Pioneers of rock n roll. Yes, you can talk about The Beatles. (1 Viewer)

[Madmarsha]

I can’t recommend this series enough

I mean, anecdotally, it's very interesting. But I just have to inject this sentiment into the whole "James, you keep her" lyric and others of that kind. At some point, Bea Ford has a say in that decision. It's not supposed to be either Brown's or Joe Tex's decision to make (something also unacknowledged in James' own "It's a Man's Man's Man's World"). After all, she's not an object like a car or something like a dance move made with a mic stand that you can ACTUALLY confer to someone. SMH.

 

[Madmarsha]

If you want to go back pre-1950s, then look no further than Robert Johnson, whose inspiration led to Chuck Berry and all the great black bluesmen that Elvis ripped off. Clapton called Johnson "the most important bluesman who ever lived."

Robert Johnson was the first of the 27 Club. It's amazing how he keeps "living" on with his influence still being evoked.

Another one that didn't quite make it into the 27 Club (almost, though. Only missed it by a month and a half) and isn't remembered because he was super famous in life but whose influence lives on among musicians is Gram Parsons.

Anyway, the whole the man, the myth, the legend that is Robert Johnson 86 years after his obscure death almost kind of makes you believe the story is true.

 

[superchuck500]

49erkiller mentioned him, but the only real answer to this question is Chuck Berry. He basically invented rock and roll by his alterations to blues music.

Without Chick Berry, there is no Elvis, and there certainly aren't Beatles.

And, yes, Elvis was an artistic thief with stage presence; also, a pretty miserable human being in almost every way.

If you want to go back pre-1950s, then look no further than Robert Johnson, whose inspiration led to Chuck Berry and all the great black bluesmen that Elvis ripped off. Clapton called Johnson "the most important bluesman who ever lived."

Yeah, in my first post listing that core group of pioneers it says “most essentially Chuck Berry” - I agree that he’s singularly important.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Yeah, in my first post listing that core group of pioneers it says “most essentially Chuck Berry” - I agree that he’s singularly important.

“as per my previous email…”

 

[Sun Wukong]

I'm not a huge fan of Elvis as a person or even really an artist, but it's pretty wild to see people in this thread discounting the absolutely singular impact he had on the rock genre all because they can't get over their "white people bad!" circlejerk.

Also: The idea of "stealing" musical genres is braindead. If Elvis "stole" it, so did every white person who came after him, including your beloved Beatles and everyone they influenced, so hold them to same standard.

If we're going to dictate that only one race/culture can lay claim to a style of music, it has to apply all the way forking down.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

I'm not a huge fan of Elvis as a person or even really an artist, but it's pretty wild to see people in this thread discounting the absolutely singular impact he had on the rock genre all because they can't get over their "white people bad!" circlejerk.

Also: The idea of "stealing" musical genres is braindead. If Elvis "stole" it, so did every white person who came after him, including your beloved Beatles and everyone they influenced, so hold them to same standard.

If we're going to dictate that only one race/culture can lay claim to a style of music, it has to apply all the way forking down.

For me the tipping point is going from appreciation to deification
My grandparents lived outside of Memphis and we were usually there in the summer which meant I was there for his death and most subsequent anniversaries
My loathing of him/his fans predates my wokeness by a decade plus

BUT my larger issue with Elvisianity is similar to my issue with Shakespeare- the cultural hegemony blots out entries to equal or better artists and it also tends to muddy any application of perspective and context about their impact and resonance
That’s not culture it’s propaganda

 

[sfidc3]

49erkiller mentioned him, but the only real answer to this question is Chuck Berry. He basically invented rock and roll by his alterations to blues music.

Without Chick Berry, there is no Elvis, and there certainly aren't Beatles.

And, yes, Elvis was an artistic thief with stage presence; also, a pretty miserable human being in almost every way.

If you want to go back pre-1950s, then look no further than Robert Johnson, whose inspiration led to Chuck Berry and all the great black bluesmen that Elvis ripped off. Clapton called Johnson "the most important bluesman who ever lived."

Chuck Berry is the only answer IMO.....Saw a special on him years ago and if accurate, Dude wrote some of the first rock and roll songs in the late 40's (though many weren't released until the mid 50's).....

He was the entire package, wrote songs, played guitar on them and sang, also created some of the most iconic rock guitar licks that are still used today in some shape and form.....

Elvis was a sex symbol/singer....who supposedly co-wrote some songs.....always thought he was vastly overrated and in no way, the king of rock and roll.....That crown belongs to Berry.....

 

[sonicboom]

Fats Domino is credited with releasing the first rock n roll song called, The Fatman in1949. Elvis said, Fats Domino is the real King of Rock n Roll, and said, I can't sing like him.




