Rock And Roll History

The History of Rock and Roll – By Berkley Shofner
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of predominantly African-American genres such as blues, boogie woogie, jump blues, jazz, and gospel music, together with Western swing and country music. Though elements of rock and roll can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until the 1950s.
"Rock and roll" can refer either to the first wave of music that originated in the US in the 1950s prior to its development into "rock music", or more broadly to rock music and culture. For the purpose of differentiation,
Rock first surfaced as its own genre in 1953; a time of racial segregation in the United States. It was thought of by White people as an "evil music" due its blend of African American and White2 cultures. However, that did not stop it from becoming too biggest thing since nuclear energy (which was the biggest thing since sliced bread). The first huge concert in Rock's history was "The Moondog Coronation" put on by Alan "Moondog" Freed, a DJ from Cleveland, which nearly sparked a riot, due to thousands of fans trying to get into the sold out show. In the next few years, the Rock movement took a large swing toward White youth when "Bill Haley & His Comets" played one of the biggest hits ever, "Rock Around the Clock". At the same time, Elvis Presley was gaining popularity playing "Rockabilly", a blend of Rock and Country music that became very popular in the south. He became the world's first music superstar. In 1957, Rock became a worldwide power when Buddy Holly and Jerry Lee Lewis toured Australia. Due to immense history, of which I could write a whole paper on, I will only go this far in rock's
Because there are so many changes in the history of the music I will focus on Grunge Rock for this portion of the essay. "Grunge music is generally characterized by "dirty" guitar, strong riffs, and heavy drumming. The "dirty" sound resulted both from a stylistic change in the standard method of playing punk rock, and from the common use of guitar distortion and feedback", is the description of the music offered by answers.com. This music was started by bands from the north-west of the United States such as Nirvana, from a town near Seattle, Washington. Nirvana was around from 1991 to 1994 which was around the same time that Grunge music was popular. It began with Nirvana's "Smells like Teen Spirit" becoming a hit among fans and the music soon escalated into a mainstream endemic. Many bands such as Pearl Jam and Alice in Chains, Emerged over those years and sold many records though. Suddenly, Kurt Cobain allegedly killed himself by shooting up with 3 times the lethal amount of Heroin and shooting himself. He was found the next day in the greenhouse of his home in Los Angeles. There is a theory among Nirvana fans, however, that Courtney Love, Cobain's wife, paid someone to kill him. However, the Los Angeles Police refused to reopen the case after his death was ruled a suicide. From there the music lost momentum and soon slipped back into