THE BLACK HOLE IN ROCK and ROLL
I’ve been thinking about this since I was a teenager, but I’ve never put it on paper before, or tried to think it through with some (loose, very loose) historical consideration.
The very first Rock and Roll thing to catch my attention (and I do mean “thing”) was Richard Penniman, a/k/a Little Richard. I was four. From then on, I always thought of him as the King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, not Elvis.
As I got a little older, I noticed that Elvis (and lots of others) never had their names in the tiny print in the parentheses, right under the song title on the record label. Once I learned that those names were the writers of the songs, and that Elvis didn’t, couldn’t do that, everyone’s “proper places” in the Rock and Roll firmament began to become both clearer and more solid to me.
I didn’t know it at the time, but I was relegating Elvis to “song stylist,” which is what he has been to me since I’ve been an adult. Something in me did know that Rock and Roll was supposed to be black, like “those real guys,” Fats Domino, Little Richard and Chuck Berry; that’s where the real creation of R & R was happening. I had to allow for Jerry Lee Lewis, just because, as a 1950’s wildman, he personified the Rock and Roll attitude. I didn’t care what color he was or from what planet he came. He was, to me, the equal of Little Richard. They could both play piano while jumping around on their feet. No one had ever accompanied their music with that much commotion.
The first Rock and Roll dance I ever learned was the twist—Chubby Checker. Every “first” for me in Rock and Roll was introduced by an African-American male.
Well, we all know that stopped---dead---cold. Vocal music by black artists was popular simultaneously; The Platters, The Bluenotes, lots of them were around at the time. For some reason, that music survived and morphed (not a big stretch at all) into the sounds of Motown, Philly and a few places in the Deep South. By the end of 1963, African-Americans had pretty much abandoned Rock and Roll.
Just four years later, he's not only a black guy with an electric guitar, but he is a super rocker, hell bent on pushing it to whatever limits the current electrical grids and fire marshals would allow. Wasn’t that supposed to be the herald reading: “Return, brothers, return!” Guess not. Of course, being the reigning guitar god doesn’t go very far when you and “it” are all over in less than 4 years. And Sly! It may have had lots of soul and mountains of funk, but it was still R & R. Poor Sly, poor us. Maybe he set such a bad example of how to enjoy your R & R fame, that he didn’t amass any followers. It’s tough to think that Jimi Hendrix’s biggest influence was on………… Robin Trower. Too bad we never were offered a vote before Jimi bought the farm.
So for another bunch of years, we had Billy and the Beatles, Dallas and CSN, Buddy Miles here and there after his Electric Flag days were over, and several other notable black musicians in all-white bands.
Then we have a screen blip in The Busboys. Tons of fun. No one paid any attention. What! They can’t play rock and roll! They’re black!
Flash to the eighties and we have In Living Color. Finally, a real band with a real R & R singer who’s not an R & B moonlighter, and a guitarist worthy of at least the attention he got, if not more. That created a good-sized splash, but it didn’t last long. (They reformed several years ago and had an album that was pretty unremarkable.)
From the ‘90’s through to the present, we have King’s X from Houston. Their bass/singer/writer (it’s a 3 piece) is African-American. I’ve never met another person who has ever heard of them. I have everything by them. Is it all very good? No, not all, but it’s a different sounding Rock and Roll because of a really good black male voice at the helm.
The sad part is that, after African-Americans walked away from it, they didn't care what the hell we did with it. And before we could realize what we'd been handed, we let Britain have at it, and we’ve been riding shotgun ever since. Even though it was uncool, for decades, for a black kid to like Rock and Roll, it’s not like lots of kids don’t persist with their passions despite a lack of peer approval, so that should not have made any real difference.
I was listening last night to The Faces, Long Player, and The Stones, Let it Bleed. I had to have known when these were new that it was all directly lifted from delta blues. Maybe we all knew, quite clearly, but didn’t care because, in its feeble attempt to honor something older and truer, it sounded new so we liked it. In the history of the world, how many times has all or part of a culture changed, because of a poor rendition, and/or a lack of understanding of the recent past?
I'm sure I've left out some notable R & R contributors of the last 50 years---Lennie Kravitz for one (well, he's Halfrican-American). Darius Rucker? Go ahead, I dare you!! Darius Rucker?!!!
OK. Now I totally see why I have never written this before--it doesn't have an ending. Shit!
Last edited by BobKay; 06/30/12 01:44 AM.
