Playing the saxophone What is or isn’t rock and roll?

[JayeNM]

I rated turf3’s post above ‘funny’ on the basis of his comments about the British Invasion.
Of the three mentioned I don’t see the Beatles or Who were trying to be ‘old black men’ though the Beatles did the occasional cover whilst the Rolling Stones openly acknowledged their ‘debt’ to the blues, though no one could accuse Mick of sounding anything other than Mick, and they did much to popularise the music and interest the ‘public’ in the originals artists.
The bit about ‘English boys' choir/Morris dancing/English music hall’ being associated with them is also rather ‘way out man’.

OK by that...but what about someone like Clapton, for example ? IMHO he rode that "ambassador of blues"stuff pretty hard, as one example.

But my comment was more concentrating on....IF one makes the claim that American R&R evolved out of Jump Swing, Jazz, Blues, African American music, etc....which is a pretty conventional and accepted premise (fairly obvious too)....

....what did British Rock evolve out of ? Not the same genres/influences ? Some of the same ?

"Skiffle" is literally a term I have never heard of before....honestly...so my question is serious (albeit probably naive sounding to many here)

 

[Pete Thomas]

OK by that...but what about someone like Clapton, for example ? IMHO he rode that "ambassador of blues"stuff pretty hard, as one example.

Quite some years after rock and roll though and a year or two post “British Invasion”

 

[turf3]

OK by that...but what about someone like Clapton, for example ? IMHO he rode that "ambassador of blues"stuff pretty hard, as one example.

But my comment was more concentrating on....IF one makes the claim that American R&R evolved out of Jump Swing, Jazz, Blues, African American music, etc....which is a pretty conventional and accepted premise (fairly obvious too)....

....what did British Rock evolve out of ? Not the same genres/influences ? Some of the same ?

"Skiffle" is literally a term I have never heard of before....honestly...so my question is serious (albeit probably naive sounding to many here)

Very similar influences on British rock as American rock, but with a slightly different set of influences. So, for example, I don't THINK that the UK had the same kind of big "jump blues" scene as the US, since they didn't have a large African American population. They had a bigger "trad jazz" scene, though, if I understand correctly. And of course there were American performers who weren't heard much of in Britain so their influence was less, and the ones who were heard had more influence maybe than back home; and there were UK performers who were rarely heard of in the US, and so on.

The thing is that the white Brits who took up proto-rock music were at one remove from the stuff while the black Americans who did so were directly involved in the scene. (Consider the chitlin' circuit, which nothing like that existed in the UK.)

Also, black Americans were likely not to have heard much of the boys' choir vocal, English music hall tradition that was so strong in the UK. You can hear those factors all over the place in the Stones, Who, and Beatles.

So two dialects of the same thing. Both sides of the pond, they knew Elvis and Gene Vincent and Chuck Berry and so on, but the environment was different enough that the British Invasion musicians sounded fresh and new when they came across to the US.

Had there been no British rock scene to speak of in the late 50s and early 60s, how would rock music have evolved? Would Motown have been part of the main stem? Would African American musicians have remained primary in the music? Hard to say.

 

[Targa]

OK by that...but what about someone like Clapton, for example ? IMHO he rode that "ambassador of blues"stuff pretty hard, as one example.

But my comment was more concentrating on....IF one makes the claim that American R&R evolved out of Jump Swing, Jazz, Blues, African American music, etc....which is a pretty conventional and accepted premise (fairly obvious too)....

....what did British Rock evolve out of ? Not the same genres/influences ? Some of the same ?

"Skiffle" is literally a term I have never heard of before....honestly...so my question is serious (albeit probably naive sounding to many here)

Skiffle - the musical aberration that for a brief moment brought hope to the British washboard manufacturers.

 

[Targa]

the boys' choir vocal, English music hall tradition that was so strong in the UK. You can hear those factors all over the place in the Stones, Who, and Beatles.

As you’ve repeated that could you please give a few examples, I’m at a loss to see them for myself.

 

[Pete Thomas]

I’m at a loss to see them for myself.

Me too

the boys' choir vocal, English music hall tradition that was so strong in the UK. You can hear those factors all over the place in the Stones, Who, and Beatles.

