Henry Jenkins suggests that “the story of American arts in the twentieth century might be told in terms of the displacement of folk culture by mass media…folk culture practices were pushed underground” (139). But if this was true of the culture as a whole, the more common trend among young people, especially as the 1950s wore on, was to embrace the folk and tribal aspects of rock ‘n’ roll, and to follow the folk culture as it moved underground. In this process, the music became more than an entertainment, but a powerful symbol of larger ideas and strivings. Rockaphobia not only failed to curb the popularity of rock ‘n’ roll, but imbued it with greater power to express and represent teenage discontent. In the latter part of the decade, when rock ‘n’ roll emerged from the margins and became a dominant musical genre, it not only reshaped the musical landscape, but helped to provide a philosophical basis for what would become the counterculture.←52 | 53→
Notes
1. Albin Zak suggests that Sinatra’s antipathy toward the music of the next generation may have begun with his stint as host of the radio version of Your Hit Parade, on which he was called upon to sing the top hit of the week, including such ditties as “Too Fat Polka” and “Woody Woodpecker.” This was in 1947, before rock ‘n’ roll, but Sinatra became contemptuous of the shift in emphasis from “classicism” and “professionalism” to novelty and a more overt sexuality. The licentiousness of rock was hardly off-putting to Sinatra’s Rat Pack pal Dean Martin, whose “Wham Bam, Thank You Ma’am” was banned from radio airplay in 1951 along with Dottie O’Brien’s explicit “Four or Five Times” and any number of rhythm & blues songs.
2. Lenny Kaye discusses how the crooners that predated Sinatra, including Rudy Vallee and Russ Columbo, first figured out how to use the microphone, “this vibrating metallic device” (52), as a tool for creating intimacy.
3. Another charge first leveled by religious leaders in the 1950s was that rock lyrics contained embedded satanic messages. This myth was so persistent that a study was conducted (Vokey and Read 1985) in order to demonstrate that, even if such messages existed, they would have negligible effect on listeners.
4. A studio recording was made of Lewis arguing with Sun Records’ Sam Phillips about the song being the work of the devil. For an account of that dialogue see Nick Tosches’ Hellfire, pp. 129–33.
5. The title Seduction of the Innocent was first used by psychiatrist Fredric Wertham for his 1954 book that warned of the power of comic books to turn teenagers into delinquents.
6. The National Association of Broadcasters (NAB) was called the NARTB for seven years in the 1950s.
7. Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz were allowed to have their beds pushed together on the first two seasons of I Love Lucy only because it was a well known fact that they were married in real life, not just on TV.
8. This blockade presented only a mild inconvenience for many artists, but for those whom physicality was a logical extension of their music, such as the young Elvis Presley, it presented a major obstacle. One entire strain of rock ‘n’ roll that was suppressed due to this puritanical strain was the gay rock subculture from which Little Richard emerged. By sheer force of personality, he was able to persevere, but cross-dressing stars of the gay clubs such as Esquerita and Bobby Marchan were off limits as far as TV was concerned.
9. Jackson (nee Benjamin Jackson) specialized in the kind of risqué material that White adults were particularly worried about. Among his most requested songs were “I Want a Bowlegged Woman” and “Big Ten Inch Record.”
10. This visual “outing” cut both ways. While many radio listeners were surprised to find out Elvis was White, The Mar-keys had the opposite problem. Based on their 1961 hit instrumental “Last Night” and the Stax label affiliation, the group was assumed to be Black, which caused some problems when they showed up for gigs at Black clubs.
11. In addition to playing cover versions of records, radio had its own equivalent behind the microphone with what might be called “cover DJs.” Alan Freed’s success in appropriating Black music and slang inspired Wolfman Jack (nee Robert Smith) and others to follow suit.←53 | 54→ Denied a job himself, Vernon Winslow was paid by White station owners in New Orleans to train White DJs to “sound black.” Another enterprising DJ, John R. Richbourg, actually ran a school for DJs who were White but did not want to in sound like it. See Hilmes, pages 151–3.
12. In several interviews, Baker slyly claimed that, when she took out an insurance policy for an overseas trip, she named Gibbs as her beneficiary out of concern that, without Baker’s songs to cover, Gibbs would lose a major source of her income.
13. See Under African Skies, the 2012 documentary about the making of Paul Simon’s 1986 Graceland LP for an extended dialogue on this subject.
14. Quoted in Bill Millar’s liner notes to the Edsel Records reissue album The Treniers: Rockin’ is Our Bizness.
15. Unable to resist the mayhem, comedian Lewis joined The Treniers on stage, actually sitting in on drums, thereby claiming his own small slice of rock history.
16. WDIA’s motto at the time was “The Black Spot on your Radio Dial—50,000 Watts of Black Power.”
17. Interestingly, Billy Daniels had a small acting role in the 1959 film The Beat Generation, subtitled “Behind the weird, way-out world of the Beatniks!” (The movie was also shown under the title This Rebel Age). Also, his daughter, Yvonne Daniels, was a disc jockey known as “The First Lady of Radio” at several Chicago stations from the 1960s to the 1990s, including a stint on WSDM-FM, “the All Girl Jazz Station” owned by Leonard Chess. There is a street named after her in downtown Chicago.
18. Sykes’ charm earned him the nickname Honeydripper, which he memorialized in his 1931 song of that title; it became a national hit for Joe Liggins in 1945.
19. Brooks’ revival came after actor/director Sean Penn used her song “Anytime, Anyplace, Anywhere” in his 1995 film The Crossing Guard.
20. According to Nelson George, DJ Zenas “Daddy” Sears helped Willis to get his own weekly Atlanta TV show in the early 1950s. It was on these shows that Willis, seeking a visual gimmick, took to wearing a turban (46–7).
21. Inspired by this event, Brown hosted his own syndicated show, Future Shock, recorded at Ted Turner’s UHF station WTCG from 1976–79. In addition to displaying emerging dance styles, the show featured segments on African American history. But Brown’s politics were mercurial. In the wake of the assassination of Martin Luther King Jr. in 1968, he was widely credited with quelling riots in Boston and Washington D.C. But he was roundly criticized for publicly befriending President Richard Nixon, hardly a supporter of civil rights.
22. The story of Don Cornelius and Soul Train is explored in the TV series American Soul (BET 2019– ).
23. After this protest, the Baltimore County Executive told protestors that they had “set back race relations by 20 years” (Schechter pers. corr.). The Executive was Spiro Agnew.
24. Sometimes called the Beach Blanket movies, this series also featured music from Dick Dale and the Del-Tones and other progenitors of a new rock sub-genre: surf music.
25. Berman was speaking specifically about architecture, but the description is applicable.
26. The view of rock music as anti-literate has had a long (shall we say) shelf life. In the 1980s, Allan Bloom devoted a chapter in his best-selling book The Closing of the American Mind←54 | 55→ to the insidious impact of music. “It is not only not reasonable,” he said, “it is hostile to reason,” going on to compare rock music to junk food and pornography (71). He also asserted in 1987 that Mick Jagger’s star was fading.
27. Cage had been defying musical conventions