Rock and Roll
Where it came from, and what it is made of.
Rock and roll emerged in the United States in the late 1940s and early 1950s, formed primarily from rhythm and blues, with country, gospel and boogie-woogie contributing. It was Black American music that reached a mass audience, and the commercial history of that crossing is inseparable from the musical one.
Musical ingredients
- Twelve-bar blues — the underlying harmonic pattern of a large share of early rock and roll.
- Backbeat — emphasis on beats two and four, which is what makes it move.
- Amplified guitar — volume and later deliberate distortion as expressive tools.
- Verse-chorus form — short, repeatable, built for radio.
- Call and response between voice and instruments, carried over from gospel and blues.
Why the early 1950s
Several conditions arrived together: electric guitars and amplification became affordable; the 45 rpm single made records cheap; radio expanded and fragmented into formats; and postwar prosperity created a teenage audience with money and leisure that had not previously existed as a market.