Race and Rock and Roll

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 ‘whitewashed’ black music was the reason for the surrounding controversy that followed (Altschuler 51). This new music was seen as corrupting the youth of America, meaning white America (Altschuler 37). R & B music was very fast-paced, high-energy (Carlin 13), and loaded with sexual innuendos (Sadie 112). This was the complete opposite of the more mainstream white music adults wanted the children to listen to. That music had a more innocent quality to it. This new music, rock and roll, infuriated the racists throughout America (Hornberger).

R & B would cause uproar as the wall of segregation slowly started to crumble. America’s white youth had constantly been taught that blacks were to be feared, were inferior, and associating with them was completely unacceptable (Hornberger). And for the most part, white youths lived by this except for when it came to the new found black music. White teenagers actively sought out R & B music, even venturing into black neighborhoods and clubs (Altschuler 18). This unscrupulous behavior caused even more outrage with white parents and authority. Soon things were done to combat this new threat to Americans youth.

Surprisingly, America was still very much segregated even with the new commonality between America’s black and white youth. For one, white youth were color-blind when it came to their music. The only requirement was that it be likeable (Mabry). Secondly, white cover artists were willing and able to produce their own versions of popularly black songs (. This made it more acceptable to listen to black music. Sam Phillip, who discovered Elvis, said it best, ‘”If I could find a white man who sings like a black man, I could make a fortune”’ (Townsend). This is essentially what white cover artists were trying to achieve and succeeding at doing (Chappell 146). They would take black songs and change the lyrics so the song wasn’t as offensive as the original (Carlin 42), or they would actually ‘steal’ the songs without changing anything and call it their own (Altschuler 55).

Unfortunately, the original black artists of these songs were powerless to stop or even prevent this from happening (Altschuler 55). Black artist couldn’t gain access to the major recording market (Mabry, Altschuler 49), and radio stations were more willing to play the covered version whenever it became available instead of the original version of a song (Altschuler 56, Chappell 145). This was one way of combating the influence black artists were having on white youth. They made it impossible for black artists to make money from their work, as they were stealing it and disguising it as their own. As Jacob Hornberger states, “Rock and roll was providing a vehicle by which blacks could out-compete whites and accumulate wealth.” Original artists lost revenues from royalties and direct sale of their records.

A second approach used was through legislation. White America was infuriated by how close white and black youths were starting to become due to this new music. They believed that this would lead to “juvenile