The Classic Rock and Roll Reader

Rock Music from Its Beginnings to the Mid-1970s

William E Studwell, David Lonergan

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• Print ISBN: 9780789001511
• eBook ISBN: 9781317720676
• Topic: History
• Subtopic: North American History
• Index: History

The Classic Rock and Roll Reader: Rock Music from Its Beginnings to the Mid-1970s is chock full of entertaining essays to inform and delight you about an era that shaped our culture and future musical trends. This unique book will surprise and enchant even the most zealous music buff with facts and information on the songs that reflected America's spirit and captured a nation's attention. The Classic Rock and Roll Reader is offbeat, somewhat irreverent, ironic, and ancedotal as it discusses hundreds of rock and non-rock compositions included in rock history era. The songs offer you information on:

• Rock's Not So Dull Predecessors (for example, "Bewitched, Bothered, and Bewildered" and "The Cry of the Wild Goose")
• The Pioneering Rock Songs (such as "Rock Around the Clock" and "Shake, Rattle, and Roll" )
• Older Style Songs Amidst the Rocks (for example, "I Could Have Danced All Night" and "Rocky Mountain High" )
• The Megastars and Megagroups (such as "Blue Suede Shoes," "Respect," and "Surfin'USA" )
• The Best Songs that Never Made No. 1 (for example," I Feel Good" and " Tie a Yellow Ribbon Round the Ole Oak Tree" )The Classic Rock and Roll Reader: Rock Music from Its Beginnings to the Mid-1970s also examines the music which preceded early rock, the music which followed early rock, and the numerous non-rock songs which flourished during the classic rock period. A wide spectrum of music is discussed in well over 100 essays on various songs. Musicians, librarians, and the general audience will be taken back to the birth of rock and roll and the various contributing influences. Analyzing each song's place in rock history and giving some background about the artists, The Classic Rock and Roll Reader offers even the most avid music enthusiast new and unique information in this thorough and interesting guide.

A GENERATION OF CLASSIC ROCK, OR, ROCK ROLLS ON

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THE MEGASTARS AND MEGAGROUPS, OR, THE BOLDER AND THE BOULDERS

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Are You Lonesome Tonight?

Elvis Presley burst onto the American pop music scene in 1956, ushering in the classic rock and roll era, and starting a run of rock achievements that is unlikely ever to be surpassed. Elvis had the most Number 1 records, most charted singles, most double-sided hits, and most starring roles in motion pictures (over thirty). He charted Top 40 hits every year from 1956 to 1977, the year of his death. Of the thirteen highest-selling singles of the classic rock era, he personally accounts for five. (The next-best number is the Beatles’ two.)

However, few lives better illustrate the cliche that fame and wealth do not necessarily bring happiness. There is no need to recapitulate Elvis’ sad life story here, so much already having been written about it. A few observations are worth making, though. Elvis recorded and released several singles for Sun Records before RCA-Victor bought his contract in 1955. Sun, a Memphis-based label specializing in R&B performers, was far too small to distribute his records or promote Elvis on a large enough scale. His stardom was guaranteed by several national television appearances in early 1956, months before RCA released his debut single on their label. Elvis was the first and biggest rock and roll star, and the first pop music star whose success was a direct result of television exposure. The physical gyrations in his live performances—in retrospect, fairly tame—were at that time an unprecedented shock. They earned him the nickname “Elvis the Pelvis,” but they also earned him great notoriety. Elvis Presley was literally a household name after his first television appearance; those who missed it could watch another just a week later, and talk about him in the meantime.

Elvis’ stardom was well-established, after more than two years and nine hit singles, when he was drafted in March 1958. Over the next two years RCA-Victor released five singles from their storehouse of Elvis recordings, three of which reached Number 1. At this point Elvis had not had an unsuccessful record. Upon his discharge from the Army in March 1960, he recorded new material and had three Number 1 singles in a row. These were “Stuck on You,” “It’s Now or Never,” and “Are You Lonesome Tonight?,” three of his very best songs. The third might serve as a sort of Elvis anthem; he was perhaps the loneliest musical celebrity imaginable, a Howard Hughes of rock and roll.

In 1961 two new Elvis movies and four singles were released. Only one of these, “Surrender,” reached Number 1. During 1962 there were three new films and three Top Five singles, while 1963 featured two movies and three singles. The latter included “Devil in Disguise,” a respectable Number 3 hit, but also two mediocre songs from that year’s films. “Bossa Nova Baby” reached Number 8, while “One Broken Heart for Sale” peaked at Number 11. It had finally happened—a release by Elvis had failed to crack the Top Ten, and rightfully so. Without the advantage of Elvis’ name recognition, some of his lesser singles from 1963 and successive years probably would not have made the charts at all.

Elvis is sometimes cited as an American performer who was hurt by the British Invasion of 1964, but in reality his singing career was already in trouble by 1963. Too much effort was being expended in filmmaking, and too little in finding and recording good songs. Not that Elvis was doing either of those things. His handlers chose the movies and most if not all of the songs; all too often the latter were substandard, but they were recorded for the movies he made. From 1961 on, the songs Elvis performed in his movies ended up as B- or even A-sides on his singles. Earlier movie songs had been released The Megastars and Megagroups as singles successfully, such as the Number 1 “Mailhouse Rock” in 1957, but those were good songs.

