The Blues Essay, Research Paper

Great Rock Musicians: Their Achievements and Effect on Rock and Roll

The blues are undeniably the roots of early rock and roll. Rock today

has mutated so much that the basic blues patterns have been all but lost.

The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the birth of, and evolution of rock

and roll by focusing on three of the arguably greatest rock musicians of the

sixties and seventies.

The origin of the blues can be traced to the emancipation of the slaves

in the rural black areas of the south, where most of the people worked on share-

cropping farms. Musically the blues are defined as a 12-bar chord progression,

harmonized with the corresponding scales and patterns. The chord progression

pattern is four measures of tonic chords followed by two measures of sub-

dominate chords, two more measures of tonic chords, one measure of dominate

chords, one measure of sub dominate chords, and finally two measures of tonic

chords.

Blues performers would travel around the south singing about their loss of

love and family, and the pains they were forced to endure. The music became

popular because nearly every one who heard it could identify with its message.

This type of Blues later became known as country blues because it was rooted in

rural areas. The Blues became more main stream and popular in the 1920’s

because of the recording industry coming into existence. More instruments were

added such as pianos, organs, and wind instruments.

Big Band and Rhythm and Blues stemmed from City Blues.

Rock and Roll then stemmed from Rhythm and Blues, in fact, many of the

first recorded “Rock” songs where simply white musicians re-recording Rhythm

and Blues songs originally written by black artists.

It took Bob Dylan 23 years to realize that he wanted to become a rock

musician. Bob Dylan, whose birth name was Robert Allen Zimmerman, had a

relatively uneventful childhood in a Minnesota mining town. He adopted his

pseudonym when he went to the University of Minnesota. “Dylan” came from the

Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, with whom Zimmerman was frequently compared in the

University folk circles. After leaving the University, Dylan moved to New

York’s Greenwich Village to follow his folk hero, Woodie Gunthrie. In fact, his

main goal of moving to the Village was simply to meet his hero. He not only met

the folk guru, but became a member of his group of followers, or groupies. They

also became good friends.

Gunthrie got him a couple of gigs at various nightclubs around the Village.

Dylan got enough attention at his nightly gigs to be noticed by the Columbia

Record Company, specifically the producer John Hammond. His first record, Bob

Dylan, was just his renditions of previously recorded songs, but it was popular

enough to gain him a long term contract. The recording was so bare bones that

the record cost only $402 dollars to make, not including production.

The songs Bob Dylan wrote weren’t used by him exclusively,. He actually

got his first important recognition when a song he wrote was used by the Byrds.

The song was “Mr. Tambourine Man” and it went to number 1 on the charts. The

introduction into the mainstream or pop arena was extremely important to folk-

rock, giving it the recognition it desperately needed. Before this song was

released the Folk-Rock genre was hardly viewable in the public eye, and was only

popular in small folk circles.

Bringing the American folk scene mainstream did gain Dylan a lot of

popularity, but it also got him some unwanted criticism from folk musicians

across the Atlantic. In particular from a big name in British folk music ,

Ewan MacColl. “I have watched with fascination the meteoric rise of the

American idol and I am still unable to see him as anything more than a youth of

mediocre talent. Only a completely non-critical audience nourished on the

watery pap of pop music could have fallen for such tenth-rate drivel. ‘But the

poetry!’ they say, what poetry? The cultivated illiteracy of his (Bob Dylan’s)

topical songs, are the embarrassing fourth grade schoolboy attempts at free

verse.” MacColl failed to see that American youth were not as interested in an

idol following literary protocol as they were in the message and the overall

sound.

Despite the criticism, Dylan produced many more incredibly successful

songs for himself and others including: Sonny and Cher’s “I Got You Babe”, the

immortal “All Along the Watchtower” performed by Jimi Hendrix, and the eerily

infectious “Knockin’ on Heaven’s Door” By Guns n’ Roses.

His first musical stance was as a war protest folk singer. . During

the Cuban missile crisis he wrote “A Hard Rain’s A-Gonna Fall.” It was a warning

and a portrait of what a nuclear war would be. Dylan gained the title of

spokesman for his generation when he switched from folk to rock with Highway 61

Revisited.

In 1966 he [reportedly] broke his neck in a motorcycle accident. Whether

he did or didn’t, he got a chance to escape from the spotlight He did make

several albums privately after that but many said that he had lost his musical

power, and the accident had broken his spirit as well as his neck. If he had

broken his neck in the accident he would have achieved “mythical status.”

He made a musical comeback in 1975 with Blood on the Tracks. Over the

years, Dylan has retained his popularity. He constantly surprises his audiences

with impromptu changes in musical style. Many critics say the only song

writers that can be compared to Dylan are the team of Paul McCartney and John

Lennon.

John Lennon began his musical career in high school, with he band called

the Quarryman. In his sophomore year he met Paul McCarntey. A short time later,

McCartney introduced Lennon to his friend, George Harrison, who was only 13 at

the time. The band had a number of names besides The Quarrymen before they

finally decided on the Beatles, intentionally misspelled so it would have the

word “beat” in it.

Like Bob Dylan They gained the attention of a record company by putting

on an excellent show in a club. However, unlike Dylan, the recognition they

received wasn’t direct.

