The DU Lounge
In reply to the discussion: 'How the Beatles Destroyed Rock-n-roll' Has anyone read this book? [View all]MiltonBrown
(322 posts)they call it rock-n-roll!' Rock-n-roll IS rhythm and blues of course and what was breaking mainstream 1955 was not much different from what Wynonie Harris, Jimmie Liggins, Jimmie Preston, Louis Jordan and others were doing in the '40s. And the book provides many details of trends in popular American music from 1900 on where he credits blacks with innovating and whites capitalizing (and one or two that went the other way I think- have only read excerpts.)
Just in general, rock-n-roll artists from the 50s and early 60s were both black and white. Elvis and Fats, LR and JLL, Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly, LaVern Baker and Connie Francis, Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers and the Crests, Chubby Checker and Dion, the Shirelles and the Angels, Gary US Bonds and Freddy Cannon and these acts all toured together for black and white audiences around the country on Alan Freed tours and others. The motown groups had a lot more in common with doo wop (r&b rock-n-roll) than they did the later Beatles and Stax to r&b rock-n-roll as well. Billboard dropped the chart distinction between pop and r&b since they were virtually identical in '62 only to bring it back years later.
I just like that there's some reading material with a different point of view out there.