Essay/Term paper: Great rock musicians: their achievements and effect on rock and roll

Essay, term paper, research paper:  Culture

Great Rock Musicians: Their Achievements and Effect on Rock and Roll


The blues are undeniably the roots of early rock and roll. Rock today
has mutated so much that the basic blues patterns have been all but lost.
The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the birth of, and evolution of rock
and roll by focusing on three of the arguably greatest rock musicians of the
sixties and seventies.
The origin of the blues can be traced to the emancipation of the slaves
in the rural black areas of the south, where most of the people worked on share-
cropping farms. Musically the blues are defined as a 12-bar chord progression,
harmonized with the corresponding scales and patterns. The chord progression
pattern is four measures of tonic chords followed by two measures of sub-
dominate chords, two more measures of tonic chords, one measure of dominate
chords, one measure of sub dominate chords, and finally two measures of tonic
chords.
Blues performers would travel around the south singing about their loss of
love and family, and the pains they were forced to endure. The music became
popular because nearly every one who heard it could identify with its message.
This type of Blues later became known as country blues because it was rooted in
rural areas. The Blues became more main stream and popular in the 1920's
because of the recording industry coming into existence. More instruments were
added such as pianos, organs, and wind instruments.
Big Band and Rhythm and Blues stemmed from City Blues.
Rock and Roll then stemmed from Rhythm and Blues, in fact, many of the
first recorded "Rock" songs where simply white musicians re-recording Rhythm
and Blues songs originally written by black artists.
It took Bob Dylan 23 years to realize that he wanted to become a rock
musician. Bob Dylan, whose birth name was Robert Allen Zimmerman, had a
relatively uneventful childhood in a Minnesota mining town. He adopted his
pseudonym when he went to the University of Minnesota. "Dylan" came from the
Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, with whom Zimmerman was frequently compared in the
University folk circles. After leaving the University, Dylan moved to New
York's Greenwich Village to follow his folk hero, Woodie Gunthrie. In fact, his
main goal of moving to the Village was simply to meet his hero. He not only met
the folk guru, but became a member of his group of followers, or groupies. They
also became good friends.
Gunthrie got him a couple of gigs at various nightclubs around the Village.
Dylan got enough attention at his nightly gigs to be noticed by the Columbia
Record Company, specifically the producer John Hammond. His first record, Bob
Dylan, was just his renditions of previously recorded songs, but it was popular
enough to gain him a long term contract. The recording was so bare bones that
the record cost only $402 dollars to make, not including production.
The songs Bob Dylan wrote weren't used by him exclusively,. He actually
got his first important recognition when a song he wrote was used by the Byrds.
The song was "Mr. Tambourine Man" and it went to number 1 on the charts. The
introduction into the mainstream or pop arena was extremely important to folk-
rock, giving it the recognition it desperately needed. Before this song was
released the Folk-Rock genre was hardly viewable in the public eye, and was only
popular in small folk circles.
Bringing the American folk scene mainstream did gain Dylan a lot of
popularity, but it also got him some unwanted criticism from folk musicians
across the Atlantic. In particular from a big name in British folk music ,
Ewan MacColl. "I have watched with fascination the meteoric rise of the
American idol and I am still unable to see him as anything more than a youth of
mediocre talent. Only a completely non-critical audience nourished on the
watery pap of pop music could have fallen for such tenth-rate drivel. 'But the
poetry!' they say, what poetry? The cultivated illiteracy of his (Bob Dylan's)
topical songs, are the embarrassing fourth grade schoolboy attempts at free
verse." MacColl failed to see that American youth were not as interested in an
idol following literary protocol as they were in the message and the overall
sound.
Despite the criticism, Dylan produced many more incredibly successful
songs for himself and others including: Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe", the
immortal "All Along the Watchtower" performed by Jimi Hendrix, and the eerily
infectious "Knockin' on Heaven's Door" By Guns n' Roses.
His first musical stance was as a war protest folk singer. . During
the Cuban missile crisis he wrote "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." It was a warning
and a portrait of what a nuclear war would be. Dylan gained the title of
spokesman for his generation when he switched from folk to rock with Highway 61
Revisited.
In 1966 he [reportedly] broke his neck in a motorcycle accident. Whether
he did or didn't, he got a chance to escape from the spotlight He did make
several albums privately after that but many said that he had lost his musical
power, and the accident had broken his spirit as well as his neck. If he had
broken his neck in the accident he would have achieved "mythical status."
He made a musical comeback in 1975 with Blood on the Tracks. Over the
years, Dylan has retained his popularity. He constantly surprises his audiences
with impromptu changes in musical style. Many critics say the only song
writers that can be compared to Dylan are the team of Paul McCartney and John
Lennon.
John Lennon began his musical career in high school, with he band called
the Quarryman. In his sophomore year he met Paul McCarntey. A short time later,
McCartney introduced Lennon to his friend, George Harrison, who was only 13 at
the time. The band had a number of names besides The Quarrymen before they
finally decided on the Beatles, intentionally misspelled so it would have the
word "beat" in it.
Like Bob Dylan They gained the attention of a record company by putting
on an excellent show in a club. However, unlike Dylan, the recognition they
