Originally Posted by
VibroCount
I have a theory about rock and roll. A real difference between America and the UK. From the beginning, the music which became rock and roll was music made by and listened to by outsiders. Start with jazz and blues in the 1930s and before, have it evolve into the jump blues and urban blues of the late 1940s. And separately, there was country music, moving toward the wilder Hank Williams sort of stuff. Add doo-wop from the urban street corners, and mix 'em up with the white country folk singing with a touch of blues, the black urban singers and musicians adding a bit of pop and large spoonfuls of country, and we get the earliest rock and roll records. Swing tunes from Illionois Jacquet's sax break on Lionel Hampton's "Flying Home" to Louis Jordan's smaller band stuff, to "Boogie Children" by John Lee Hooker, Hank Snow's "I'm Moving On"... early Orioles' records, etc., leads us to "Rocket 88" and the other obvious ones. But this music (from all directions) was unacceptable to suburban white America. Race records were banned from white radio. A few DJs played it, but rarely during the day. Schools didn't allow it at dances.
Music was picked by producers from songwriters, matched with singers, then arrangers and conductors and musicians were hired, and records were made. The producer was paid more than the songwriter and the artist, and the rest tended to work either as piece work or on an hourly basis. Elvis was close to this, but he was singing black music.
Along came Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, and the rest who wrote their own songs, didn't need a producer or arranger or studio musicians, and thus took everything but the engineers the pressing and marketing of the records.
The only thing which remained constant was the records and how they were distributed. Most of the records were not sold to the public. They were being bought by the jukebox industry. Cashbox listed hits by jukebox and radio plays, not by sales. Billboard used both those, but added a little bit of record store sales as well.
And kids would punch the jukeboxes for rock and roll, if the guys putting the disks in added that stuff.
Then the music industry got a few favors to return the records back into the early '50's pop formula. Elvis was drafted, Berry was arrested, and Holly and Valens (another singer/songwriter) died. For the most part, teen rock was overtaken by crooners and pop idols. Brian Hyland, Bobby Vinton, Frankie Avalon, Connie Stevens, and others who barely sang rock were the big stars. Black music became soul music... Sam Cooke, James Brown with the Famous Flames, and it moved in great part to black radio stations. About the only rock and roll was the regional surf music of Dick Dale, the Bel-Airs, and the rest.
When the Beatles came along, two things happened, one obvious, the other had the greatest impact on the recording industry until digital sharing.
Rock was rock with the Beatles and the Stones, and especially the Dave Clark Five. And suddenly, no one was punching the jukebox. The Beatles sold more to eleven year old American girls than to the jukebox buyers. Record stores were selling more singles (and albums) than before. This killed the jukebox industry, making Cashbox magazine obsolete. Billboard dropped jukebox plays from their formula, making it nearly all record store sales with a touch of radio plays added in. Some record companies figured it out. Capitol had the Beach Boys and the Beatles, Columbia's Epic label had the DC5, London has the Stones, MGM had the Animals and Herman's Hermits. It took Mitch Miller's retirement and replacement by Clive Davis before Columbia itself signed a rock band, Paul Revere and the Raiders.
And except for the Beatles and the Stones (after "Satisfaction"), few of these bands had great songwriters among them... Kinks and Who joined them. So Goffin/King, Lieber/Stoller, and the rest of the Brill Building sold stuff to nearly all the other rockers. It would not be until the psychedelic San Francisco bands would the bands write much of their own music.