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When did 50s begin and end?
Subject: Re:
when did 50s begin and end?
From: cropdustersal@cs.com (Salvador Astucia)
Date: 12/21/04 8:26 AM Eastern Standard Time
Message-id: <20041221082640.10458.00001613@mb-m25.news.cs.com>
DR. STRANZHIVAGO - (Dec 19, 10:38 pm) it's often said that the sixties
really ended around 1973. when did the 50s end? it seems the nation
was pretty stable til the end of 1963 when the beatles invaded america.
indeed, before the beatles came along, early 60s music lamer and tamer
than 50s rock n roll. all that folkie shit. <snip>
SALVADOR -- The original rock'n'roll sounds of the 1950s did not
die completely by 1960, it merely took a hiatus. We should remember
that labeling rock music as Fifties, Sixties, Seventies, and
so on, is purely a manmade effort and has little to do with
rock music itself. A better way of viewing rock music is to look
at the heyday of the genre, which in my view lasted about 24 years,
from its birth around 1956 until John Lennon's death in 1980.
The entire movement centered around the early rock'n'roll
sounds of the Fifties. The thing that set rock'n'roll apart
from other musical genres was its driving beat, something
which can be traced directly to Africa. Musically, rock'n'roll
was completely European; it incorporated European scales, was
played on European instruments. So the musical core of rock'n'roll
was as Caucasian as classical or popular music in general.
But it was the African beat that set it apart, and it is
unclear how long blacks had played such music before it became
popular in the Fifties with the birth of rock'n'roll. Some say
the "beat" style had been around for a hundred or more years,
but it gained popularity in the Forties with the growth of
radio. At that time it was called "race music", then was
changed by record producer Jerry Wexler to "Rhythm & Blues"
because the term "race music" was thought to be degrading to
blacks. When whites started playing R&B/beat music, they tagged
it Rock'n'Roll and the name stuck.
In addition, it wasn't until whites began playing the notorious
African style beat music that the genre was considered rebellious
music. When blacks played it, it was merely "their" music.
But the mere act of a white person playing music that was
considered to be a black artform, this in and of itself
was considered by many to be an act of rebellion. Elvis was
the first white star to play beat music. From that point on, the
rebellious nature of rock'n'roll became legendary, regardless
of whether it was played by blacks or whites.
February 3, 1959 was certainly a turning point in the history of
rock'n'roll with the deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and
Jiles Perry Richardson (aka, The Bopper) who perished in a plane
crash near Clear Lake, Iowa. Many people call it "the day the
music died," meaning it marked the end of rock'n'roll, and
assertion with which I tend to disagree. Yes, it was a sad and
tragic event, but it should be remembered that none of these men
were superstars when they died. They were popular rock'n'roll
stars, but nothing compared with Elvis Presley, or later the
Beatles.
The tragic deaths of Holly, Valens and Richardson marked a
downward cycled of rock 'n' roll, but other efforts were being
made to destroy rock'n'roll as well. Nine months earlier,
in May 1958, Alan Freed was indicted for inciting a riot at a
rock'n'roll show in Boston where violence occurred. In fact,
Buddy Holly and the Crickets performed at the Boston show.
Many people believe the so-called riots were a setup to destroy
Freed, who was one of rock'n'roll's biggest concert and radio
promoters at that time. (In fact, Freed gave the genre it's name.)
The charges were against Freed were eventually dropped, but he
was later charged with payola during the notorious Congressional
Payola hearings of 1959 and 1960.
It was really the Payola scandal which marked the decline of
Fifties rock'n'roll, combined with the deaths and misfortune of
many rock'n'roll celebrities. Several rock'n'roll deejays were
fired for accepting kickbacks from record labels, and the labels
were fined for payola practices. Everyone knew the real target
of the scandal was rock'n'roll, so record labels were cautious
about signing more bona fide rock 'n' roll artists. (This certainly
explains why Brian Epstein had so much trouble getting Capitol
Records to release Beatle albums in America in 1963.)
Dick Clark replaced Alan Freed as the new spokesman for pop
music and gave what was left of rock'n'roll a new squeaky
clean corporate look. Clark was just as involved as Freed
in accepting kickbacks from various business entities within
the music industry, but somehow he managed to avoid prosecution.
Elvis had turned in his rock'n'roll crown in 1958 by joining
the Army.
By 1960 all that was left of rock ‘n roll was a few black
rhythm and blues artists, many of whom disliked white artists for
borrowing their musical culture, and several white pretty boy
pop singers like Fabian and Bobby Vee. In 1962, Chuck Berry was
imprisoned for violating the Mann Act. This was the result of
an incident in 1959 where Berry reportedly fired a fourteen-
year-old hat-check girl at his St. Louis nightclub because he
believed she was a prostitute. She in turn reported him to the
authorities, he was prosecuted, was eventually convicted in 1962,
and spent two years in prison.
But when the Beatles came to America in 1964, everything changed.
Rock'n'roll suddenly awoke from a five-year sleep. The rest,
as they say, is history.
END
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