Rock Music as a performing Art

Rock Music as a Performing Art

Introduction

Rock and Roll, Rock 'n' Roll, also called rock, is a form of popular music, usually featuring vocals, often with harmony, electric guitars, a strong back beat; other instruments, such as the saxophone, are common in some styles. It has been credited with ending wars and spreading peace and tolerance, as well as corrupting the innocent and spreading moral riots. Rock has become popular across the globe, far from its birthplace in the United States, and evolved into many varying styles.

History or Rock and Roll

Rock and roll emerged as a defined musical style in America in the 1950s, though elements of rock and roll can be seen in rhythm and blues records as far back as the 1920s. Early rock and roll combined elements of blues, boogie woogie, jazz and rhythm and blues, and is also influenced by traditional Appalachian folk music, gospel and country and western.

The Beatles' Rock 'n' Roll Music, Vol. 2, from 198...

Rock & Roll Music to the World

Rock and Roll Music

Going back even further, rock and roll can be traced to the old Five Points district of mid-19th century New York City, the scene of the first fusion of heavily rhythmic African shuffles and sand dances with melody driven European genres, particularly the Irish jig.

Rocking was a term first used by gospel singers in the American South to mean something similar to spiritual rapture. By the 1940s, however, the term was used as a double entendre, referring to dancing, but with the hidden meaning of sex. An example of this is Roy Brown's "Good Rocking Tonight," which was a song relegated to "race music" (the music industry code name for rhythm and blues) outlets and were barely known by mainstream white audiences.

In 1951, in Cleveland, Ohio, a disc jockey named Alan Freed would begin playing this type of music for his...