They had played as the backup band on a Tony Sheridan record.. The two

final songs on the record they wrote and performed themselves. Word got around ,

and one record store owners noticed that he couldn’t keep that specific record

on the shelves. Brian Epstein (the record shop owner) talked to the band, told

them what was happening with the record and asked them to make a demo recording

to send to several record companies. After being rejected by two other labels,

George Martin at Colombia like what he heard and signed the band. His only

condition was for the Beatles to loose Pete Best, their drummer. They did, and

hired Ringo Starr, who had sat in for Best several times, as the full time

drummer.

In 1962 they released their first single, “Love Me Do”. It sold like

crazy locally, but only reached number 17 on the charts, still very good for a

debut. Their next single, “Please Please Me”, made it to number one on the

charts. They had become Britain’s top rock band virtually over night. Their

popularity could only grow with the releases of two more number one singles:

“From Me to You”, and “She Loves You”. When they released the album, Please

Please Me., it stayed at number one for 30 weeks. The release of the song “I

Want to Hold Your Hand” in 1964 sparked on of the most important musical events

of this century, The British Invasion of America.

The British Invasion was a movement of British music and musicians

across the Atlantic to America. Bands such as Led Zepplin, Black Sabbath, The

Rolling Stones and The Zombies, Ccme through the hole that the Beatles had made.

Another phenomenon the song sparked was “BeatleMania”.

“BeatleMania” saw it’s beginnings when the Beatles made an appearance on

the Ed Sullivan Show. When the Beatles toured the U.S. for the first time, the

crowds exhibited a kind of “mob adulation”. Their first album was on the top

over every chart it could be on in both the U.S. and Britain. The only thing

that could take it from its place was their second album (Rock Giants). The name

of the album was Meet the Beetles. It stayed at the top of the British charts

for 22 weeks, and was selling extremely well all around the world. The singles

from the LP all went straight to number one on the pop charts, replacing each

other in succession. The sixth single of the album had the largest advanced

orders in recording history.

The Beatles produced six more albums for a total of eight, all of which

went to number one. The Beatles where also the creators of several films

including The Yellow Submarine , which has become a musical cartoon classic.

By the time the Let It Be tapes came out in 1970, the “Fab Four” where

falling apart, Paul desperately tried to keep the band together, but when he

realized he was the only one who still cared about it, he gave up as well. The

group disbanded in 1971, through a law suit. John ‘Lennon had a fairly

successful solo career with Yoko Ono after the band’s breakup, until he was

assassinated in 1980. Paul continues to have a successful musical career

to this day. The number of number one Beatles’ singles, 20 in the United States,

“has never been matched, nor is it likely to be”(Rock Giants).

Jimi Hendrix was born and raised in Seattle, Washington. His entire

family was very musically inclined. His father and aunt played together at the

local Baptist Church. His main influence was his father’s immense collection of

Blues and R & B records.

In 1959, he dropped out of high school and joined the military. He was

discharged when he hurt himself in a parachute drop (Rock Giants). After he was

discharged he joined a circle of big name black performers, such as Little

Richard and Wilson Pickett and others. This is where he would learn some of his

most impressive stage tricks like playing over his head and behind his back.

Hendrix didn’t think that he could ever become a big name in Rock and

Roll star, because of his unworthy voice. But when he heard Bob Dylan, he

realized that the voice wasn’t important as he thought it was.

In 1965 he formed Jimmy James and the Blue Flames, and began touring

Greenwich Village. While playing at these clubs he started incorporating some

of his trademark techniques into his performances, such as feedback and

fuzzboxes. Jimi got his break while The Animals where touring in the United

States. Chas Chandler, the bassist of The Animals, heard Jimi playing and

convinced him to move to Britain.

Chandler matched Jimi with Mitch Mitchel and Noel Redding, to for the

Jimi Hendrix Experience. The group rose to fame in a matter of months playing

in popular clubs. Their first single, ” Hey Joe”, and their second, “Purple

Haze”, where both fairly successful, and they where both included on the group’s

first album, Are You Experienced. His sound, matched with his talent, is a

phenomenon no musician has ever been able to duplicate. For example, he could

give the impression that he was playing two guitars at once. Hendrix made five

albums in total but was only satisfies with Electric Lady Land, which contained

his most successful single: Dylan’s “All along the Watchtower”. Hendrix’s most

memorable performance was in 1969, at Woodstock, where he played his immortal

“Star-spangled Banner”, however it is still unclear if he played the song in

such an unpatriotic, angry style in protest of the war, or from the pressure

from black militant groups. In 1970 Hendrix died from inhaling his own vomit

after an intoxication of barbiturates. The debate has never been put to rest

over whether it was suicide or carelessness. “Jimi Henrix was and original, and,

unlike most great rock musicians suffered no imitators” (Rock Giants).

Rock and roll has become one of America’s greatest musical culture

contributions. Indeed, America would not be the same if it did not have rock

and roll. One of the reasons rock has become so great is that rock groups in

more present time have tried to follow the highly creative musical standards set

by the musicians in this paper. If rock continues to follow the trends set

fourth by the greats, Neil Young’s lyrics may prove true, “Hey, hey, my, my,

rock and roll will never die.”