Not until much later. Sgt Peppers introduced some music hall into current pop, albeit with a psychedelic tinge. Before that it was marginal - on TV but not in pop/rock music.

Boys choir? Nah. Not as much as the Beach Boys who were of course a big influence on UK pop.

But then along came psychedia

 

[turf3]

As you’ve repeated that could you please give a few examples, I’m at a loss to see them for myself.

Well!

A few examples -

So much of those old Who songs have those tight high harmonies - say, Happy Jack - right out of the choir loft (well, not RIGHT out - but Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley weren't singing like that.

Heck, the Stones didn't have those kinds of voices so they just hired an ACTUAL boys' choir in "Can't Always Get What You Want".

"Till there was you" - on one of the very early Beatles album - pure music hall, that - yes, I know, it's from a Broadway musical.

If you can't hear differences in style between the Brits of 1964 and the Americans of 1964, I just don't know what to tell you.

Another one - I don't think the Americans had anything like George Formby. Well, maybe the Hoosier Hot Shots, but I don't think they cut near as wide a swath as Formby.

 

[Targa]

Well!

A few examples -

So much of those old Who songs have those tight high harmonies - say, Happy Jack - right out of the choir loft (well, not RIGHT out - but Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley weren't singing like that.

Heck, the Stones didn't have those kinds of voices so they just hired an ACTUAL boys' choir in "Can't Always Get What You Want".

"Till there was you" - on one of the very early Beatles album - pure music hall, that - yes, I know, it's from a Broadway musical.

If you can't hear differences in style between the Brits of 1964 and the Americans of 1964, I just don't know what to tell you.

Another one - I don't think the Americans had anything like George Formby. Well, maybe the Hoosier Hot Shots, but I don't think they cut near as wide a swath as Formby.

Any one who sings harmonies is old school choir boys, Beach Boys, Byrds, Monkees…..
No Chuck Berry was singing My Ding-a-ling.
The Stones hired a choir for the effects on one song so that proves it.
(Alex Harvey had a Scots regimental bagpipe band on stage).
Till there was you, so derivative of My Old Man said Follow the Van.
Perhaps you don’t know the sound of English Music Hall.

I never said I couldn’t hear the obvious difference only that I disagree with your descriptions.

George Formby 1904 - 1961, height of his career ‘30s and ‘40s - Rock on Tommy.
Though America did have Tiny Tim.

 

[Pete Thomas]

Please nobody mention Tiny Tim

Though America did have Tiny Tim.

Doh too late

View: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=p9TtUjZVTJQ

 

[turf3]

...

George Formby 1904 - 1961, height of his career ‘30s and ‘40s - ...

Yes, which is why the kids who became English rockers would so often have grown up in families where the sound of Formby was common - records and radio.

Anyway, since you believe nothing I have to say about the influences on British rockers of the late 50s and early 60s is valid, how do YOU account for the obvious differences in their style? If you think a theory is invalid, you need to present a more convincing one. Me, I still think it's about things like the differences in English and American pop music in the 40s and 50s, and the absence of any meaningful first-hand African American musical culture in the UK. What you got?

 

[Pete Thomas]

how do YOU account for the obvious differences in their style?

Different countries. Americans in the UK were a minority, whether African Americans, European Americans, American Americans or any kind of Americans.

 

[Targa]

Yes, which is why the kids who became English rockers would so often have grown up in families where the sound of Formby was common - records and radio.

Anyway, since you believe nothing I have to say about the influences on British rockers of the late 50s and early 60s is valid, how do YOU account for the obvious differences in their style? If you think a theory is invalid, you need to present a more convincing one. Me, I still think it's about things like the differences in English and American pop music in the 40s and 50s, and the absence of any meaningful first-hand African American musical culture in the UK. What you got?

Yet one of the major influences on those was American music, for Merseybeat it was the Cunard Yanks bringing it in and the story of Jagger meeting Richards at a train station while carrying rare rhythm and blues albums. Then they played the pubs and clubs, and some like the Beatles went to Hamburg and were influenced by the other bands there, and all or the best of them developed their own styles in the same way that American artists developed theirs.
A long cry from choir boys and ‘music hall’ and Formby leaning on a lampost while cleaning windows or was it all down to his little stick of Blackpool rock.

 

[JayeNM]

Skiffle - the musical aberration that for a brief moment brought hope to the British washboard manufacturers.