"The Fat Man" borrows heavily from the 1940 song "Junker's Blues" by Champion Jack Dupree, another New Orleans pianist."

Dec. 10, 1949: The day Fats Domino taught us to rock 'n' roll

www.fatsdominoofficial.com

Jack Dupree and Fats Domino are both from New Orleans, so....

New Orleans is credited with creating Jazz and Rock n Roll? Woah!

 

[superchuck500]

For me the tipping point is going from appreciation to deification
My grandparents lived outside of Memphis and we were usually there in the summer which meant I was there for his death and most subsequent anniversaries
My loathing of him/his fans predates my wokeness by a decade plus

BUT my larger issue with Elvisianity is similar to my issue with Shakespeare- the cultural hegemony blots out entries to equal or better artists and it also tends to muddy any application of perspective and context about their impact and resonance
That’s not culture it’s propaganda

But isn’t that really separate from the conversation about contributions as a pioneer? This discussion here certainly isn’t bound to any deification and most of the people who experienced that sentiment are gone - it’s a relic at this point and that means we can look at the question objectively.

As to the broader question of appropriation I think it’s important to be deferential to how much borrowing actually goes on in the emergence of new art forms. Yes, specific songs or riffs have an intellectual property component to them, but styles in writing and performance are more to the form than the originators: the form itself has certain components that belong to the form and not to individuals even if they were heavily influenced by specific people. And this is especially true in the formative years.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

But isn’t that really separate from the conversation about contributions as a pioneer? This discussion here certainly isn’t bound to any deification and most of the people who experienced that sentiment are gone - it’s a relic at this point and that means we can look at the question objectively.

As to the broader question of appropriation I think it’s important to be deferential to how much borrowing actually goes on in the emergence of new art forms. Yes, specific songs or riffs have an intellectual property component to them, but styles in writing are more to the form than the originators: the form itself has certain components that belong to the form and not to individuals even if they were heavily influenced by specific people. And this is especially true in the formative years.

That he had an impact is not the question- obviously he did
Once that is acknowledged the question becomes, should he be celebrated or does the system that gives him access and restricts others should be the main discussion point
Babe Ruth his a lot of home runs - we don’t know if he hit them off all the best athletes available. That context should be part of every pre-Jackie Robinson MLB stat
And if Babe Ruth learned to hit by emulating Mule Suttles, that should always be part of assessing his career (he wasn’t as far as I know, just saying)

 

[sonicboom]

That’s actually one of my favorite ‘music videos’ of all time…. To me, it is peak Elvis and if you watch the whole thing, and esp starting at about the 2:20 mark- this is what puts EP at the very top of the list of any entertainer who has ever lived.. The way he has the audience in the palm of his hand, is just as remarkable as MJ premiering the moonwalk on the Motown special, or the Beatles on Sullivan…. I literally can’t imagine what it must have been like to see this on the tv in the freaking 1950s.. had to be akin to seeing something from outer space land on the stage.. unfortunately to me Elvis never equaled the type of talent and ‘specialness’ he showed in ‘56 and ‘57, for the rest of his career IMO.. who was it, John Lennon i think, who said ‘The army killed Elvis Presley’.. either that, or breakfast killed him .

My parents were big into Elvis, and I'm sure many parents of Gen X kids are, but he was just sort of played in the house growing up. Did I ever really notice or cared about the music as a kid, nope. You ain't nothing but a hound dog is probably the only song, that actually left an impression growing up.

Listening to his music now, it's hard to deny his talent. He had an amazing voice and gave people what they wanted, entertainment. Elvis is cool, hard to deny this.

Having an enormous amount of wealth and living in fantasy land, probably killed Elvis. If he had a normal job, normal life, he probably would of lived until an average age.

The Beach Boys were the closest thing to the British Beatles in America. Yes? No?

 

[Saintman2884]

He did some stealin’ but they all did. I think the evolution of rock and roll in that era was more like a recipe for a great dish and the pioneers contributed to it in the kitchen - than some clearly identifiable baskets of original material. Some borrowed more from others than some but all of the ones we’re still talking about were authentic in their own way. Elvis wasn’t just a rip off artist for the white audience - he had qualities that made it blow up like it did. He grew up in depression era Mississippi, attending gospel church (where he learned to sing) and then moved the Memphis in his pre-teen years - becoming fascinated with the blues and Beale Street. Doesn’t that sound like an authentic path?

Elvis co-wrote many of those songs and that voice is not just some whitewashed 50s singer. There was a lot more going on there before he became so exploited by the industry. He definitely got chewed up and engineered well beyond where his heart was musically but I think with his background, it’s just as hard to say where the influences end and he begins as it is with most of those other guys.

