Race and Rock and Roll
Rock and roll was a musical phenomenon that arose during the 1950s. It was built on a foundation of black music called rhythm and blues, also known as R & B. This music was a combination of gospel, jazz, and blues (Sadie 112, Townsend). Thus, the term rock and roll is synonyms with rhythm and blues (De Curtis 78). Although, rock and roll is essentially black music, it was rewrapped as white music to appease the masses (Chappell 145).
The term rock and roll is said to have been coined by Alan Freed, a white Cleveland DJ. He discovered one day while at a local record store that white teenagers weren't buying mainstream white artists, instead they were buying R & B artists. Convincing his boss to let him play this new style of music, he decided to call it rock and roll (Carlin 14). He didn't want to alienate his white audience by making any reference to the fact that the music was black (Mabry).
The fact that rock and roll was actually......
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Approximate Pages: 5 (260 words per double-spaced page) |