Eventually even Elvis’ handlers could read the writing on the wall, and movie-generated singles became less common after 1965. By then RCA-Victor, seemingly desperate for decent material, was releasing songs that Elvis had recorded years earlier. This practice started in 1964, when Elvis released six singles. Only one of these was both new and nonfilm related, “Witchcraft,” which barely charted at Number 32. The next single was “Kissin’ Cousins,” from the film of the same name, stalling at Number 12. Elvis didn’t break the Top Ten that year, for his other movie tie-in reached Number 21, and the release of three songs recorded up to six years earlier earned a Number 34 and two Number 16s. The next year was both worse and better—worse because the five singles released were all either film or archival material, better because “Crying in the Chapel,” recorded in 1960, went to Number 3 in 1965. It was his only successful single that year.

Between 1956 and the end of 1962, Elvis released 24 singles. Of these, eight placed in the Top Five, while the other 16 went all the way to Number 1. There were no A-sides rated lower than Number 5. From 1963 to the end of 1970, Elvis released 30 singles. Among all of these there were only four Top Five records and a sole Number 1; eleven of them would even fail to reach Number 30. Most performers would have been happy with the record sales experienced by Elvis in those later years, but most performers hadn’t enjoyed his early career. It was a tragedy that it continued. One can only assume that while Elvis himself didn’t need more money, and clearly didn’t need to perform, his avaricious handlers always wanted more money, so the singles, films, and live performances in Las Vegas kept coming just as long as he had a pulse.

The sad thing is, rock and roll listeners were predisposed to like what Elvis recorded. Even his poor stuff sold reasonably well. On those rare occasions when he was given good material, Elvis’ songs did very well indeed, for example, 1969’s “Suspicious Minds,” his last Number 1 song and the same year’s Number 3 “In the Ghetto,” or the Number 2 hit from three years later, “Burnin’ Love.” The pathetic wreckage of Elvis’ later career was unnecessary, a result of those he trusted using him contemptibly.

Blue Suede Shoes

When Elvis Presley was born in Tupelo, Mississippi, in 1935, the son of a poor farmer, his parents could not easily afford to buy him a decent pair of shoes. By the time he recorded “Blue Suede Shoes” at age twenty-one, he could have bought the whole shoe factory. Starting with a blues number recorded for Bluebird in August 1954, “That’s All Right” (written by Arthur Crudup), and followed by “Good Rockin’ Tonight” for Sun (written by Roy Brown), Elvis soon zoomed into national prominence and super stardom.

Among his early recordings were “I Want You, I Need You, I Love You” (1956), by Maurice Mysels and Ira Kosloff; “My Baby Left Me” (1956), by Arthur Crudup; “Any Way You Want Me” (1956), by Aaron Schroeder and Cliff Owens; “Blue Suede Shoes” (1956), by Carl Lee Perkins, performed by Presley in the film G.I. Blues; plus several songs by Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller. Although Elvis himself contributed to several of the songs he recorded, Leiber and Stoller were perhaps the main supplier of songs for the early Elvis. They wrote “Hound Dog” (1956), “Treat Me Nice” (1957), “Loving You” (1957), and “Jailhouse Rock” (1957).

Leiber and Stoller also wrote several other songs that were not recorded by Elvis, including: “Kansas City,” a top hit in 1959; “Charlie Brown” (1959); “Yakety Yak” (1958); “There Goes My Baby” (1959), with Benjamin Nelson, Lover Patterson, and George Treadwell; and “On Broadway” (1963), with Barry Mann and Cynthia Weil. Returning the focus back to Elvis, another Mann, Kal, also wrote “The Cha Cha Cha” (1962), with Dave Appell, “The Wild One” (1960), with Bernie Lowe and Appell, “The Wah-Watu-si” (1962), with Appell, and “Teddy Bear” or “Let Me Be Your Teddy Bear” (1957) with Lowe. “Teddy Bear” was of course one of Elvis’ best discs, which was probably not recorded when he was “bear” footed.

Bridge over Troubled Water

He wasn’t a long-term Senator from Illinois or a presidential candidate as was his namesake, but songwriter and entertainer Paul Simon certainly was a top candidate for best folk rocker of the late 1960s and early 1970s. In marked contrast with much of the popular music of the period, Simon’s compositions were a sort of stroll back to the gentler songs of earlier years.

His 1970 creation, “Bridge over Troubled Water,” was perhaps the top song by Simon. It was Number 1 in record sales in 1970, plus it won a Grammy Award. Another Grammy winner was “Mrs. Robinson” (1967) which was a big hit in 1968. Other good songs by Simon that did not win Grammies included “The 59th Street Bridge Song” (1967), better known as “Feelin’ Groovy,” “The Sounds of Silence” (1966), and “Scarborough Fair/Canticle” or “Parsley, Sage, Rosemary, and Thyme” (1966), coauthored by Arthur Garfunkel, with whom Simon recorded all the above pieces.

