Since they began, the Stones have been vocal about their love for black rock musicians like Chuck Berry and Little Richard, and with this love came inspiration. When the Rolling Stones-a group of good looking, white, British men–came onto the musical scene, they became rock ‘n’ roll. If Elvis set the stage for rock ‘n’ roll, the Rolling Stones cemented it. He inspired lust in girls and envy in boys, becoming the epitome of the rock icon we still know today. He was slick, he was rebellious, and he was the hardest rock act the 1950s had seen hit the mainstream. Left: Elvis Presley / Right: The Rolling StonesĪdopting and copying the musical style, the persona, and the dance moves from Little Richard, Elvis Presley set the stage for what would become mainstream rock ‘n’ roll. Essentially, when Elvis Presley and then the Rolling Stones became the face of rock ‘n’ roll, the face of rock ‘n’ roll became white. With few exceptions, most notably Jimi Hendrix, rock ‘n’ roll was, and continues to be, saturated with white musicians. And it’s for this reason that I’d need twenty hands to count the number of white rock bands since the genre’s inception in the 1950s, but would only need two hands to count the number of black rock bands since that same time. This, in turn, depicted rock’s role in pop culture as a role to be fulfilled by white men, and that’s who was inspired to try to pave their own way in the genre. Instead of seeing men that looked like themselves achieving popular success with rock ‘n’ roll, little black boys saw men that looked like Elvis Presley and Mick Jagger. Appropriating the R&B sounds of black musicians like Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Ike Turner, white musicians like Elvis Presley and the Rolling Stones garnered mainstream acclaim, and in doing so, became the standard against which every subsequent rock ‘n’ roll band was compared to and tried to live up to. Though the history of rock is undeniably the history of black musicianship, the genre has somehow forsaken the same people that created it.īut, why? Here’s a theory. They are the core of rock ‘n’ roll.Īll of us are footnotes to the words of Chuck Berry Leonard CohenĪnd yet, rock ‘n’ roll has mutated over the years into an almost entirely white genre of music. It’s thanks to these men that rock ‘n’ roll exists in all its guitar-driven, raw, revolutionary glory. Little Richard–“a founding father of rock ‘n’ roll whose fervent shrieks, flamboyant garb, and joyful, gender-bending persona embodied the spirit and sound of that new art form” ( Rolling Stone Magazine) Chuck Berry–“the Shakespeare of rock ‘n’ roll” (as proclaimed by Bob Dylan). Without men like Little Richard and Chuck Berry, rock ‘n’ roll would be nothing.
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