying to play a guitar that had only two strings. He re-strung the instrument, and taught Ritchie the fingerings of some chords. While Ritchie was left-handed, he was so eager to learn the guitar that he mastered the traditionally right-handed version of the instrument.
When he was sixteen years old, he was invited to join a local band named The Silhouettes as a guitarist. Later on, the main vocalist left the group and Ritchie assumed this position as well. On October 19, 1957 Ritchie Valens makes his performing debut with the group.
Valens was an accomplished singer and guitarist. At his appearances, he often improvised new lyrics and added new riffs to popular songs while he was playing. This is an aspect of his music that is not heard in his commercial studio recordings. Due to his high-energy performances, Valenzuela earned the nickname “The Little Richard of the Valley”.
In ‘Record’Time
In May 1958, Bob Keane, the owner and President of Del-Fi Records, a small Hollywood record label, was given a tip about a young performer from Pacoima by the name of Richard Valenzuela. Keane, swayed by the Little Richard connection, went to see Valenzuela play a Saturday morning matinée at a movie theater in San Fernando. Impressed by the performance, he invited Ritchie to audition at his home in the Silver Lake area of Los Angeles.
After this first ‘audition’, Keane decided to sign Ritchie to Del-Fi, and a contract was prepared and signed on May 27, 1958. It was at this point that he took the name Ritchie, because, as Keane said, “There were a bunch of ‘Richies’ around at that time, and I wanted it to be different.” Similarly, it was Keane who decided to shorten his surname to Valens from Valenzuela, in order to broaden his appeal.
After several songwriting and demo recording sessions with Keane in his basement studio, Keane decided that Ritchie was ready to enter the studio with a full band backing him. Amongst the musicians were Rene Hall and Earl Palmer. The first songs recorded at Gold Star, at a single studio session one afternoon in July 1958, were “Come On, Let’s Go”, an original (credited to Valens/Kuhn, Keane’s real name), and “Framed,” a Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller tune. Pressed and released within days of the recording session taking place, the record was a success. Valens’ next record, a double A-side which was the final record to be released in his lifetime, had the songs “Donna” (written about a real girlfriend), coupled with “La Bamba.”
At this point, in the autumn of 1958, Valens quit high school to concentrate on his career. Keane booked appearances at venues all across the United States and performances on television programs. One of his first stops was Philadelphia to appear on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand television show on October, where he sang “Come On, Let’s Go.” In November, Ritchie traveled to Hawaii and performed alongside Buddy Holly and Paul Anka. Valens found himself a last-minute addition on the bill of legendary discjockey Alan Freed’s Christmas Jubilee in New York City, singing with some of those who had greatly influenced his music, including Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, The Everly Brothers, Duane Eddy, Eddie Cochran and Jackie Wilson. December 27th saw a return to American Bandstand, this time for a performance of “Donna.”
Valens Inspiration Continues
Midwest on a multi-act rock and roll tour dubbed “The Winter Dance Party.” Accompanying him were Buddy Holly with a new back-up band, Tommy Allsup on guitar, Waylon Jennings on bass, and Carl Bunch on drums; Dion and the Belmonts; J.P. “The Big Bopper” Richardson; and Frankie Sardo. None of the other performers had backing bands, so Buddy’s backup band filled in for all the shows.
Buddy Holly
The bus they all were taking on the tour broke down and Buddy Holly decided to charter a small plane. The plane, a four-passenger Beechcraft Bonanza, departed for Fargo, North Dakota, into a blinding snowstorm and crashed into farmer Albert Juhl’s cornfield shortly after takeoff. The crash ended the lives of all three passengers, as well as that of the 21-year-old pilot, Roger Peterson. This event is said to have inspired singer Don McLean’s popular 1971 ballad “American Pie”, and immortalized February 3 as “The Day the Music Died.” The event also inspired the Eddie Cochran song “Three Stars”, which specifically mentions Holly, the Big Bopper, and Valens.
“La Bamba” would prove to be his most influential recording; not only by becoming a pop chart hit sung entirely in Spanish but also because of its successful blending of traditional Latin American music with rock. He was a pioneer and was an inspiration for many after his tragic death. Valens was the first to capitalize on this formula which would later be adopted by such varied artists as Selena, Caifanes, Cafe Tacuba,Circo, El Gran Silencio, Aterciopelados, Gustavo Santaolalla and many others in the Latin Alternative scene.
Valens was a pioneer of Chicano rock, Latin rock and was an inspiration to many musicians of Latino heritage. He influenced the likes of Los Lobos, Los Lonely Boys, and Carlos Santana among countless others at a time when there were very few Latinos in American rock and pop music. He is considered the first Latino to ever successfully cross over into Rock mainstream.