The Roots of Rock (Pre-50's)

What is rock? Well that is one difficult question to answer if you go and look at the rock today and the rock from the past. That is why I have decided to take a look into where this genre originated and see how it has developed into what it is today.

The Roots of Rock
(Pre-50’s)

The earliest root of rock ‘n’ roll is gospel. Gospel is the style of folk music whose roots were of a’ cappella singing. This music could be interpreted as a melancholic cry, often related to the standards of being black and poor in America. This genre was meant to uplift the spirit and strengthen the soul. Its main focus was to inspire others to praise the lord. Many gospel singers and musicians went on and performed blues inspired music that was often shunned by churchgoers. The type of sound that inspired many of them was originated by the Chicago pianist-composer Thomas A. Dorsey. His bluesy hymns revolutionized gospel and took us one step closer to rock.
The next root we are going to dig up is blues. Blues is probably the most deep and rooted origin in rock because you can still hear these influences in today’s music. The intensity and structure gave a lot to the shape of the sound. Blues told the story of the migration of African-Americans up the Mississippi, and you can see the strongest areas of the sound from around there like the Mississippi Delta and Chicago. Blues began with a voice and guitar. It basically was dialogue between the two speaking of the personal woes in a world of harsh reality such as a lost love, cruelty of police officers, oppression lead by white people, and hard times in general.
The next root that we will speak about is rhythm and blues, or R&B. R&B was generally used to define black music which would have included many of the music already noted above. One thing that was distinctive with R&B music that truly made it a genre alone was the twelve bar blues format and boogie-woogie with a back beat which was contributed as an early structure of Rock.
For the final root of rock we have country. This is the only root that is mainly related to the white culture, in which had claimed rock to have been originated by them. Country donated its twang and a general connection to the white culture.