Hail! Hail! Rock and Roll: Non-Musical Influences on Rock and Roll-1950-1960.

Much has been written and presented regarding the musical influences of rock and roll. There have been books, magazine articles, online articles, and documentaries showing how different music styles and musicians have given rise to new music over the decades. However, other influences have had an impact on rock and roll. Today, we will talk about the non-musical aspects both within and outside the music community that helped shape rock and roll music and its beginnings. The period between 1950 and 1960 is pivotal, showing the birth and development of rock and roll music. We are going to focus on the outside influences such as technology, social pressures, economic, and environmental factors that have helped shape the music we know today.

Arguably the most extensive outside non-musical influence on postmodern music was World War II. The war’s impact within the music industry happened on several fronts. The first was the rise of independent record labels. During the war, the Germans had perfected the process of tape recording to augment Nazi propaganda broadcasts. After the war, Americans refined both the iron-oxide tape and the machines. This further process allowed recording to become much cheaper and gave dozens of people without much capital the ability to open independent or “indie” record labels. Labels such as Chess Records in Chicago, J&M Studios in New Orleans, FAME (Florence Alabama Music Enterprises) and Sun Records and Stax Records in Memphis were instrumental in developing rock and roll. The three big record companies were RCA, Columbia, and Decca, and they initially turned their back on black musicians or what was commonly known as “race music.” Except for Decca, who had a strong roster of black performers led by the enormously successful Louis Jordan, the major labels hung success on their novelty songs from Tin Pan Alley that had been popular. Major label artists like Perry Como, Eddy Arnold, and Bing Crosby ruled the airwaves.The smaller indie record companies played pioneering black artists such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard, and Fats Domino. 

The second outside influence was the shortage and rationing of shellac during the war. Up until the war, records were made primarily of shellac. The U.S. government declared shellac a strategic material during the war and record companies were forced to find an alternative material. CBS was the first to develop one, a material called vinylite, later shortened to vinyl. This plastic material allowed finer microgrooves to be etched into the material, allowing more music to be recorded on a single disc. The man in charge of the project at CBS was Peter Goldmark. He was a classical music buff and he decided to have the record speed set to 33 1/3 rpm (rotations per minute) so an entire symphony movement could be placed on one side of a twelve-inch disc. This was the development of the long play record or LP. RCA, a CBS competitor, decided to produce a 7-inch disc designed for single songs, one on each side, to be played at 45 rpm. CBS also developed a record player that would play these records along with 33 1/3 LPs and the older 78 rpm records. LPs initially did not impact the world of rock and roll; they were designed for classical music and Broadway musicals. Early rock and roll’s main focus was on the single song, so when this new style of music arrived on the scene, it was on the 7-inch 45 rpm record. 

The third outside influence involved the mixing of black and white cultures. The mixture began during World War II. Although black and white people were not allowed to fight alongside each other during the war, they did cross paths on military bases, creating a cultural mixture. There was further integration after the war. In the early 1950s, there was a massive demographic shift. Both black and white people moved to urban centres seeking better living prospects. This integration allowed exposure to each other’s cultures, including music. Cities such as Los Angeles, Chicago, New York, Detroit, and Philadelphia grew and provided new listeners for those aforementioned indie radio stations.

Radio has always been a significant component and influence on rock and roll.  During the 1950s, radio was the primary source of exposure for an artist and the catalyst for that exposure was the disc jockey or DJ. At the end of World War II, there were 950 radio stations in America, mostly network owned. By 1956, there were 3,000 radio stations. This number comprised mainly of the smaller independent stations that did not have network money to support them. This lack of money was probably a good thing. Without the financial support, smaller stations played records from marginal groups, mainly black music, and it was the DJ who decided which records were played on the air. The DJ was more than someone who spun records. He was a personality and an entertainer. The DJ talked like their audience, which connected him and the music to a new demographic type, the teenager. 

The teenager and rock and roll grew up together. By the 1960s, the teenager was questioning authority and in major rebellion mode. However, during the 1950s, teenagers’ primary concern was to gain some independence from their parents. For the first time, many teenagers did not have to work to support their families. If a teenager had a part-time job or an allowance, the money they earned was their own and allowed them the freedom to spend how they wished. Besides clothes, food and cars, there was music. Teenagers found they had the freedom to buy the records they wanted. The music they bought had an incessant primitive backbeat. It was about love found, love lost and sex. Rock and roll became the soundtrack to their lives. During the 1950s rock and roll became a safe rebellion and a way to be different from their parents. 

