After the class on Thursday, I've got a question in my mind:
What are the differences among the three genres of Rock 'n' Roll?
They are R&B, Rock 'n' Roll, and Rockabilly. When I watched the video and listen to the songs I couldn't really tell the difference, so I looked up on the Internet to see the definitions of these genres.
R&B: rhythm and blues. In the latter of 1940s, it was generated in the process of development of black music. Black music is jazz, blues, and gospel. In 1950s, R&B was imported by countries in Europe. The Rolling Stones was formed in this way. They are Caucasian from UK but they refered themselves as a R&B band. In 1960s, some states in the United States even had a restriction that African Americans cannot be on the record jackets because of racial discrimination. However, the Rolling Stones admired the Black music, especially blues and was inspired by. They absorbed the essence of Black music and played their music pretending as Black musicians. In this way, the music of the rolling Stones is inspired by Black music, and this fact put a large influence on the later famous rock bands, such as Aerosmith, Guns n Roses, and Oasis.
Rock 'n' Roll: Elvis Presley is in this genre. He is white but he was said to sound like Black. He also respected and loved Black music. I feel his selling strategy was to be a very first idol and to get famous. His popularity, especially by women was huge as you could see in his perfomance video on YouTube.
Rockabilly has elements of country and Western music. It is often played by White rock 'n' roll musicians.
In the video we watched in the class, it was categorized in the genre of rock 'n' roll of rock 'n' roll, the performers were African Americans but some of the audience were White. I wondered because I have heard there was a strong descrimination in those time. Then how could Black musicians play their music on TV or how could White people be in the audience? Only Black people who could play music well didn't get segrigated? I saw no racial descrimination at least in those videos we watched in the class.
1 comment:
I think that is an interesting question to bring into the discussion. I think that the major issue has now become not only who are the creators of the music that is so popular but who are the viewers. When Black musicians were able to play original music for white audiences it didn’t speak to the way in which their talent was appreciated by society as a whole. They were only put on the stage for merely the enjoyment of white audiences that were to remain segregated so that black audience members were not allowed to watch these performers. Looking at pop culture has the ability to tell future generations about the way things were in past times. However, in the case of early rock n’ roll played by Black musicians the success and recognized talent of these musicians, in itself, did not reflect society’s persistent racism, but rather thrived and was produced in resistance to it. I think it would be interesting to also consider then what these performances of black musicians meant to white audiences and to black audiences, and what would that have meant to have non segregated shows in parts of town outside of the traditionally Black neighborhoods?
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