But also for comparison, I think James Brown wrote like almost every song he did. Wow

I think Elvis' downfall and decline, if such a precipitous process could be explained thoroughly, sort of occured when he got drafted into the U.S. Army and he served in Germany (where he performed some of his only foreign, non-U.S. impromptu gigs), then he went on a near-decade long, commercially successful run as a Hollywood actor, albeit the films were generic, lightweight plots with no serious, deeper fundamental meanings throughout the 1960's

During this same decade, rock and roll went through a deeper, more impactful metamorphosis as a creative musical vehicle for dramatic social change with the Civil Rights and anti-Vietnam War movements in folk, psychedelic, and hard rock sub-genres. The two most prolific artists or bands who symbolized this radical, substantiative change was Bob Dylan and the Beatles. Meanwhile, Elvis seemed creatively,.conceptually and lyrically stuck in the late 50's, a still-very popular successful act who could record gold albums and sell out arenas, but still a relic that inspired Beatles, Bob Dylan, Rolling Stones, Led Zeppelin, the Who but had long past being the focus of any cultural zeitgeist.

Even when he stopped making lightweight, redundant Hollywood movies and made a "comeback special" in 1968, he just sounded like a more rawer, louder version of his late 50's fame. Compared to up-to-date, modern rockers like Mick Jagger, Robert Plant, and even Ozzy, Elvis was way past his musical.and on-stage prime. As Jethro Tull's Ian Anderson once ironically said about himself on one of his band's late 70's albums, "He was too old for rock and roll, but too young to die".

It also didnt help finances or his reputation either that his long-time manager was a Dutch expat (" Colonel Parker") who supposedly murdered a woman back in Holland, jumped bail and never went back to face trial and that's one major reason why Elvis could never perform internationally (U.K., France, West Germany, Spain Portugal, Italy, Austria and Switzerland, or Japan, New Zealand and Australia.)

 

[Saintman2884]

His

My parents were big into Elvis, and I'm sure many parents of Gen X kids are, but he was just sort of played in the house growing up. Did I ever really notice or cared about the music as a kid, nope. You ain't nothing but a hound dog is probably the only song, that actually left an impression growing up.

Listening to his music now, it's hard to deny his talent. He had an amazing voice and gave people what they wanted, entertainment. Elvis is cool, hard to deny this.

Having an enormous amount of wealth and living in fantasy land, probably killed Elvis. If he had a normal job, normal life, he probably would of lived until an average age.

The Beach Boys were the closest thing to the British Beatles in America. Yes? No?

His corrupt, crooked manager and his brutal, tough and demanding touring schedule that he kept up well into the mid-late 70's up until the last few months of his life, along with over-eating junk food, becoming a functional alcoholic and drug user combined with his ballooning weight didnt help matters, either.

Honestly, their were probably many gigs from 1975-77 period where Elvis should've been resting or convalescing, or drying out in rehab or taken an extended break but instead was criss-crossing the country playing gigs, to the point of mental and physical exhaustion.

But, then again, that recipe for disaster wasn't just something suffered by Elvis alone, quite a few successful UK and US bands in the 1970's and early 80's broke up, fell apart or became creatively strained due to constant touring, decadent, deadly rock lifestyle. Led Zeppelin was on the verge of breaking up by the end of 70's, Plant and JPJ wanted to, but it took John Bonham dying of asphyxiation at Page's home in 1980 for the final nails to be put in. If Bonham lives for few more years, IMHO, Zeppelin at least records maybe 1-2 more albums in the early 80's. It happened to Deep Purple, Bad Company, Stones literally stopped touring for 8 years during the 1980's because of drug problems and Mick and Keith seriously falling out due to their solo careers.

 

[sonicboom]

49erkiller mentioned him, but the only real answer to this question is Chuck Berry. He basically invented rock and roll by his alterations to blues music.

Without Chick Berry, there is no Elvis, and there certainly aren't Beatles.

And, yes, Elvis was an artistic thief with stage presence; also, a pretty miserable human being in almost every way.

If you want to go back pre-1950s, then look no further than Robert Johnson, whose inspiration led to Chuck Berry and all the great black bluesmen that Elvis ripped off. Clapton called Johnson "the most important bluesman who ever lived."

Isn't that the guy who sold his soul, to play rock n roll?



The blues are amazing!


Leadbelly inspired many also, and he probably has one of the most amazing stories to his rise to fame.

 

[guidomerkinsrules]

Isn't that the guy who sold his soul, to play rock n roll?



The blues are amazing!


Leadbelly inspired many also, and he probably has one of the most amazing stories to his rise to fame.