IMO, it really all started with Muddy Waters:
The revolution began inauspiciously enough in 1948 with the release of a 78-rpm single by a singer-guitarist called Muddy Waters. Coupled on Aristocrat 1305 were a pair of traditional Mississippi Delta-styled pieces "I Cant Be Satisfied" and "I Feel Like Going Home," and on them Waters' dark, majestic singing. Waters' use of amplification gave his guitar playing a new, powerful, striking edge and sonority that introduced to traditional music a sound its listeners found very exciting, comfortably familiar yet strangely compelling and, above all, immensely powerful, urgent.
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5 comments:
Rock came from two sources. Blues and gospel are definitely two of them, but let's not forget the influence country music had on rock too. The South had a large Irish population early on epitomized by the fictional Scarlet O'Hara. The settlers brought their Celtic folk music with them and in turn that evolved into bluegrass and country, and eventually, when electric instruments became available, rockabilly. This is where Buddy Holly & the Crickets, Bill Haley & The Comets, and Elvis Presley found much inspiration along with the sources you site.
Charlie, you're right ... I wasn't forgetting about them, just marveling at Muddy Waters singing this song this morning and hearing so many of the phrases in this song that became commonplace rock terminology :)
Genres come, go, evolve, give birth, melt together. None came from a vacuum or lives in one.
Influences are both wide and deep. I like knowing where it came from, but I more care about where it is going.
Johnny G, excellent point and well said.
(I got a tattoo from a guy named Johnny G once)
P.S. Hadn't seen the clip of Muddy. Loved it. Thanks.1
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