The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock & Roll

The sound of a sax solo breaking loose from a series of driving riffs is one of the most exciting experiences of this century’s music.

“It’s Only Make Believe”, and his gasping, end-of-the-world vocal seemed to bring an end to the era of innocence that had opened with “Young Love”. Now the message was, we can’t dupe them any more: People see us everywhere They think that you really care But myself I can’t deceive I know it’s only make believe

The bands were judged partly on their ability to generate intense excitement at the end of a dance. For this, they needed at least one saxophonist who could blow hard and long at fast rocking tempos, and at least one singer who could match him, with a clear strong delivery.

Leiber and Stoller contracted to write and produce material for the Coasters, and created one of the most entertaining series of hits associated with rock ’n’ roll. The two men were among the few writers to put to advantage rock ’n’ roll’s restriction on verse forms – the fact that images needed to be specific, complete, preferably succinct. Accept

unlike the lyrical, warm instrumentalists in the dance blues, the instrumentalists in rockabilly responded more violently to unpredictable inflections in the singer’s voice, shifting into double-time for a few bars to blend with a sudden acceleration in the singer’s tempo.

In rhythm and blues, the soloists were generally more “selfish”, concerned to express their own feelings, depending on the rest of the band to keep the beat going and the volume up while they blew their hearts out and their heads off. In jazz, there was usually more interplay between musicians, more exploration into melody and harmony, less relianc

Fats Domino was the singer, whose apparently eternal and universal appeal defies musical analysis. His records were simple, convincing, memorable, and danceable. While a steady rhythm pounded from his full-chorded piano playing, a band led and arranged by his producer Dave Bartholomew played easy riffs that emphasized the dance beat, and Domino san

“Alley Oop” sounded like a Coasters record, made while Leiber and Stoller were taking a lunch-break; it had some of the same ingredients, including an alley piano style borrowed from “Searchin’ ”, and a lyric about a figure from current American pop culture; but there was a sloppiness that Leiber and Stoller would have tidied up. And no wonder, as

by the early fifties, adolescents really seemed to consider themselves a “new breed” of some kind.