To understand rock 'n' roll, therefore, we must understand what slavery was, and where it left the sons and daughters of Africans who knew nothing of the European roots of American culture. For slavery provides the perfect rationale, the perfect explanation for why rock 'n' roll should stand apart from other musical forms, as a cultural revolution unto itself. Every society, after all, has its indigenous music, which serves as entertainment, accompaniment to ritual and ceremony, bonding force, story teller, preserver of history. Rock 'n' roll, certainly, is modern American folk music in these respects, successor to Stephen Foster and Cole Porter. But that is only a minor facet of rock 'n' roll's place in American, indeed in world society since 1955, and the larger elements of rock's influence reach far beyond the traditional cultural adhesive status of other folk musics. To solidify this claim, and to explain it, we can point directly to slavery, which forcibly mixed the radically different elements of two cultures in a boiling cauldron (rather than a melting pot), bringing to white, rural, agrarian America a series of rhythmic and vocal traditions that originated on the other side of the planet in Africa, and adding an important spiritual, melancholy, almost fatalistic sensibility that grew up by itself in the slThis last ingredient is crucial: they didn't sing the Blues back in Africa. Rock 'n' roll is an African-American hybrid, but its strongest root is the very suffering, and survival, of generations of slaves, who learned how music could help a man to transcend earthly pain for a while. The Blues sings of sadness, toil, and loss, but the reason for singing the Blues is to relieve the hurt these things cause. The Blues, with its simple, repetitive rhythms and chords and lyrical phrases, provides a comforting communal message that musician and audience can share, as long as they know where the singer is coming from. It's no wonder that Blues singers were so popular during the Depression, especially in the South, among both black and white audiences. It's also easy to understand the strong bonds between the Blues (and later R&B and rock 'n' roll) and Gospel music: from a secular point of view, singing about the Lord lifting you up and singing about the Blues fallin' down like rain are spiritually equivalent acts. aves' imprisoned souls.
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