50'S Rock

Rock began in the 1950's. It evolved from country music, blues and musical elements from Africa, South America, Ireland and several other countries. Rock is a very diverse kind of music. So many things have contributed to it. It has changed so much since it has been created. Early rock used electric guitars, and boogie woogie style piano, drums, and traditional instruments. Modern rock has gone away from tradidtonal instruments and hasn't used them. Some bands still do like Blues Traveller. As rock got more popular more artists started performing rock music and ruined its energetic style.

In the 50's rock took off for the first time. Elvis Presley lead the rock soloists with his two hit songs "heartbreak hotel" and "hound dog". Most rock stars where white but one very important black star was Chuck Berry. Chuck Berry was the first guitarist to reach the charts. He also was the first singer to make black and white both like him without insulting one group. Disc jockeys became powerful people because they could control what music most people listen to.

In 1954 the first woman in rock and roll LaVern Baker came out with the hit single Tweedle Dee. In that same year a horrible tradegy happened. Before John Ace was going to play in a concert he played a game of Russian Roulette. The crowd heard a loud bang unfortinatly John Ace lost his life playing a crazy game. Rock went through a big change later that in same year when bill Haley and his band the Comets were introduced. As time passed knew tipes of rock came out and knew bands evolved.

In the 1950's Alan Freed, disc jockey, began playing black "rhythm and blues." He played it for his listeners ,white teenagers, from a radio station in Cleveland. In order to get a bigger audience Freed used the old term "rock and roll," a music with a heavy beat. In 1951 a magazine called the "Hillbilly Stars" said that Chide Wagner "can really rock and roll on his guitar." In October of that year Johnny Ray recorded "Cry," a song that was near the rock and roll sound called "rhythm and blues.'" It was the top selling record of the next year. On March 21, 1952, the first rock and roll concert was held at the Cleveland Arena. This first show caused a riot as 30,000 people tried to sit in an arena that could only seat 10,000 people. Still 15,000 people waited on the streets outside. In 1952 Billy Haley became the first white man to intercept the before all-black musical idiom with the record "rock the joint" ."Rock and roll" really originated in the 50's.
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