How did rock and roll start?

Get ready to rock out with Mira and Finn on History's Not Boring! Have you ever wondered where your favorite upbeat, jump-around music comes from? To find the true inventors of rock and roll, we have to travel all the way back to America in the 1940s and 1950s! Before there were massive stadium concerts, brilliant Black musicians took rhythm and blues, gospel, and country music and mixed them together into a brand new, electrifying sound! Discover how Sister Rosetta Tharpe shredded on the electric guitar like nobody before her! Learn how Chuck Berry wrote the legendary hit "Johnny B. Goode" and totally invented the guitar solo! Hear the wild story of Little Richard screaming "Tutti Frutti" and changing the way singers perform forever! We'll also meet Fats Domino, Bo Diddley, and Ray Charles, who added incredible gospel and soul to the mix. Then, a Memphis truck driver named Elvis Presley brought this amazing new sound to white radio stations, shocking parents but electrifying kids everywhere! Finally, see how this amazing music inspired a band of four lads from Liverpool called the Beatles! Grab your air guitar and tune in!

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to History's Not Boring by Kidopoly.com. I'm Mira. And I'm Finn. Before we start, we have a very special shout-out today. A huge thank you to Eleanor, age 6, from Indianapolis, Indiana. Hi Eleanor, thanks for listening. Wait, what are we talking about today? Well, Eleanor originally asked us to cover the amazing musician Ray Charles. And that got us thinking about the giant musical explosion he was a part of. A musical explosion? Like boom! Not a real explosion, but a boom in music history. Today we are answering a huge question. Who invented rock and roll? Rock and roll!

SPEAKER_01 0:47

Guitars, drums, screaming, jumping around on stage.

SPEAKER_00 0:52

Exactly. Imagine this, Finn. It's the 1950s. Most music on the radio is very polite, slow and quiet.

SPEAKER_01 1:02

That sounds kind of sleepy.

SPEAKER_00 1:04

But then, a new sound hits the airwaves. It's so loud, so fast and so energetic that parents are terrified of it. And some cities actually try to ban it from being played. Banned? Just for being too loud and awesome! Yep. Within just 10 years, this new music completely takes over the planet, making teenagers dance from New York to Liverpool. But who started it all? To find the inventors of rock and roll, we have to go back to America in the 1940s and 1950s. What was it like back then? Well, it was a complicated time. In many parts of America, the country was heavily segregated. That meant black Americans and white Americans were often forced to live, go to school and even listen to music separately.

SPEAKER_01 1:57

That's really unfair.

SPEAKER_00 1:59

It was, but music has a way of bringing people together. Black musicians were playing styles of music called rhythm and blues, and gospel music, which is the energetic music played in churches. Like clapping and singing loud. Exactly! Now, this brings us to the person Eleanor asked about, Ray Charles. He was born in 1930 in Georgia. What was his story? When Ray was just seven years old, he completely lost his eyesight to an illness. He had to go to a special school in Florida for blind children. Oh no! How did he learn to play music if he couldn't see the notes? He was incredibly smart. He learnt to read music using Braille, a system of raised bumps you feel with your fingers. By the early 1950s, he started mixing up different music styles.

SPEAKER_01 2:51

Wait, like a musical scientist.

SPEAKER_00 2:54

Exactly. In 1954, Ray Charles recorded a song called I Got a Woman. He took the fast, hand clapping energy of church gospel music and mashed it together with the everyday storytelling of rhythm and blues. And created a brand new sound. Yes. He basically invented a style called soul music, which became a huge building block for rock and roll. But Ray Charles wasn't the only one mixing things up. Let's jump back just a few years earlier, to 1944. There was a woman named Sister Rosetta Tharp. She played the electric guitar.

SPEAKER_01 3:32

Wait, electric guitars existed in 1944? I thought that was a long time ago.

SPEAKER_00 3:38

They did. And Sister Rosetta Tharp played hers like nobody else. Most people plucked the strings gently. She plugged her guitar into an amplifier, turned it up loud, and played with heavy, fuzzy distortion.

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Whoa! So she was shredding on guitar before rock and roll even had a name.

SPEAKER_00 3:58

You got it! Her 1944 song, Strange Things Happening Every Day, is often called the very first rock and roll record. She influenced almost every guitarist who came after her.

SPEAKER_01 4:11

So who came next?

SPEAKER_00 4:13

Down in New Orleans in 1949, a piano player named Fats Domino recorded a song called The Fat Man. It had a heavy, driving beat. It was so catchy, it sold an estimated one million copies. A million copies? Back then? That's enough record to build a giant tower! It was huge! But if Fats Domino brought the heavy beat, a man named Little Richard brought the absolute wildness. Ooh, how wild! In 1955, Little Richard went into a recording studio. He was frustrated because his slow songs weren't working. So, on a break, he started pounding on the piano as hard as he could and screamed out some nonsense words. What did he scream? He yelled, a wop boppaloo moppa lop bamboom! The song was called Tootie Fruity. Ha! That doesn't mean anything, but it sounds so fun. Exactly! It didn't have to make sense, it just had to make you want to move. Around the same time, another musician named Bo Diddley built his own guitar shaped like a rectangle. A rectangular guitar, like a giant cereal box with strings. Exactly like that. He played it with a special galloping rhythm that we now call the Bo Diddley beat. The pieces of rock and roll were all coming together. By 1955, rock and roll was bubbling like a volcano ready to erupt. And then a man named Chuck Berry stepped up to the microphone.

