Behind Kerouac's literary road and the photographic
path taken by Frank loomed a country that was a
victim of its own emptiness and immobility, no
longer looking forward to anything, without future,
without hope. The pursuit of happiness guaranteed
by the Constitution found its realization in a
consumer frenzy and a petty regulated existence
in which 'dangerous' - or 'immoral' - activities
such as sexual relations, motorcycle rides and
certain types of dancing were
prohibited.
Middle-class
white society prospered, resigned, self-satisfied and suspicious of
its neighbours — particularly its black neighbours.
One hundred years after the end of the Civil War,
blacks did not enjoy their full civil rights. Southern
states still practised segregation, and most blacks'
economic level, urban as well as rural, was extremely
low. Set apart culturally from the white community,
blacks invented their own forms of expression,
particularly in the musical field, and created systems
of independent distribution for it: record labels,
concert circuits, local radio stations. Simply by
listening to those stations, white teenagers discovered,
to their great relief, music far more lively than the
tunes being sung by Bing Crosby and Frank
Sinatra, the stars of the day.
Groups like the Ink Spots, which were very popular in
the thirties, were also descended from gospel. One
music would devote itself to the secular virtues of teenage
romance, and the other would remain deeply religious.
Blues singers occasionally found more lucrative outlets
in bands that played on the weekends for social
occasions. One popular dance, developed in the forties,
was named 'rock and roll'. To balance, to roll, to reel,
to spin ... the graphic vocabulary of the black world had
little in common with repressed white ways when it came
to describing physical or sexual pleasure. Often backed
by a honking saxophone, certain singers known as
'shouters' had begun to emphasize the beat by screaming,
a technique inherited directly from preachers. Little
Richard, Screamin' Jay Hawkins and, to a lesser extent,
Ray Charles, exemplify this style.
A pianist, organist, saxophonist and - primarily -
a singer, much inspired by gospel music, Ray Charles
skilfully combined the best of blues, jazz
and soul. Discovered by Atlantic Records
producer Jerry Wexler, Ray Charles recorded
several tunes in the fifties that were immediately
popular with young audiences: 'I Got a Woman',
"What'd I Say and 'Hit the Road, Jack'. Strongly
influenced by rhythm and blues, this was rock and roll music
before the term was even defined.
Enormously exciting for the teenagers who discovered it, this
music was often recorded in makeshift studios in
Memphis, St Louis and Chicago, on the old migration
path to the north, marking these cities as
capitals of the blues. Black radio stations in
the south were the first to broadcast it, well
before big cities like New York or Los
Angeles. Small labels (Vee Jay, Ace, King)
flourished, featuring stars like
Howlin' Wolf
who recorded in Memphis with producer Sam Phillips
Muddy "waters and Sonny Boy Williamson. They were great musicians, experienced bluesmen who charged
up the old blues idiom with electricity.
At the same time further south, in New Orleans,
pianists ruled, playing a musical style born in the
brothels and barrelhouses of the French Quarter. Dave
Bartholomew ('The Monkey') and Fats Domino
('Blueberry Hill', 'My Blue Heaven', 'Ain't That a Shame')
played music that combined the influences of boogie-woogie, traditional jazz inherited from Jelly Roll
Morton" and Fats Waller, and the energetic rhythm and blues of
dance halls. They enjoyed a solid local reputation well
before the historic appearance of rock and roll.
