Height of popularity of rock n roll (1 gen 1940 anni – 31 dic 1969 anni)

Descrizione:

More than anything, music defined youth culture. Teenagers rejected the romantic pop ballads of the 1940s in favor of a louder, faster sound with roots in African American rhythm and blues, known as R&B. African American bands, as well as individual performers such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Fats Domino, pioneered the R&B sound in the late 1940s and early 1950s by drawing on black gospel and blues traditions, as well as country music, a largely white musical genre. Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed took the lead in introducing white America to black R&B and popularizing the name “rock ‘n’ roll.” Other big-city radio DJs followed, and in the early 1950s American teenagers embraced the new sound.

In the 1959 film Go, Johnny Go! the rock ’n’ roll musician, Chuck Berry, and the radio disc jockey, Alan Freed, played themselves. Berry, who sang his hit song “Johnny B. Goode” in the film, was among a rising generation of black musicians that, along with a handful of white stars, created “rock ‘n’ roll,” a fast-paced, dance-oriented, and often sexually charged musical genre derived from a variety of influences, including R&B, gospel, blues, and country.

Rock ‘n’ roll was born when this African American commercial art form met the spending power of the rising white middle class. One record company owner mused on the potential of the new genre: “If I could find a white man who had the Negro sound and the Negro feel, I could make a billion dollars.” The first breakout performer answering that description was the Memphis performer Elvis Presley, who rocketed to instant celebrity in 1956 with his hit records “Hound Dog,” originally recorded by the black artist Big Mama Thornton, and “Heartbreak Hotel.” Driven by rock ‘n’ roll, record sales increased from $213 million to $603 million from 1953 to 1959. Both Hollywood and the music industry quickly learned that youth culture sold their products.

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