The Blues Had A Baby And They Named It Rock And Roll

As World War II came to an end, the Golden Age of radio also came to a close. Despite the invention of television some years back, television had not yet become popular to any great success. But a significant shift in the media hierarchy was about to occur during the post-war boom. America was moving into a baby boom, an economic boom, and a television boom. The numbers of televisions owned in America went from 6,000 in 1946 to 20,000,000 in 1952 after the war (Clark and Bronson 16). As for radio, the lack of shellac put a stop to much record pressing during the war, but as the war ended and shellac was no longer in short supply, it became more affordable for the networks to have a radio announcer host a show and play records. Over a period of the next few years, radio orchestras became obsolete, and the disc jockey as a personality was born. At the time there were stations that catered to blacks and other stations that catered to whites. While there was the occasional white deejay on the black station, majoritively it was black deejays playing for blacks and whites deejays playing for whites. The music they played suited such an arrangement. Music b

They played records and gabbed about local events for three hours every weekday afternoon and Saturdays…To promote the show, they invited teen-agers to stop by the studio after school. They let the kids dance while the records played. From time to time, they allowed them to introduce themselves over the mike and talk about their high schools. Grady and Hurst got top ratings with their mixture of popular music, unsophisticated patter, and kids. (Clark and Robinson 37)

But today the rage is rhythm and rhyme,

1956 was not a very good year for Bob Horn. He was arrested twice for drunk driving, and in between was charged with statutory rape of a young girl (Clark and Robinson 47). Needless to say, he was fired from Bandstand. Dick Clark became the new host of Bandstand starting the first week of July (Clark and Robinson 47-48). While Bandstand was switching hands in Philadelphia, Elvis Presley’s “Heartbreak Hotel” “appeared on Billboard’s three best-selling charts-the pop ‘Top 100,’ rhythm and blues best-seller, and country and western best-seller lists (Jackson, Big Beat Heat 139).” Elvis made his television debut on the “second-rate” Stage Show that “was hosted by aging bandleaders Tommy and Jimmy Dorsey and produced by noted comedian Jackie Gleason (Jackson, Big Beat Heat 139).” “In dancing blips of light, television registered the bobbing hanks of hair, the swinging jackets, the swiveling hips,” and made Elvis’ controversial appearance a mild success (Marling 179). While it has been said that “rock ‘n’ roll and television were made for each other,” Stage Show didn’t quite do Elvis justice (Marling 179). On September 9th, Elvis appeared on Ed Sullivan, despite Sullivan’s vow to never allow Elvis on his program, to an estimated “84 percent of the total viewing audience (Jackson, Big Beat Heat 142).” America’s white youth looked to Elvis as the first rock & roll idol that white America could claim all its own (Jackson, Big Beat Heat 143).

In 1955, Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock was a huge hit on both the rhythm and blues and the pop charts, and has since become known as the anthem for rock & roll. Its success was due particularly to the movie, The Blackboard Jungle, which became the first movie to use a rock & roll song in its soundtrack. Subsequently, this was the first time many adults were exposed to rock & roll. The storyline of The Blackboard Jungle centered on “hoodlumism and violence toward parents and other authority figures,” and for first-time rock ‘n’ roll listeners, Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock inextricably linked “rock & roll and juvenile delinquency (Jackson, Big Beat Heat 94).” For critics “who feared and loathed” rock & roll, such as Frank Sinatra and Bing Crosby, “The Blackboard Jungle [provided] ‘proof’ of the evils of rock & roll (Jackson, Big Beat Heat 95).”

After the war, radio was trying to find its place in the new television centered lifestyle of post-war American culture. Radio no longer was the fixture people tuned into to hear the latest news, and most of the popular radio shows were transferred to the new medium of television during these early post-war years of the 1950s. At the same time “race” music was slowing edging its way into the pop charts, and due to its growing popularity with both whites and blacks, was renamed “rhythm and blues.” Deejay Alan Freed out of WJW in Cleveland, Ohio rocked the airwaves of his “Moondog kingdom” every evening with the sounds of rhythm and blues. He became the deejay to go down in history as doing the most to popularize rock & roll for the masses, as commemorated by The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame built over thirty years later in Cleveland, Ohio. What made Freed distinct from other deejays playing rhythm and blues was that he was white and was not directing his show toward blacks, but to both blacks and whites. Despite only being heard i

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