Welcome to my second blog post! Starting with Tuesday 2/14/2017

This week we began talking about the beginnings of rock and R&B and their cultural influences. R&B started out in the black community until white artist discovered it and they began to produce it. Rocket 88 by Jackie Benston and Delta Cats which is one of the most well know “Beginning of rock” songs. The saxophone, guitar, piano, drums and usual instruments are all that I noticed during this song. The beat could be described as a swing/shuffle beat. The piano has a “Boogie Woogie” style of sound. In many ways, it doesn’t sound much different than Louis Jordan’s music. Rocket 88 is symbolizing the Oldsmobile rocket 88 and the freedom of being 16 owning a vehicle attracting a much younger, immature crowd. Moving forward, Rocking & roll was the next subject. Rockin’ & Rolling is a slag term for sex. This was a term popularized for new music by Alan “Moondog” Freed. Rock & roll consists of R&B, especially jump blues, urban blues, and country. The next artist that was introduced to us was Chuck Berry. Chuck is an American guitarist, singer and songwriter and is one of the pioneers of Rock and Roll music. Chuck is also well known for his famous dance move “The Duck Walk”. One thing that I notice between all these performers, is that the audience is middle-high class white crowd, as compared to the performers that are black. Allan freed tries to break this barrier and introduce black folk into rock. Following rock n roll, the Doo-Wop was introduced. The Doo-Wop is a male or female quartet singing, related to gospel quartets, barbershop, and swing singing. Elvis is the prime example for the face of rock n roll. Elvis Presley was a white American singer and actor. Regarded as one of the most significant cultural icons of the 20th century, he is often referred to as the “The King of Rock n Roll” or simply “the King”. Presley was born in Mississippi then moved to Memphis, Tennessee. He began his music career around the age of 18 when he recorded a song with Sam Phillips. Sam Phillips recorded R&B, and was looking for a white singer who could sing R&B. Elvis got launched by singing these tunes that sounded like black R&B tunes, but Elvis was white! Many people during that time thought Elvis was black when he first started singing, just by the sound of his voice. He got introduced on the radio by the radio host asking Elvis what High-School he went to. Referencing and symbolizing to the radio listeners, Elvis is white.