received wasn't direct.
They had played as the backup band on a Tony Sheridan record.. The two
final songs on the record they wrote and performed themselves. Word got around ,
and one record store owners noticed that he couldn't keep that specific record
on the shelves. Brian Epstein (the record shop owner) talked to the band, told
them what was happening with the record and asked them to make a demo recording
to send to several record companies. After being rejected by two other labels,
George Martin at Colombia like what he heard and signed the band. His only
condition was for the Beatles to loose Pete Best, their drummer. They did, and
hired Ringo Starr, who had sat in for Best several times, as the full time
drummer.
In 1962 they released their first single, "Love Me Do". It sold like
crazy locally, but only reached number 17 on the charts, still very good for a
debut. Their next single, "Please Please Me", made it to number one on the
charts. They had become Britain's top rock band virtually over night. Their
popularity could only grow with the releases of two more number one singles:
"From Me to You", and "She Loves You". When they released the album, Please
Please Me., it stayed at number one for 30 weeks. The release of the song "I
Want to Hold Your Hand" in 1964 sparked on of the most important musical events
of this century, The British Invasion of America.
The British Invasion was a movement of British music and musicians
across the Atlantic to America. Bands such as Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath, The
Rolling Stones and The Zombies, Ccme through the hole that the Beatles had made.
Another phenomenon the song sparked was "BeatleMania".
"BeatleMania" saw it's beginnings when the Beatles made an appearance on
the Ed Sullivan Show. When the Beatles toured the U.S. for the first time, the
crowds exhibited a kind of "mob adulation". Their first album was on the top
over every chart it could be on in both the U.S. and Britain. The only thing
that could take it from its place was their second album (Rock Giants). The name
of the album was Meet the Beetles. It stayed at the top of the British charts
for 22 weeks, and was selling extremely well all around the world. The singles
from the LP all went straight to number one on the pop charts, replacing each
other in succession. The sixth single of the album had the largest advanced
orders in recording history.
The Beatles produced six more albums for a total of eight, all of which
went to number one. The Beatles where also the creators of several films
including The Yellow Submarine , which has become a musical cartoon classic.
By the time the Let It Be tapes came out in 1970, the "Fab Four" where
falling apart, Paul desperately tried to keep the band together, but when he
realized he was the only one who still cared about it, he gave up as well. The
group disbanded in 1971, through a law suit. John 'Lennon had a fairly
successful solo career with Yoko Ono after the band's breakup, until he was
assassinated in 1980. Paul continues to have a successful musical career
to this day. The number of number one Beatles' singles, 20 in the United States,
"has never been matched, nor is it likely to be"(Rock Giants).
Jimi Hendrix was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. His entire
family was very musically inclined. His father and aunt played together at the
local Baptist Church. His main influence was his father's immense collection of
Blues and R & B records.
In 1959, he dropped out of high school and joined the military. He was
discharged when he hurt himself in a parachute drop (Rock Giants). After he was
discharged he joined a circle of big name black performers, such as Little
Richard and Wilson Pickett and others. This is where he would learn some of his
most impressive stage tricks like playing over his head and behind his back.
Hendrix didn't think that he could ever become a big name in Rock and
Roll star, because of his unworthy voice. But when he heard Bob Dylan, he
realized that the voice wasn't important as he thought it was.
In 1965 he formed Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, and began touring
Greenwich Village. While playing at these clubs he started incorporating some
of his trademark techniques into his performances, such as feedback and
fuzzboxes. Jimi got his break while The Animals where touring in the United
States. Chas Chandler, the bassist of The Animals, heard Jimi playing and
convinced him to move to Britain.
Chandler matched Jimi with Mitch Mitchel and Noel Redding, to for the
Jimi Hendrix Experience. The group rose to fame in a matter of months playing
in popular clubs. Their first single, " Hey Joe", and their second, "Purple
Haze", where both fairly successful, and they where both included on the group's
first album, Are You Experienced. His sound, matched with his talent, is a
phenomenon no musician has ever been able to duplicate. For example, he could
give the impression that he was playing two guitars at once. Hendrix made five
albums in total but was only satisfies with Electric Lady Land, which contained
his most successful single: Dylan's "All along the Watchtower". Hendrix's most
memorable performance was in 1969, at Woodstock, where he played his immortal
"Star-spangled Banner", however it is still unclear if he played the song in
such an unpatriotic, angry style in protest of the war, or from the pressure
from black militant groups. In 1970 Hendrix died from inhaling his own vomit
after an intoxication of barbiturates. The debate has never been put to rest
over whether it was suicide or carelessness. "Jimi Henrix was and original, and,
unlike most great rock musicians suffered no imitators" (Rock Giants).
Rock and roll has become one of America's greatest musical culture
contributions. Indeed, America would not be the same if it did not have rock
and roll. One of the reasons rock has become so great is that rock groups in
more present time have tried to follow the highly creative musical standards set
by the musicians in this paper. If rock continues to follow the trends set
fourth by the greats, Neil Young's lyrics may prove true, "Hey, hey, my, my,
rock and roll will never die."