1955: Rock is born (Early Rock Part I)

Now that we've done the early influences, I think it's time to move on to early rock itself. By early rock, I mean the music post-Perry Como, but pre-British Invasion. I'm not sure whether this will be a series or not but since it's a long story if I do 1955-1962 it probably will be. This is yet another installment in my fly-by night review of the history of rock.

We start, of course, with Chuck Berry. Berry was a guitarist and songwriter who found himself interested in blues at an early age. He burst on to the scene with the first song that I'll credit as being rock. Sure, there were some Elvis songs, and probably a couple of Howlin' Wolf ones that resembled rock, but Maybellene, released August 20, 1955, rose to #5 on Billboard and was truly it. It defined what rock was to be. Unfortunately, segregation kept a great many white people from really hearing black artists' music until a bit later when they broke down the barriers and rock and roll radio stations were created (my home town, Toronto, had the first rock radio station in Canada, 1050 Chum. Visit it at http://www.1050chum.com).

Before all this, Berry was born in St. Louis, Oct. 18, 1926, and became friends with Muddy Waters, who introduced him to Leonard Chess. In a time where white artist with easy going songs with no offensive messages or inspirations reflected the "wholesomeness of american society," it was hard for black R&B artists to find labels to sign with, and therefore get their music out. Two important groups who decided to change that were Sam Phillips and Phil and Leonard Chess. Phillips set up shop in the southern states with the Memphis Recording Service, the first black recording studio. The Chess brothers were in Chicago, and offered Chess Records to the blues musicians of that area. Any Elvis fans will know that he signed with Phillips when he was a 19-year old truck driver. Berry signed with Chess records, though, and produced a great many hits, such as "School Days," "Johnny B. Goode," and "No Particular Place to Go."

If you have the artist, and you have the studios, it's only a matter of time before you have radio stations (see above). In Cleveland, site of the RHoF, a DJ named Alan Freed had started a controversy by playing black R&B tunes. In '54 he moved to New York and brought his show with him. Although he was fired for payola charges (to come later in this series), many DJs followed his example. From the airwaves to the silver screen, rock was making leaps and bounds. A legendary film, The Blackboard Jungle, featured Bill Haley and The Comets and, more importantly, their song "Rock Around The Clock." White artists had brought rock to white youth. All you people who think Elvis did it first are wrong. He, at this time (1955) was just a regional country and western artist in the south.

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