Roth 1

Elijah Roth

Dr. Holt

English 12: Senior Seminar

1 May 2024

The Blues and Country: The Creation of Rock

Rock has always been one of the most illustrious genres of music. Its skyrocket into

stardom has often been called the greatest musical revolution of all time, and rightfully so.

Despite rock defining almost half of the 20th century, general audiences are still fairly unfamiliar

with the origins of the genre. The evolutionary path of the creation of rock was filled with

influence from almost every genre around at the time, yet two styles particularly stood out. These

two styles were blues and country music. These two genres, with significant racial undertones,

developed and melded together to produce the greatest genre of all time: rock and roll.

The gradual formation of rock and roll began in the year 1867, shortly after the

abolishment of slavery when the first anthology of slave spirituals was released, called Slave

Songs of the United States. Spirituals originated from field songs sung by slaves during the

brutality of American slavery. This anthology documented the culturally significant hymns that

were pervasive throughout African American history for centuries before, and allowed for the

distribution of these spirituals to the greater public and musicians. Following this publication,

they fused with folk, which primarily stemmed from Americanized Irish ballads but was adopted

by many Black artists. When combined with these slave ballads, it created the earliest versions of

blues. Before this, ragtime, a fusion of folk and classical sound, dominated the American music

culture. It was later influenced by classical rhythms and turned into swing, which revolutionized
 Roth 2

the genre into a booming industry and arguably the first Black music to become popular in the

United States. Additionally, a combination of improvisation in niche subgroups of ragtime

created the first semblances of jazz, which brought about the meteoric rise of significant

American artists like Louis Armstrong, Count Basie, and Duke Ellington. While ragtime raged

on, a new genre branched off of it with elements of jazz known as swing. This new era of

popular uptempo music began to take off in the 30s and is often coined as being the predecessor

of rock and roll. Despite its gradual deviation from ragtime and blues, swing maintained these

influences greatly. This is illustrated by the prevalent use of the ‘twelve bar blues’ chord

progression in jazz and blues, which usually follows a typical ‘AAB’ (first phrase, first phrase

repeated, second phrase).

If you combine every single genre mentioned previously, you get the Frankenstein's

Monster that is jump blues, the genre father of rock and roll. Jump blues took blues, gospel,

ragtime, jazz, and swing and created the foundation for rock with new rhythms, 12 bar blues

progressions, and particularly soulful vocals. Although jump blues were widely popular among

Black communities, record companies were unable to market the genre to young White

audiences due to intense racism plaguing White American society. Musical journalist R. Serge

Denisoff asserts that, “prior to the commercial revival, folk [and blues] songs were generally

unknown or foreign to the urbanized public.” To make the genre marketable, record companies

often stole and recorded jump blues songs with White singers to emulate the ‘rock and roll’

sound. Despite its appropriation, jump blues continued to evolve within Black communities.

With the development of more intense and unique rhythmic patterns, it quickly transformed into

rhythm and blues (R&B), that were extremely appealing to the small mainstream audiences that
 Roth 3

were willing to listen. (why is this so short?) (what is the point of this? Can it be synthesized into

another paragraph)

As the Black community modified jump blues, country created its own path that almost

paralleled it with Ted Gioia, a popular blues historian, saying that both country and blues kept

the same themes lyrically with “Redemption and damnation, over and over again.” In its infancy,

country music was influenced by spirituals and early blues. Southern White Appalachians

combined the European folk music of their ancestors with the spirituals and blues songs of early

America, creating the first hillbilly (country) artists. This quickly evolved alongside Black

music, during the shift to swing, which led to the creation of Western swing bands with country

vocals and instrumentation like fiddles, banjos, washboards, and washtub basses setting it apart

from its swing counterparts. The culmination of Western swing and jump blues created the

‘rockabilly’ genre, which was the origin of many of the most prominent early White rockers.