Although “Bridge over Troubled Water” was probably Simon’s biggest success, the song that most exemplified the emotions of the brilliant and highly successful singing duo of Simon and Garfunkel had to be “Feelin’ Groovy.” However, that sentiment was shortlived, for in 1969, Simon and Garfunkel broke up not long after they recorded “Bridge over Troubled Water.” There must have been something in the water around 1969 and 1970, for two other megagroups, the Beatles and the Supremes, also parted company at that time.

Can’t Help Falling in Love

If there was a poll as to which was Elvis Presley’s best recording, “Can’t Help Falling in Love” would surely get its share of votes. The excellent 1961 ballad, written by George David Weiss, Luigi Creatore, and Hugo Peretti may be the finest rock era song performed by Elvis. (The melody, incidentally, was probably adapted from an eighteenth-century French love song, “Plaisir d’Amour,” by Martini il Tedesco.) Elvis introduced “Can’t Help Falling in Love” in the film musical Blue Hawaii, in which he appeared with Angela Lansbury. A later and more famous role for Lansbury would be that of writer and detective Jessica Fletcher in the 1980s to 1990s television program, Murder, She Wrote. (Sleuth Jessica, being a very clever person, probably never tried to investigate whether Elvis actually died in 1977 or was still alive in hiding years later.)

Although “Can’t Help Falling in Love” was perhaps the best known song by Weiss, Creatore, or Peretti, they also wrote “The Lion Sleeps Tonight” or “Wimoweh” (1952) with Albert Stanton. That song was popularly revived in both 1962 and 1972, and was a key number in the 1994 Disney animated film hit, The Lion King. Weiss’ songwriting credentials also include “Cross over the Bridge” (1954) and “Wheel of Fortune” (1952), both with Bennie Benjamin; “What a Wonderful World” (1968) with George Douglas; and “Mr. Wonderful” (1956) and “Too Close for Comfort” (1956) both with Jerry Bock and Larry Holofcener. The last two songs were from the Broadway musical Mr. Wonderful, starring a wonderful performer, Sammy Davis Jr.

Of course, this list of “wonderful” things should include Elvis’ outstanding rendering of “Can’t Help Falling in Love.”

Crazy Man, Crazy

Being the first rock and roll act, the first performers to have a Number 1 hit with a rock song, and thus launching the rock era—all this would be a daunting responsibility. Especially if none of it were true.

Many disc jockeys and rock historians trace the beginning of rock and roll to 1955, or even more specifically to early July ofthat year. That was when Bill Haley and the Comets had their Number 1 hit with “Rock Around the Clock,” the first time a rock and roll song took over the Number 1 position. It’s a major date in rock history, without question. However, to somehow claim that rock and roll began at that point is ludicrous.

It is simply wrong to exclude all the songs recorded previous to a certain date as somehow not being real rock and roll, even if they sound enough like rock to pass. For example: Fats Domino had several hits on the R&B charts, starting in 1950, in his very distinctive style. Is one to believe that his music only “became” rock and roll when he started hitting the pop charts in 1955?

Various pundits have adopted different, equally arbitrary dates to define the beginnings of rock and roll, and each can be argued without resolution. The stance taken here is that some songs dating well before the fabled start of rock and roll are clearly part of the rock canon, and that each should be judged on its own merits. That is why this book speaks of the rock and roll era, the period when rock was clearly recognized as a different and important genre, and dominated the airwaves. Even here it is possible to adopt differing views, but the most logical starting point would seem to be the beginning of Elvis Presley’s national career in January 1956. To say that the classic rock era began in 1956 does not exclude earlier recordings from being recognized as rock and roll; they are merely preclassic.

The use of Bill Haley’s “(We’re Gonna) Rock Around the Clock” as the opening and closing theme music in the 1955 film The Blackboard Jungle was a turning point in rock and roll. Millions of people heard the music in a matter of weeks; its use by Hollywood legitimized rock and roll, to some extent; the teenagers in the film were mostly hoodlums, extending their risky cachet by association to the new, innovative theme music.

“Rock Around the Clock” hadn’t even made the Top 40 when first released in June 1954. It was only when public awareness of the song got it some airplay, and Decca rereleased the single, that it soared to Number 1. (The song became a hit all over again in 1974, due to its adoption as the theme of the popular television program, Happy Days.)

Bill Haley was born in Michigan in 1925, but began his musical career as the singer in a country band in New England. By 1948 he had his own group, the Four Aces of Western Swing. In 1949 he renamed his band the Saddlemen. They recorded a cover of “Rocket 88” in 1951, for the Holiday label; nothing came of it. The following year he signed with Essex, and in 1953 the once-again renamed Bill Haley and the Comets had their first hit, the Number 15 “Crazy Man, Crazy.” Accord...

Table of contents

• Cover Page
• Half Title Page
• Title Page
• Copyright Page
• Table of Contents
• About the Authors
• Preface
• The Emergence of Rock Music, or, Waking Up the 1950s
• A Generation of Classic Rock, or, Rock Rolls on
• Classic Rock Meets Disco, and Both Disappear
• Title Index
• Subject Index