Rock 'n' roll began to catch on in Britain when young people heard Bill Haley singing "Rock Around The Clock" in the teenage movie "Blackboard Jungle."
The impact of the music resulted in Bill Haley being speedily coerced into a film called inevitably Rock Around The Clock.
This had a very thin story line, a lot of crude guitar strumming, the inevitable blaring sax, a cheerful clatter of songsters, rocking dancers and clapping teenagers.
In the USA the film did only mediocre business, for by then teenagers there had discovered another new sound. Another film, entitled a little desperately, Don't Knock The Rock, was made; the only difference between this and the first being that by then where were other exponents of the rock 'n' roll cult who were showcased too.
Although it was taken up by teenagers in Britain as an anthem and became a symbol of radical youth, Rock Around The Clock was written by a professional songwriter and music publisher, born in 1919, James E Myer, aka Jimmy de Knight. His co-writer was another professional, Max C Freedman. Bill Haley was himself 30 when the song became a hit.
To find the roots of rock 'n' roll it is necessary to consider the state of American popular music when rock first reared - what people increasingly thought of as -- its ugly head.
At the time there was an absolute slump in dance bands in the States. With their maudlin melodies, inert singers and unpolished presentation, dance bands had played themselves right out of business. And so there was a desperate search for wilder and more commercial novelties.
Although Americans may consider themselves lacking in traditions, they do have a rich heritage of folk music, hilly-billy songs and jazz. Rhythm and blues had for long been the popular music of the discerning minority in America.
Jazz was known to many people, but no one had seriously tried to commercialise it. In the Southern states in 1939 a version of rock 'n' roll had been known as "Chicken Shack" music.
It was the appalling condition that popular recorded music had got itself into, that decided several people about the same time to give an airing to the music they had been enjoying at parties, parades and fetes for years.
And so from Rhythm and Blues, as a bastard child of Traditional Jazz by way of Hilly-billy Country and Western folk music, rock 'n' roll came into being.
Harry Goodman (quoted in the Melody Maker of 14 April 1956) said that even with the jazz greats like Bessie Smith, Louis Armstrong and Lionel Hampton, the basis for rock was there. Then it was called "Jump Music."
Goodman, the publisher of Haley's hits, including See You Later, Alligator, said: "Until something better comes along, we're going to have rock 'n' roll. I'd say it'll always be here. It always has, but the public don't know it."
This sound which was played, according to Haley's early press handouts, by the "most exciting, sensational and successful group of musicians in the sphere of rock 'n' roll music," does have ancestors in the pop music fads of earlier generations.
Haley's rock came as a development from the eras of the Big Apple, Black Bottom, Turkey Trot, Bunny Hug, Charleston, Boogie Woogie and Bebop.
"It's all jazz," Haley was quoted as saying. "Just a question of beats to the bar. It's the simplest form of music; a bit of Dixieland, four-bar-rhythm, and jazz."
Rock 'n' roll did not meet with a 100 per cent enthusiastic welcome. For some reason certain upright and respected people were aghast at what they thought were the effects of rock 'n' roll, and publicly condemned it.
In many states in America there were outcries and even riots. In Miami a concert before 10,000 people by Bill Haley came in for some harsh comments from the local Board of Review.
"We intend to wage a fight against this worm wiggle," said the chairman. "We will stamp out this dancing with its vile gyrations and boys shoving girls around."
In Britain, a clergyman had this to say at a sermon: "Rock and roll is a revival of devil dancing, the same sort of thing that is done in black magic rituals. The effect will be to turn young people into devil worshippers, to stimulate self-expression through sex, to provoke lawlessness and impair nervous stability."
Adults' reactions, whether condemning or merely analysing, only helped to increase the popularity of rock. It had arrived, and was something young people could claim as their own.
About this Author
Royston Ellis, author of over 60 biographies, novels and travel guides, now lives in Sri Lanka having left England, where he began as a beat poet, in 1961, age 20, for a life of travel. His latest book, The Big Beat Scene, has just been published by Music Mentor Books (http://musicmentor0.tripod.com/book_big_beat_scene.html), in a new edition for the first time in 50 years with a foreword and afterword about his association with The Beatles.
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