Was rock and roll born in late 1951, when the
irrepressible and melodramatic singer Johnnie Ray
imitated dance-hall shouters?
Or in July 1954, when a
shy young man, Elvis Presley, is said to have knocked
on the door of Sam Phillips' studio with the idea of
cutting a record for his mother's birthday? Or in
March 1955, when the film Blackboard Jungle
made Bill Haley's 'Rock
Around the Clock' a smash hit? Or, that same
year, when disc jockey and promoter Alan Freed
claimed to baptise the new
fashionable dance with the name 'rock 'n' roll'?
The date matters little. This music, in one form or
another, had existed for a long time. What changed is
that certain show-business tycoons calculated that
if rock and roll
remained exclusively black property, blacks
would receive all the
profits - and the profits would necessarily be
limited.
It seemed
critical to open rock up to the huge white
market. But the moguls needed an acceptable product — what white
teenager could identify with the potentially off-putting image of a
Howlin' Wolf or a Sonny Boy Williamson? The
new image of rock and roll would be one
decked out with all the appropriate enticements
of youth, beauty and rebelliousness. James
Dean in Rebel Without a
Cause and Marion Brando in The Wild One
had already shown
the way. They embodied this vague feeling of defiance against an adult world
perceived as a generator of boredom,
submission and cowardice.
