Heritage of classic rock

Added: 01/23/2006

The term 'classic rock' is usually used to describe the rock music of the 1950s, 60s and 70s, which is now still remembered and celebrated. Despite hundreds of new music genres and all the advances in the music recording technology, many people remain devoted to the classic rock music, which was arguably much more spirited and inspired. The younger rock audience, though, often prefers modern metal and hardcore sounds forgetting that many of today's rock gods were heavily inspired by the heritage of the classic rock music.

The rock music has come a long way. 'Sh-Boom' by The Chords released back in 1954 is widely recognized as the first rock and roll song. At that time, the music industry in the United States was dominated by hit-makers like Frank Sinatra and Nat King Cole. The rhythm and blues was then called 'race music', that is 'the music of the black people', and was not recognized by general public at all. But the mainstream pop music hardly excited the minds and bodies of the US teenagers, who wanted loud and groovy music to dance to. Young white people started listening to black radio stations and even secretly buying rhythm and blues records.

More and more radio stations played this music, including WJW in Cleveland, where in 1952 a white DJ named Alan Freed first introduced R&B to his listeners. Later, Freed moved to New York City and then began applying the term 'rock and roll' (the sexual euphemism often heard in R&B songs) to the music he played. Alan Freed also organized the first rock concerts boycotted by the older people who claimed that rock and roll was morally depraving the younger audience. Some alleged that rock and roll was not music, but mere noise and screaming. Still, they couldn't do anything about the rising popularity of black rock and roll performers, such as Little Richard, Bo Diddley and Fats Domino.

Later, white performers were introduced to the rock and roll audience. The most famous was, of course, Elvis Presley, who combined rock and country music and became the most prominent rock and roll star ever. Hundreds of thousands of girls all over the world fell in love with him, and men wanted to look like him. His wild-tempered rock songs such as 'That's All Right Mama', 'Blue Suede Shoes', 'Hound Dog' and 'Jailhouse Rock', as well as breathtaking ballads like 'Love Me Tender', were played by DJs all over the world and are now considered the classic rock standards.

In the 1960s the rock music scene was completely revolutionized by the Beatles - probably, the most popular band ever appeared on the globe stage. The British quartet consisting of John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison and Ringo Starr started as a rock and roll band and gradually introduced new and experimental elements into their music totally changing the face of the popular music. Their versatile songwriting talents appealed a lot to the young public, especially the hippies, who were the generation of protest against war and capitalist moral values and stood for universal love, peace and freedom. The Beatles` song 'All You Need Is Love' became the anthem of the hippie revolution.

The Beatles was also the beginning of the so-called British invasion of the 1960s, which was the period of extremely high popularity of the British bands, such as the Rolling Stones and the Who, in the United States. The peak of the 60s classic rock music was the famous Woodstock Festival of 1969 - a true feast of love and happiness.

In 1970, the Beatles split and the hippie revolution gradually came to naught. The new generation of rock musicians was angrier and played louder, heavier music. It was called hard rock. The hard rock music was dominated by heavy guitars, bass and drums and was represented by the bands, such as Led Zeppelin, Deep Purple and Black Sabbath in the UK, and Grand Funk Railroad and Vanilla Fudge in the States. The music of the new rock bands was loud, aggressive, and, at the same time, inspiring. It remained the music of protest of the younger generation. A wild lifestyle of many bands associated with sex and drugs, combined with virtuosity of rock musicians of that time made their music extremely popular all over the planet. New music styles, such as glam-rock, art-rock and jazz-rock also rose to popularity in the 1970s.

The 1980s became the period of the decline for hard rock bands. New alternative rock music genres, such as punk or new wave had little in common with the classic rock bands. The disco music also became very popular, which certainly had negative effect on the popularity of the rock. Today many people still find the classic rock inspiring. The proof of this is endless number of the classic rock compilations released by record companies today, as well as numerous rock music downloads on the web.

Rate this article:

Bad

Good

Article comments:

No comments for this article yet. Post your comment now!

Return to top of the page