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Chapter
1
The World Before Rock and Roll (Roots-1955)
Outline
  1. Mainstream before 1955
    1. National audiences
      1. National versus regional audiences
        1. Early history of radio
        2. National versus regional styles
        3. Radio networks
          1. NBC and AT&T in 1928
          2. Ethics and recordings
          3. Range of entertainment
        4. Emergence of television
          1. Radio begins to lose audience in late 1940s
          2. National television important for rock
    2. Tin Pan Alley
      1. Publishers and songwriters
        1. Centered in Tin Pan Alley (area of NYC)
        2. Tin Pan Alley music follows a formal pattern
          1. Sectional verse-chorus
          2. AABA form
        3. Marketing
          1. Song verses specific recording
          2. Vehicles for songs
            1. Musicals
            2. Sound films
            3. .Radio
            4. Sheet music
    3. Important early singers
      1. Singers helped to popularize songs in dance bands
        1. Big band era, 1935-1945
          1. Band leaders were well-known, not singers
          2. Arrangements gave emphasis to band, not singer
          3. Some popular songs had no words
          4. Close relationship existed between big band and jazz
        2. Bing Crosby
          1. Many hit recordings
          2. Film actor
          3. Hosted radio variety show
        3. Andrews Sisters
        4. Mills Brothers
      2. Frank Sinatra
        1. Established a new model–the pop-music singer as star
        2. Performed with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey bands
        3. Went solo in 1943
        4. Other big band vocalists followed
      3. Pop in the early 1950s
        1. Important singers
          1. Patti Page
          2. Eddie Fisher
          3. Tony Bennett
          4. Johnnie Ray
        2. Family audience
      4. Transition from pop to early rock
        1. Acknowledgment of generational divide
        2. Singers began to include more emotional performances
        3. Tin Pan Alley caught off guard
  2. Country and Western before 1955
    1. Regional styles
      1. Country in the southeast
        1. Folk traditions in Appalachia
        2. Derive in part from British Isles
        3. Ralph Peer
        4. Early artists
          1. "Fiddlin' " John Carson
          2. Gid Tanner and His Skillet Lickers
          3. Carter Family
          4. Roy Acuff
      2. Western music in the southwest and California
        1. Importance of cowboy films
          1. Music associated with the west
          2. Gene Autry
          3. Patsy Montana
        2. Western swing
          1. Big band with a cowboy twist
          2. Bob Wills and His Texas Playboys
          3. Milton Brown and His Musical Brownies
        3. Jimmie Rodgers
          1. Most important figure in the history of country music
          2. "Blue Yodeler," rustic backporch singer
          3. "Singing Brakeman," roving hobo
      3. National sound for country and western
        1. In the 1930s and 1940s most country and western music was still regional
        2. Important early radio shows
          1. Grand Ole Opry
          2. National Barndance
          3. Wheeling Jamboree
        3. Migration
        4. Impact of WW II on listening habits
        5. Rise of Nashville
          1. Importance of Grand Ole Opry
          2. Acuff-Rose publishing
        6. Hank Williams
          1. Talented songwriter
          2. Louisiana Hayride radio show
          3. Grand Ole Opry
          4. Listeners perceived autobiography in music
        7. Bluegrass
          1. New form of commercial music, 1939
          2. Bill Monroe and His Blue Grass Boys
          3. Virtuosity
  3. Rhythm and Blues before 1955
    1. Rural and urban living
      1. Migration and segregation
        1. Blues as pop
          1. W. C. Handy
          2. Bessie Smith
        2. Memphis
        3. Chicago
      2. Regional radio
        1. Importance of advertising and demographics
        2. Radio marketed to the African American community
      3. Independent labels
        1. Regional companies
          1. Sun in Memphis
          2. Chess in Chicago
          3. King in Cincinnati
          4. Atlantic in New York
        2. Major labels of the period had resources
          1. Decca
          2. Mercury
          3. RCA-Victor
          4. Columbia
          5. Capital
          6. MGM
        3. Could function because majors were too big to focus on rhythm and blues
    2. Rhythm and blues, marketing, and range of style
      1. Gospel influence
        1. Singers learned in church
        2. Harmony influenced by church music
        3. Vocal embellishments drawn from gospel
      2. Chicago electric blues
        1. Chess
          1. Rough-edged emotional directness
          2. Raw, technically unsophisticated record sound
          3. Made few concessions to white, middle-class sensibilities
      3. Atlantic
        1. Worked for more polished pop sound
        2. Followed mainstream practice of focusing on singer and song
        3. Backup arrangements structured and controlled
      4. Doo-wop
        1. Emerged from urban neighborhoods after WWII
        2. Group singing contests
        3. Featured solo singer against vocal accompaniment
    3. Rhythm and blues as a dangerous influence
      1. Stagger Lee and racial stereotypes
    4. Hokum blues
      1. Sexual double-entendre
        1. "Shake, Rattle, and Roll"
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