While this may seem like the White musicians were finally breaking ground in their own right

before Black artists evolved music further ahead, this often was simply White interpretations of

Black styles like R&B and Jump Blues, which created massive amounts of profit once they were

White washed. There were very few Black artists that broke into the mainstream early on in rock,

mainly because of this. There are a few wonderful exceptions, which include Fats Domino, Little

Richard, and notably “The Father of Rock and Roll”, Chuck Berry. However, to make it into the

limelight, Chuck Berry and many others had to alter their style to fit more into the constraints of

rockabilly to allow their music to reach mainstream audiences.

Despite blues, a primarily Black genre, pushing the limits of music over the hurdle into

rock, the less musically developed rockabilly community became widely accepted as the origins
 Roth 4

of rock. The stardom of people like Elvis, Johnny Cash, and Buddy Holly, alienated many Black

audiences from the rapidly growing genres that they had enjoyed for years. One example of this

is the South African market. South Africa has a terrible history of segregation and racism, so it

comes to no surprise that during the 1950s there were zero rock records available from Black

artists. Black radio stations ignored the genre all together and there was a strong sense of

hostility towards the culture as a whole. Chubby Checker changed all of that with his 1960 hit

“The Twist”, which finally gave audiences a chance to feel a sense of belonging in the

community of rock despite violent exclusion elsewhere.

While commercialization, racism, and appropriations were major issues during the early

days of rock, the roots of every rock-like genre were already intertwined and running deep into

the soul of American culture. From the hymns and spirituals of slaves to European folk and

classical music, there is nothing more natural than this melting pot of experiences and influences

coming together to create rock. The creation of rock and roll took from country a deep and

beautiful storytelling history that saw value in catchy songwriting and rebellion against the

government. It also greatly influenced the vocal inflection of rock artists through raw and

emotional vocal timbres and almost confessionary phrasing. From blues, rock took its guttural

and passionate textural flair. It took from blues’ focus on social issues and repetitive themes,

with a revolutionized version of its popular jazz-like improvisation to create legendary solos.

They created a new, fused version of themselves for the youth of all backgrounds to grab onto,

and young people really did love it. One South African writer called rock and roll’s audience,

“hordes of sloppy, aggressive, be-jeaned louts and their girlfriends who cause so much trouble,”

but that is what made it appealing. It also appealed to the middle class because, according to
 Roth 5

journalist Nick Tosches, the combination of rural roots in country and poorer roots in blues made

it a working man's popular music. It was new, angry, and full of potential, but we must never

forget where our music came from. The forefathers of rock and roll created the genre that forever

changed the world of music, and shot it with vibrance into the next millennia of creation.

Rock had the most successful prime of any genre ever, due to its chokehold on society

enabled by a huge disparity between the relatively low number of artists that had funds to

produce combined with the creation of more accessible sharing methods like cheap record

players, cassette tapes, and CDs. All of this was spurred by the American melting pot. It was not

by choice, but because we were all intertwined, that gave us musical, cultural, and societal

experiences that threw our dirty and barebones genres together into greatness. Although

awkwardly and unwillingly, blues and country created rock through their unique takes on the

american collage; and they gave us a masterpiece.

 Roth 6

Works Cited

ATTON, CHRIS. "Listening to 'Difficult Albums': Specialist Music Fans and the Popular

Avant-Garde." Popular Music, vol. 31, no. 3, 2012, pp. 347–61. JSTOR,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/23325782. Accessed 14 Feb. 2024.

Bond, Vanessa L. "Culturally Responsive Education in Music Education: A Literature Review."

Contributions to Music Education, vol. 42, 2017, pp. 153–80. JSTOR,

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26367441. Accessed 14 Feb. 2024.

Brokaw, Katherine Steele. "Shakespeare and Environmental Justice: Collaborative Eco-Theater

in Yosemite National Park and the San Joaquin Valley." Situating Shakespeare Pedagogy

in US Higher Education: Social Justice and Institutional Contexts, edited by Marissa

Greenberg and Elizabeth Williamson, Edinburgh University Press, 2024, pp. 94–110.

JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/10.3366/jj.9941140.12. Accessed 14 Feb. 2024.

Decker, Todd. "Fancy Meeting You Here: Pioneers of the Concept Album." Daedalus, vol. 142,

no. 4, 2013, pp. 98–108. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/43298002. Accessed 14 Feb.

