Early Rock and Roll

            Although Elvis Presley is thought of as “The King of Rock and Roll”, there were many other artists in the early days of the new genre whose influences helped to shape the new music.  A few of these artists are Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and Little Richard.  All three of these personalities were instrumental in creating rock and roll by bringing something new to music.  Because of this any one of them could arguably be dubbed the "Father of Rock and Roll."

            Chuck Berry contributed a new sound by combining blues with a rhythmical sound and appealing to a multiracial audience.  He was able to do this mainly because of his upbringing as he was born in St. Louis in the late 1920’s and grew up in a lower middle class African American family.  Berry was luckier than many urban African Americans in that he escaped the rural poverty that was prevalent in the lyrics of the blues music, but he had a true love of this musical style even though he did not personally relate to the lyrics.  Berry wrote “Ida Red”, a “countrified blues song” and attempted to record it at the Chess brothers’ studio in Chicago.  “Ida Red” was not successful on its own, but after Berry reshaped the song into a “rhythmical rock and roll” style”  and renamed it “Maybelline,” it became a national hit reaching number five on the charts in 1955.  Berry attempted to release a few other blues style songs, unsuccessfully.  He  then began to write songs that appealed directly to the white teenage record-buying audience and became a very successful early rock and roller.            

            Berry’s success in the late 1950’s was short lived because Berry was confined to a prison term, but Berry broke ground in the rock and roll world, tearing down racial barriers by appealing to white audiences.  Berry was the first African American rock and roller to get white airplay with “Maybelline” due to his carefully enunciated lyrics allowing him to pass for white in a strictly segregated society.  Berry knew how to appeal to the white teenage world and specifically targeted them in his music.  Because of this, Berry was able to attract a larger unsegregated audience than he would have if he had strictly composed blues tunes.  Berry’s musical style was also new, thus  defining rock and roll with his unprecedented compositions of blues beats, country runs, and humorous lyrics.  Berry’s influences can be heard in many artists who came after him including the Beatles, the Rolling Stones, and Bob Dylan.     

             Another of the founding fathers of rock and roll, Buddy Holly was born in 1936 in Lubbock, Texas, and formed a band in high school which he named The Crickets.  Holly also wrote his own compositions which appealed to the white teenage audiences due to their fun, simple sound, but Holly was the groundbreaking in that he was the  first white rock and roll artist to write his own songs.  Holly also changed the sound by “double tracking” the voice and  the guitar as well as using a full orchestra in his compositions.  Based on his own musical influences, Holly blended country, rhythm and blues, Latin, and gospel into the unique “Tex-Mex rockabilly sound” of which he is so well known.    Because his style was so different than most whites had heard, Buddy Holly and the Crickets were often mistaken for blacks and were even booked at the Apollo Theater in Harlem which, to that point, had only booked black artists.  Holly had paradoxically broken through the racial barriers opening rock and roll to both black and white audiences.  Although his life was cut short by that infamous plane crash in 1959, Buddy Holly’s music and style influenced many of the up and coming artists including the Beatles and the Hollies (for whom their name is a tribute to Buddy Holly and the Crickets).

             Lastly, Little Richard, born Richard Penniman, was a unique performer solely for his flamboyant on-stage style for which he is most remembered.  Little Richard, however, broke ground for his musical sound as well as his performances by utilizing the piano in his compositions like no other rocker had before him.  Little Richard’s 1955 recording of “Tutti Fruiti” topped the R&B charts, but also gained a modest pop following topping out at number twenty-one on the pop charts. Little Richard’s music also broke racial barriers just as Berry had, integrating audiences at his flashy shows.   Even when the audiences started out segregated, once the music started, blacks and whites would be rushing the stage and dancing together.  Little Richard brought races together in the musical world, opening the door for African American mainstream artists.  Little Richard used the “flash” of his on-stage persona to attract audiences, but, at the same time, he appeared “non-threatening” to the white world.  He would dress in sequins, wear makeup and eyeliner, and sport long black fingernails, bringing an air of femininity to his stage persona that made the white world feel less threatened by the sexual nature of his songs.   Little Richard, through all of this, stayed true to the “shouter” style of traditional rhythm and blues, and was able to introduce this style of music to a whole new white audience.  Further, his style opened doors for later performers including Jerry Lee Lewis, Kiss, and David Bowie, who used flashy stage shows to entertain their audiences.  Little Richard was the first true black entertainer introduced to the white world.

                Thus an argument can be made for any one of these performers as the “Father of Rock and Roll.”  Their contributions certainly do not downplay the importance of Elvis Presley in mainstreaming rock and roll, but had they not come before him, it is hard to say how Elvis would have been received.  They all opened doors for later performers, including Elvis, and broke racial barriers allowing teenagers of all races to come together through music.  No single performer can be credited with creating rock and roll, but it was a combination of each building on the last which created the genre of rock and roll.