The automobile and more specifically the car radio had a significant impact on rock and roll, especially teenagers. Teenagers no longer had to be subjected to the music their parents played. They could take the car, hang out with friends, and listen to the music they wanted to hear. This phenomenon occurred mostly with white middle-class teenagers whose parents could afford the luxury of a car. It also meant that teenagers could listen to whatever radio station they wanted, including stations that played black music. The exposure of “race music” to white teenagers gave black musicians a wider audience. The rise of another radio form, the transistor radio, helped expose new stations and new music to white and black teenagers. This new type of radio was small, portable, and cheap, so it could be brought anywhere and could be used by teenagers who could not get a car. Like the car radio, the transistor radio allowed freedom from parents and their music. This type of freedom was later revamped in the late 1970s and early 1980s with the “boombox”. 

Not a big surprise, parents hated this new music. They found it loud, offensive, and mainly passed it off as a fad, something that would hopefully go away. Rock and roll was not a fad and it did not go away. After the war, there was an attempt to return to “normalcy” by the middle-class. Unfortunately, what constituted normal for middle-class parents was a return to what they liked. To adults in the 1950s, this new music was exotic, dangerous, and sexual things that they did not like but their kids did. Juvenile delinquency was a growing concern and Hollywood had no problem capitalizing on a parent’s fears of young hoodlums roaming the streets. Films like Rebel Without a Cause and Blackboard Jungle in 1955 directly addressed teen angst and rebellion. Of these two particular films released, Blackboard Jungle probably had more of a direct impact on rock and roll. The film predominantly featured Bill Haley’s (We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock over the opening credits. This movie's success, which led to some youth rioting in the United States and the U.K., catapulted Bill Haley to the top of the charts, adding to the growing number of artists to score pop hits with rhythm and blues songs. Once this happened and it became clear that this type of record would actually sell, these songs flooded the market.

Once rock and roll began to take off, the indie label needed to employ some imaginative ways to get their records heard. The majors had their own manufacturing plants and national distribution centres; something indie labels did not. To distribute their records, indie labels did two things, an agreement of reciprocity (I’ll distribute your records, you distribute mine) and getting cozy with the DJ. Indie labels would often offer DJs cash, merchandise, vacations, and even song writing credits if they played certain songs. This act, later known as “payola”, was not only legal but encouraged. This payola happened with Cleveland DJ Alan Freed. Freed was one of many DJs who promoted rock and roll and arguably its most famous and ardent supporter. Freed began his short but crazy ride to fame by hosting a late-night show devoted to rhythm and blues in July 1951. The station's signal carried farther at night and far beyond the Ohio border, and the show and its music that was targeted at black audiences were being enjoyed by white audiences as well. Freed’s show became extremely popular and in 1954, Freed debuted in New York to a much larger audience. As his success and popularity grew, Freed relentlessly promoted rock and roll through his show, TV, movie appearances, and concert promotions. Many teens considered Freed the father of rock and roll, and as such, much of the backlash rock and roll received was directed toward Freed.  However, thanks to Freed and many other disc jockeys around America, rock and roll became a household name. Unfortunately for Freed, his fame was fleeting. He was caught up in the payola scandal in the late 50s when he admitted to taking payments, merchandise, and receiving song writing credits he did not write. Freed was already in trouble for inciting a riot at a Boston concert and the payola scandal ruined his career. Freed died a broken man a few years later. 

By the close of the 1950s, the first golden age of rock and roll was done. Jerry Lee Lewis, who was exciting teens and scaring parents with his outrageous piano playing style, effectively ended his career when he married his 13-year-old first cousin (twice removed). Elvis was drafted and entered the army a few short years after being censored on the Ed Sullivan Show by being filmed from the waist up for his gyrating hips. Little Richard quit music (for a while) after finding God. Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and J.P. Richardson (The Big Bopper) were killed in a plane crash. 

Rock and roll had become blanched, white and safe. Artists such as Chuck Berry and Little Richard were being replaced with Tom and Jerry (who later changed their stage name back to their original names of Simon and Garfunkel) and the Everly Brothers. Rock and roll had become a commodity, with networks and labels now promoting safe homogenized music. The irony of this type of music is that sometimes it was a cover of a song originally done by a black artist. Sometimes the cover did better than the original. One of the most famous examples is Pat Boone’s safe cover of Little Richard’s Tutti Frutti. Originally Richard’s version peaked at number 17 on the Hot 100 charts. Pat Boone cleaned up the lyrics and brought the song to number 12. 

It was the end of a decade that ushered in a new type of music that would forever change how music was perceived. The beginnings of rock and roll were impacted by more than music and musicians. A global conflict would change how we listened to music and how music was brought to us through changing mediums and mass consumerism. A new demographic of listeners would open up a wider audience, bring an underground form of music to the forefront, and teenage angst and a rebellion would challenge society and its perceived norms. 

Sources for this article include:

Deena Weinstein, Rock’n America, (Toronto: University of Toronto Press, 2015)

Paul Friedlander, Rock and Roll: A Social History, Second Edition, (Routledge Press, 2006)

 John Covach, Andrew Flory, What’s That Sound: An Introduction to Rock and Its History, Fifth Edition,  (New York: W.W. Norton and Company, 2006)