2024.

Fitzgerald, Jon. "Black Pop Songwriting 1963-1966: An Analysis of U.S. Top Forty Hits by

Cooke, Mayfield, Stevenson, Robinson, and Holland-Dozier-Holland." Black Music

Research Journal, vol. 27, no. 2, 2007, pp. 97–140. JSTOR,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/25433786. Accessed 14 Feb. 2024.

Juliet Hess. "Detroit Youth Speak Back: Rewriting Deficit Perspectives Through Songwriting."

Bulletin of the Council for Research in Music Education, no. 216, 2018, pp. 7–30.

JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.5406/bulcouresmusedu.216.0007. Accessed 14 Feb. 2024.

 Roth 7

Keyes, Cheryl L. "The Aesthetic Significance of African American Sound Culture and Its Impact

on American Popular Music Style and Industry." The World of Music, vol. 45, no. 3,

2003, pp. 105–29. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41699526. Accessed 14 Feb. 2024.

Kladder, Jonathan. "Songwriting in Modern Band?: Considering Constructivism as an Approach

for Teaching Popular Music." College Music Symposium, vol. 60, no. 2, 2020, pp. 1–22.

JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26989791. Accessed 14 Feb. 2024.

Magee, Jeffrey. "Irving Berlin's 'Blue Skies': Ethnic Affiliations and Musical Transformations."

The Musical Quarterly, vol. 84, no. 4, 2000, pp. 537–80. JSTOR,

http://www.jstor.org/stable/742595. Accessed 14 Feb. 2024.

Marino, James J. "Thomas Dekker, Rock Star: 'Golden Slumbers,' the Beatles, and the Wages of

Authorship." Journal for Early Modern Cultural Studies, vol. 15, no. 4, 2015, pp. 1–21.

JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/jearlmodcultstud.15.4.1. Accessed 14 Feb. 2024.

Meyer, Philip N. "Decision Dylan: Our Most-Cited Songwriter in Judicial Rulings Brings

Complex Poetry to Court Opinions." ABA Journal, vol. 103, no. 4, 2017, pp. 22–23.

JSTOR, https://www.jstor.org/stable/26516024. Accessed 14 Feb. 2024.

Miles, Ron. "I've Got a Song to Sing." Elementary School Guidance & Counseling, vol. 28, no.

1, 1993, pp. 71–75. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/42869131. Accessed 14 Feb.

2024.

Pruitt, Lesley. "REAL MEN KILL AND A LADY NEVER TALKS BACK: GENDER GOES

TO WAR IN COUNTRY MUSIC." International Journal on World Peace, vol. 24, no. 4,

2007, pp. 85–106. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/20752803. Accessed 14 Feb. 2024.

 Roth 8

Romero, Jorge Sacido, and Luis Miguel Varela Cabo. "Roger Waters' Poetry of the Absent

Father: British Identity in Pink Floyd's 'The Wall.'" Atlantis, vol. 28, no. 2, 2006, pp.

45–58. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/41055246. Accessed 14 Feb. 2024.

Etzkorn, K. Peter. “Social Context of Songwriting in the United States.” Ethnomusicology, vol. 7,

no. 2, 1963, pp. 96–106. JSTOR, https://doi.org/10.2307/924545. Accessed 26 Mar. 2024.

Lawson, R. A. “The First Century of Blues: One Hundred Years of Hearing and Interpreting the

Music and the Musicians.” Southern Cultures, vol. 13, no. 3, 2007, pp. 39–61. JSTOR,

https://www.jstor.org/stable/26391064. Accessed 26 Mar. 2024.

https://digitalcommons.usf.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1042&context=early_visions_bucket

#:~:text=Slave%20Songs%20of%20the%20United%20States%20(1867)%20is%20widel

y%20considered,(African%20American)%20Spirituals%20recorded.

Hamm, Charles. “Rock ‘n’ Roll in a Very Strange Society.” Popular Music, vol. 5, 1985, pp.

159–74. JSTOR, http://www.jstor.org/stable/853288. Accessed 2 May 2024.