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On Musical Genres Part II: What Is Rock And Roll? "To Me, it’s basically all Rock and Roll; some people play it a little faster, some people play it a little slower, some people play it louder...uh, it’s all basically really based on the blues." Eddie Van Halen There are exceptions to every rule and who am I to find fault with Mr. Van Halen’s statement but the quote initiated several trajectories of thought.The first question I’d like to express is since Rock and Roll continues to transmogrify, when and why does a musical style become more than Rock and Roll?Second, when and why do some styles become a bastard child, the sub genre?Last but not least, who makes these decisions and do you care?There will be fragmented answers and many more topics of conversation in this and other WAX FAX articles in future issues.So, don’t expect any quick clean answers, instead decide what your beliefs are and feel welcome to e-mail any suggestions, critiques, criticisms or hate mail. Music is one of the Human Race’s earliest creative expressions and that drags along a world of baggage.Try getting all its contents through customs; you know you’ll end up naked, spread-eagle against the wall of a small windowless room.Still, people come and shake out Old World traditions and crossbreed with the new world influences.The first order of business is to declare a lineage from impetus to the current state of affairs.Since Rock and Roll has taken over and rules the world, we will start there. "Those early guitar licks were nothing in the world but borrowed Blues riffs speeded up."Carl Perkins What exactly is Rock N Roll? Blues developed from the African spoken / sung history of religious, social and work songs.In this country, slave songs created Gospel, Blues, and Rock and Roll.This is a very short list for the purpose of this article.You can hear remnants of the basic twelve bar structure, flatted third and seventh notes plus relevant lyrical themes.Along with the African influence, indigenous people of the Caribbean and Central America also helped shape this early influence on American music. The best and most thorough description I’ve come across is this: Rock ‘n’ Roll is a musical style born in the late 40’s out of Jump Blues and incorporated the saxophone based rhythms of that form with as varied influences as the electric guitar of Blues, the steady beat of Swing, the pounding piano of Boogie Woogie, the fervor of Gospel, the intense romantic longing of Pop Harmony groups and the looseness of Country, with songs focusing on the viewpoints and interests of its primarily young audiences and a constant pushing outwards of the accepted moral boundaries of the times.The music however is not restricted to any race, gender, or point of origin either by performers or audience, and its inclusiveness is one of its greatest strengths.Rock ‘n’ Roll is constantly progressing, adapting and experimenting allowing it to remain relevant to each succeeding generation, but it maintains the same urgency and perspective it had when it was founded.Wow! "Queen brought in unconscious influences; you know we were all brought up on show type music, classical music. We used studios to make something that was parallel to an orchestral arrangement I suppose." Brian May Crossbreeding in music today keeps the pulse irregular and strives to push the limit of sounds.Often if you have a drum kit, electric guitar and bass you become a cog in the machinations of Rock and Roll.The European / Western Scales Influence have had the most impact on Rock and Roll.Listening to the widely diversified songs that became major societal points of reference, Queen bridged wide gaps in acceptable Rock songs.If you didn’t hear Bohemian Rhapsody first time around, you sang it with a couple of drunken dudes in the car.The layered Operatic sound of Bohemian Rhapsody couldn’t be farther from what Rock and Roll is traditionally thought to sound like.Could it be a few unwitting radio surfers searching with their western ear could have been convert to the dark side?I clearly remember stopping every time I heard Another One Bites the Dust blaring out of The Purple Moose Saloon in Ocean City, MD. From that point on I paid attention to this band with only one name but a myriad of influences. Heavy Metal ThunderWm. S. Burroughs, Steppenwolf, Mike Saunders, Lester Bangs and The Fugs all had influence for the use of the term Heavy Metal.In Nova Express, 1964, Burroughs had a character named the Heavy Metal Kid. Steppenwolf sang Born to Be Wild, 1968, with the quote "Heavy Metal Thunder".Mike Saunders used the term in a 1971 article about Sir Lord Baltimore’s Kingdom Come.Lester Bangs starts his classic Black Sabbath articles in 1972 with a quote from Nova Express. The Fugs named their publishing company Heavy Metal Music. I guess "The Telephone Game" you play at parties is as legitimate as any method to decide upon a title. Black Sabbath utilized Western Classical and Folk themes in their musical library.So, the terminology was chosen to describe the disparate elements combined that created a new genre.Of course Earth was the first incarnation playing Folk and Blues Rock.In 1970 Black Sabbaths’ self-titled album was released and The Wizard, Side A Track 2, starts with the coolest harmonica in Rock history (that is what I believe so shut your opinion hole!).By constructing several movements within a larger piece the Western Classical Music influence is displayed with Wasp / Behind the Wall of Sleep / Basically / N. I. B. at 9:44, Side A Track 3, and A Bit of Finger / Sleeping Village / Warning, coming in at 14:32, Side B Track 2.The amazing Black Sabbath Vol. 4 features both Changes and Laguna Sunrise that seal the devils deal by marrying orchestral instruments with the Rock and Roll architecture. Open your mind, ears and heart to experience the world coming through your speakers. Wikipedia, Let It Blurt by Jim DeRogatis, and my companions all assisted in this research. Shawn
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