Where traces of history are lost that is where the myth is created.
Its faces are either deified or enter the world of oblivion and the facts fade. And the facts that determine the evolution of music have deeply hidden roots.
Finding them is often a futile or at the best painful process.
An article about music or even a book should be an occasion for further personal searching. It should not try to give and/or impose dogmatic answers.
In music, there is no concept of “know“, which is identical to that of “seek“.
Rock defined contemporary music creation and the search for its beginning may raise more questions.
A combination of the evolution of technology and social upheavals in the post-war “western” world is the cause of its creation.
Its first specimens existed several years ago.
When the music came out of the “aristocratic salons” and became over-expression of more low social strata.
It is generally accepted, but also a fact, that Rock comes from Rock ‘N’ Roll and it is not uncommon for these two concepts to be identified.
Music is a means of communication, as in ancient times was trade and war.
That is why its development, as well as its worldwide spread, took place after the war, although it started during the war.
It is no secret that Rock’s homeland is the New World and specifically the USA.
However, it does not cease to be the result of the coexistence of various cultural influences, which gave birth to something new.
But let’s start approaching historical facts, dusting off the past a bit.
Dusting the past…
Rhythm & Blues gave birth to Rock ‘N’ Roll, by accelerating its tempo.
Or simply this transition took place when someone decided to put a 33 rpm Blues disc at 45… hmmmmm.
The world of music is not created by enlightenment, nor by some momentary error.
The events start a little earlier, somewhere in the interwar period and in America locally.
The beginning of the thread is the traditional music of the new settlers, the Country of the whites, and the Blues of the African Americans.
Even a rudimentary reference to them will require volumes of books.
It is indeed very difficult to find a beginning in this quest!
As soon as a date or person appears, another event and person appear in the background, before the previous one.
So, it is best to search for the etymology of the term.
The term Rock…
The first appearance of the term Rock in a song takes place in 1922 in a composition by J. Berni Barbour.
The title of the song is “My Man Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll)” and is performed by a Blues singer, Trixie Smith.
The expression Rock “N” Roll hints at sexual intercourse!
This makes the singer even more pioneering, as she essentially lays the groundwork for the sexual revolution almost 50 years later.
Although its official definition as Rocking & Rolling described the movement of a ship in the stormy ocean…
At the same time, it often indicated the spiritual warmth in the ecclesiastical services of the African-Americans.
And it is not infrequently used (like rocking and rolling though) in many Gospel religious songs.
So, we have, in a way, the first end of the thread!
Still well hidden in some illegal casino or some descent just as an expression of African-Americans.
Away from the power and money of the white Anglo-Saxons.
The courage of a woman triggered the greatest musical revolution, as I mentioned above.
Still, this music was not born, and the pregnancy would last several years.
It did not even have the characteristics that would later make it famous, however, the theme of the lyrical part had already been defined.
The second musical superpower…
All it needed was a human catalyst, a war, and a state that after its defeat in the war would focus on the development of technology to stand on its own two feet.
The human catalyst that would make this music known in white America has already been born.
Just a year before the song was created in Windber, Pennsylvania by a Russian-Jewish mother and a Welsh-American father.
It was Alan Freed!
At the same time as the possibility of a second world war is still far away and Japan is trying to make the first contacts with the western world …
On the other side of the Atlantic, the first seed had already been put in to create a second musical superpower…
Its name? Skiffle and this genre was created by free African-Americans…
