Early+rock+n’+roll

Lauren Trager April 22, 2010

Briefing Sheet Early Pioneers of Rock (1950-`54) • Most of the songs of the Early Fifties were "feel-good" tunes, which genuinely reflected the mood of post World War II America. • Artists like Pat Boone, Rosemary Clooney and Perry Como dominated pop charts. • Although gaining in popularity, black artists originally did not sell as well as their white contemporaries, who had rerecorded the same songs as what is known as a "cover version." • The #1 billboard song of 1950 was Daddy's Little Girl - Mills Brothers. • Chuck Berry got his first taste of stardom, singing Jay McShann's "Confessin' the Blues" in the All Men's Review in 1941; it was a song he was later to record on the 1960 album "Rockin' at the Hops" • Guitarist and singer Chuck Berry's output from 1955 to 1965 includes some of the earliest classics in rock history, from "Maybellene" and "Rock 'n' Roll Music" to "Sweet Little Sixteen" and "Johnny B. Goode. • Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti" climbed to the top of Billboard's R&B chart. Sixteen more hit singles followed in less than three years, seven of which reached number 1. • Rock changed how teens danced. They now jumped, stomped, twirled, and shaked. • Records were cheap, only a nickel or dime so everyone had tons of records to listen to. • The director of the FBI, J. Edgar Hoover labeled rock n roll “a corrupting influence.” • The older generation (parents) didn’t like rock because people were still segregated. Teenagers didn’t understand why their parents didn’t like their music.