You addressed the minor part of my query but not the primary....which was...

 

[JayeNM]

...IF one makes the claim that American R&R evolved out of Jump Swing, Jazz, Blues, African American music, etc....which is a pretty conventional and accepted premise (fairly obvious too)....

....what did British Rock evolve out of ? Not the same genres/influences ? Some of the same ?

you mention Cunard Yanks , Merseybeat,and birth of the Stones....both of which you point out were mechanisms of influence re what was going on in US...but then mention Germany....which I have no clue about...can you elaborate ?

Or...would ypu say Brit Rock's primary source/influence was American music ?

 

[turf3]

you mention Cunard Yanks , Merseybeat,and birth of the Stones....both of which you point out were mechanisms of influence re what was going on in US...but then mention Germany....which I have no clue about...can you elaborate ?

Or...would ypu say Brit Rock's primary source/influence was American music ?

I think it's clear that American music was the biggest influence. However, not all American music that we wre listening to over here, made it across the ocean; and when it did, it was on records, so live performances were far less common.

I think it's fair to say that the British got a selection of American music to be influenced by, that was a bit different than the Americans heard. Of course, there was no "chitlin' circuit" in the UK to feed early rock and roll. They were getting that information second or third hand, whereas many of the early black US rock and rollers came directly from the juke-joint milieu.

Nobody seems to want to admit to non-rock influences on British rockers, but I think it's obvious that the general musical scene in Britain when guys like Lennon, McCartney, Townshend, Jagger, etc., were boys just starting to play music for themselves, was clearly different than the scene in the US at the same time (say, 1948-1955 or so). But if I mention those people that were discussed BY THE ENGLISH ROCKERS THEMSELVES, I get yelled at.

 

[Targa]

you mention Cunard Yanks , Merseybeat,and birth of the Stones....both of which you point out were mechanisms of influence re what was going on in US...but then mention Germany....which I have no clue about...can you elaborate ?

Or...would ypu say Brit Rock's primary source/influence was American music ?

The Beatles in Hamburg - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[Grumps]

The Beatles... Stones... The Who...

I was with the Rutles.

 

[JSL]

I think it's clear that American music was the biggest influence. However, not all American music that we wre listening to over here, made it across the ocean; and when it did, it was on records, so live performances were far less common.

+1. While it's true that the records were influential (likely on both 'sides of the pond'), I agree that recordings do not have anywhere near the influence of seeing/hearing the music in live performance. I still have a very clear memory of so much live music, especially the earliest exposure to blues & jazz. The first time I heard Albert King live at the Fillmore West in SF way back when I was in high school (late '60s) the ear-opening and enlightening experience of hearing the 'real thing' in person would in no way have happened to the same extent just hearing a recording. Same thing for hearing jazz musicians in live performance such as Dexter Gordon, Sonny Rollins, Sonny Stitt, Dizzy Gillespie, Monk, Art Blakey, Roland Kirk, and on & on. I doubt I would have been influenced anywhere near the way I was, if at all, just from recordings of the same musicians.

I think the same could be said for the early Rock & Roll and Jump Blues of the '40s & '50s. So, it makes sense that the R&R musicians here in the States at that time would have been more profoundly influenced than British musicians who didn't get such direct exposure to that music. I certainly could be wrong, but that's what makes sense to me.

p.s. I should add that Pete Thomas actually played in the band with Fats Domino. So, he'd be a notable exception.

 

[Pete Thomas]

p.s. I should add that Pete Thomas actually played in the band with Fats Domino. So, he'd be a notable exception.

Yes but that was at least 3 decades later (in case anyone thought I was that old). I also played with Bill Haley but the bigger deal for me was with Fats because of the experience of playing with the horn section - some of whom were from back in the day, notably Lee Allen, Herb Hardesty, Dave Bartholomew. Not to mention Roy Montrell on guitar.

 

[Pete Thomas]

but then mention Germany....which I have no clue about...can you elaborate ?

There was a huge audience in Germany, groups like the Beatles were touring there for years before they became famous or decided to invade America.

Someone may correct me on this but post WW2 there were a lot of US army and airforce bases. Plus clubs like the Star Club (I once had to do an encore at gun point but that is a different story)