SPEAKER_01 5:51

What did Chuck Berry do?

SPEAKER_00 5:53

He practically invented the rock guitar solo. He wrote a song in 1955, released in 1958, about a country boy who could play guitar like ringing a bell. It was called Johnny Be Good. Oh, I know that one! People still play that today. They do! Chuck Berry was also famous for his duck walk, where he would hop across the stage on one leg while playing a blazing guitar solo. The teenagers loved it.

SPEAKER_01 6:23

That sounds hilarious. I'm gonna try doing a duck walk later.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

But remember what we said about America being segregated? These incredible black musicians had invented rock and roll, but many white radio stations still refused to play their records. That's ridiculous! So how did the music get to everyone else? In 1954, a 19-year-old truck driver walked into Sun Studio in Memphis, Tennessee. He had slicked back hair and loved listening to black rhythm and blues musicians. His name was Elvis Presley. That's what people called him. Elvis recorded a fast, wild version of an older blues song called That's Alright. Because he was white, the segregated radio stations played him. Did he get super famous? He became the biggest star on the planet. He had 18 number one hit songs. When teenagers saw Elvis shaking his hips on television, they screamed so loud you couldn't even hear the music.

SPEAKER_01 7:30

It sounds like the whole world was going crazy for this music.

SPEAKER_00 7:33

They were, and it even crossed the Atlantic Ocean. In 1964, a band of four young lads from Liverpool, England, who had grown up worshipping Chuck Berry and Little Richard, came to America. They were called the Beatles. The Beatles! How many people watched them? When the Beatles played on the Ed Sullivan television show in February 1964, an estimated 73 million people tuned in to watch. That was over a third of the entire country. That performance by the Beatles proved that rock and roll wasn't just a quick fad, it had permanently changed the world.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

How exactly did it change things? Besides giving people cool songs to dance to.

SPEAKER_00 8:19

Well, it actually helped break down some of those unfair racial barriers. Teenagers of all races wanted to go to the same concerts to see their favourite musicians play. That's awesome! The music brought them together. It also created the very idea of a teenager. Before the 1950s, kids just listened to whatever their parents listened to. But with the invention of small portable transistor radios, kids could take rock and roll wherever they went.

SPEAKER_01 8:48

Haha, it was like the 1950s version of a smartphone.

SPEAKER_00 8:52

Exactly! Now, are you ready for my favourite mind-blowing fun fact about rock and roll? Yes, lay it on me. You know Chuck Berry's song, Johnny Be Good? In 1977, NASA launched the Voyager space probes into deep space. They attached a golden record to it, containing the most important sounds from Earth, to show aliens what humanity is like. Wait, did they put rock and roll on it? They sure did. Johnny Be Good is on that record. Right now, Chuck Berry's rock and roll guitar solo is floating more than 15 billion miles away from Earth.

unknown 9:31

Haha.

SPEAKER_01 9:32

That means there might be space aliens doing the duckwalk right now.

SPEAKER_00 9:36

Alright, Finn, time for the quiz! Are you ready to see what you remember about the inventors of rock and roll? Oh, I am so ready. Bring on the questions. Okay, first question. Which musician recorded I Got a Woman in 1954 after learning to read Braille music? Next one. Who played electric guitar with heavy distortion in 1944 on strange things happening every day? Question 3. What was the nonsense phrase Little Richard screamed in his 1955 song Tootie Fruity? Alright, here's number four. What was the name of the 19-year-old truck driver who recorded at Sun Studio in Memphis? Last question. About how many people watched the Beatles perform on television in February 1964. Great job! Let's go through the answers! The answer to question one is Ray Charles. For question two, it was Sister Rosetta Tharp. Number three, the answer is a wop bop, a loom op a lop bamboom. Question four, it was Elvis Presley. And the final answer is an estimated 73 million people tuned in.

SPEAKER_01 11:06

Wow, I can't believe how many incredible people it took to invent rock and roll. It wasn't just one person. That's exactly right.

SPEAKER_00 11:14

It was a beautiful mix of gospel, rhythm and blues, and country, brought together by brilliant musicians who wanted to make people dance.

SPEAKER_01 11:24

I think Sister Rosetta Tharp is my new hero. I want to play electric guitar just like her.

SPEAKER_00 11:30

I love that. Hey listeners, if you loved learning about the birth of rock and roll today, we'd love it if you could leave us a five-star review.

SPEAKER_01 11:39

Yeah, just scroll down on your podcast app and tap those five stars. It helps us keep making the show.

SPEAKER_00 11:46

And don't forget to head over to our site, kidopoly.com. We've got tons of fun learning games and activities waiting for you there.

SPEAKER_01 11:54

Plus, if you want a shout out like Eleanor got today, or if you just want to say hi, send us an email at hello at kidopoly.com.

SPEAKER_00 12:03

Thanks for travelling back to the 1950s with us today. See you next time on History's Not Boring. Bye everyone!

SPEAKER_01 12:10

A whop boppaloom op a lop bamboo!