Talk:Music history of the United States

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“Ain’t nothing but a Hound Dog”, was one of the many songs white middle-class parents thought was unsuitable for a family audience. Parents were literally breaking and burning such rock and roll records. Rock and roll combined elements of blues, rhythm and blues, country western, hillbilly, and boogie. The teenagers of the 1950s put off popular music but not consciously. Teenagers just liked the sounds. They didn't think much about the fact that so many rock 'n roll singers were African American or any other race. This is one of the reasons parents thought Rock and Roll was bad, unhealthy and basically not right.

Teenagers in the 50’s wanted to be different and alike at the same time. They wanted to be cool in a different way. After struggling World War 2 the teenagers were looking for something exciting and Rock and Roll had all the vitality and liveliness they needed. Teens were tired of listening to their parents “feel-good” music with artists like Pat Boone, Rosemary Clooney and Perry Como . This was when Alan Freed (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, 1986) began playing Black R&B.

Black artists were getting more and more popular each day, but weren’t selling as much as the white artists that had rerecorded the same songs and taking the credit for it. This is known as a "cover version." White artists were taking music that was already recorded from Black artist and selling them as their own. “Cover version” wasn’t done for a long time because the White artist didn’t do such a good job with it.

Sam Phillips opened the Memphis Recording Service. The Memphis Recording Service was the first place a black musician could go to record an album or record back then. You can say that Sam Philips wasn’t a prejudice person because of his motto, "We Record Anything, Anywhere, Anytime." Elvis Presley also got discovered at The Memphis Recording Service. Elvis recorded "My Happiness" and "That's When Your Heartaches Begin", just for his mom’s birthday, got lucky and ended up going big.

In Chicago, two brothers, Phil and Leonard Chess (Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inductee, 1987) took the best of the black bluesmen performing in their nightclub and began recording them on their Chess label. Still, what both Phillips and the Chess brothers needed was a crossover artist - someone who had the energy of Rhythm and Blues and the marketability of say, Pat Boone. Someone who could sell records. Phillips found just the artist, Elvis Presley. And the Chess Brothers found Chuck Berry.

Why should Black artists get treated the way they did. There was a lot of racism back in the days. Back then there was even gatherings of people that would go destroy the type of people they didn’t like. For example the KKK. The KKK or the Ku Klux Klan disrespected African Americans because they didn’t like their way of being. The Ku Klux Klan would burn and hang black people in the streets.

When Rock music came out parents were furious to find that their teenagers were listening to music made up by African Americans. Parents were not only mad because their teens were listening to Rock and Roll, but the fact that they were enjoying it. Teenagers would go to dances and “swing “ to it, in their poodle skirts and their shiny gelled up hair. Parents started acting like the KKK, instead of burning people they were burning records.

As the United States grew larger there was more and more immigrants coming to the U.S. Immigrants brought their cultures with them. African Americans played lots of instruments. African American Blues evolved during the 20th century, it was a mix of blues and rhythm, country and folk. Jazz started to slowly changed in the bebop and swing. By the 1950s, the anti-Communism scare was in full swing, and some performers with a liberal bent were blacklisted from the music industry.