Rock ‘n’ roll’s Controversial Beginnings: How the 1950’s Saw Cultural Change

It was new, it was diverse, and according to news media, it was displacing their once beloved pop vocalists. Rhythm and blues had staked its claim on the younger generation and had driven their folks into a tirade of musical censorship. By the year 1954, the looming threat of r&b had made its way into nearly every jukebox on the block. Variety magazine wrote off the genre as “strictly a sound phenom,” and other major music publications’ conclusions weren’t entirely different.

The music was deemed ‘unsophisticated,’ when it was anything but. Wavering public opinion towards r&b (at the time synonymous with ‘Rock ‘n’ Roll’) was swiftly counteracted with even Variety’s own popular charts, disproving the ‘fleeting’ popularity of what was now considered the genre of the youth.

In Variety’s own 1955 article, disc jockeys were finding it increasingly difficult to decipher the r&b formula. Pop vocalists waited for a tune to hit big on the radio, and quickly covered it within an attempt to maintain relevance. Big labels were scrambling to provide the “offbeat stuff.” Small labels were seeing record play time.

Whether it was blamed on filthy capitalist intentions, or the use of payola, entertainment writers allied with organizations that supported the old-style pop music listeners were familiar with, as the expansion of the r&b market would surely see them out of a job.

The public was warned of the underlying lyrical meanings and unsavory rhythms: “We’re talking about ‘rock and roll,’ …kindred euphemisms which are attempting a total breakdown of reticences about sex.” This series of Variety articles stressed the difference between what would be considered ‘censorship,’ and the elimination of harmful persuasion for the sake of American teenagers. The writer, under the pseudonym ‘Abel,’ phrased his work in that of urgency, although lacking a certain politeness in regard to pop culture’s natural evolution.

In the wake of scrutiny, r&b persisted, with a newer level of emotional seriousness. Where artists such as Fats Domino and LaVern Baker found success in the pursuit of r&b, artists like Chuck Berry and Little Richard rode their coattails, knee deep in the appeal of rock ‘n’ roll and its more ‘unadulterated’ nature.

In Chuck Berry: Rock Lives!, British music journalist Norman Jopling sat down with Chuck Berry in a tell-all interview, detailing his various hits, musical influences and industry change. “You can associate these songs with life,” said Berry. His lyrical catalogue covered the mundanities of everyday life: his car, school, and what Jopling labels as ‘real’ romance. Music at this time maintained new ideas. “They have virtue and freshness,” Berry said when speaking about his favorite songs, “It doesn’t matter who sings them.”

Often compared to Berry, the ever-so-bold Little Richard imposed a similar effect on the music industry. In an interview with Richard and overseer of his early hits, Robert “Bumps” Blackwell, author Charles White signified Richard’s religious upbring and subsequent mainstream success in his novel The Life and Times of Little Richard: The Quasar of Rock. Richard, with a knack for cross-dressing and generous layers of makeup, struck gold after a long and grueling recording session with Blackwell. “He was talking wild, thinking up stuff just to be different, you know? I could tell he was a mega-personality,” said Blackwell.

Richard embodied rock ‘n’ roll in every sense of the phrase; he expressed no fear in his perception, or even some questionably lewd lyrics. His first major hit, “Tutti Frutti,” donned the original lyrics:

            Tutti Frutti, good booty

            If it don’t fit, don’t force it

A mega-personality indeed, Richard’s rock ‘n’ roll legacy inspired a plethora of future industry moguls: including James Brown, Otis Redding, and Paul McCartney of Beatles fame.

Where Jopling offered insight regarding Berry’s conversation and provided rhetoric that enhanced his presence within the article, White accounted Richard’s life within his novel as strict verbatim. The novelties of Berry’s career are thought provoking, ones that Jopling enhanced with engaging questions shared with the reader and gripping first-person perspective. White provided the various first-hand accounts of Richard’s life in an ultimately stylized way, pulling relevant conversations with important figures within Richard’s life and splicing them between his own words.

Amid the explosion of rock ‘n’ roll, the genre gave way to an artist that swept the largest amount of success and left a lasting impact on popular music to come: Elvis Presley. One of pop culture’s most infamous household names was the subject of conversation in Rolling Stone writer Elizabeth Kaye’s 1986 article, Sam Phillips: Interview, a sit-down with Presley’s very first record producer. With the proclamation of a lack of jealousy and a compliment to his better judgement, Phillips spoke of the early days of Elvis Presley and cutting him loose from Sun Records.

“That was the best judgement call I could make at the time, and I still think it is,” said Phillips. “I hoped the one thing that wouldn’t happen to me was that I would be a one-artist or a one-hit label.” With this decision, Phillips could have never predicted the overwhelming success that was yet to be awarded to Presley. Within his success, Presley not only coined the term ‘rockabilly,’ a blended style of country and r&b that took after his own, but presented the public with his trademark croon in a performance style that was often described as ‘sexually charged.’

In speaking with Phillips, Kaye wrote her article in a similar fashion to that of White’s novel, presenting the reader with her own question asked of Phillips, and gave his reply in its entirety. Their conversational chemistry uplifted the material and closed the interview with Phillips’ own insight regarding Presley’s untimely death, wishing his soul well.

With its increasing cultural popularity, the idea of rock ‘n’ roll seeped into the minds of frenzied press. National hits within the genre had come to a head, and at the beginning of 1956, mainstream newspapers expressed their opinions, both negative and positive. In an article titled, Rock-and-Roll Called Communicable Disease, the New York Times featured a “noted psychiatrist,” Dr. Francis J. Braceland, who called “rock-and-roll a ‘cannibalistic and tribalistic’ form of music.”

Rock ‘n’ roll was being scrutinized and found itself in comparison with the ideals of Nazism, an ever-fresh fear in 1956. But with criticism there comes praise, an idea explored in an African American publication, the Chicago Defender. In Bias Against “Rock ‘n’ Roll” Latest Bombshell in Dixie, journalist Rob Roy detailed the happenings of a current Alabama, in the aftermath of the infamous ruling on U.S. Supreme Court case, Brown v. Board. The conversation around rock ‘n’ roll and the intersection of race was frequented; a genre that had been founded upon black popular music, was now seeing itself in white neighborhoods, and the blame of its misconceptions fell upon the African American minority.

In his written defense, Roy conducted interviews with local government and townspeople alike, those in a hurry to ban all rock ‘n’ roll from local jukeboxes. Roy circumvented these superstitions with a down-to-earth writing style, posing hypotheticals and painting a vivid picture of the tense environment.

As the years persisted, the 1950s remained a decade to remember. This musical evolution, from folksy household tunes to the gritty sensual growl of rhythm and blues, made for a substantial imprint in the history of the music industry.

But, with this lasting musical significance, it begs the question: Where would we be without rock ‘n’ roll?