The term "rock and roll" was derived from its original usage as an African-American street slang expression for sex during the late 20's to early 30's. It was Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed who in the 1950s first used the term in reference to music. The first rock and roll song was a song aptly titled "Rock and Roll". Released in 1949 by Modern Records, the R&B 78 rpm single by Wild Bill Moore was the first song to use the term "Rock and Roll" and sound like it too. However, a lot of music historians consider the first true rock and roll song to have been recorded is "Rocket 88" by Ike Turner in 1951. While the first rock and roll song to reach #1 position in the charts is "Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and the Comets in July 1955.
The first Rock and Roll concert was held March 21, 1952 in Cleveland. The event titled as "The Moondog Coronation Ball" was organized by Alan Freed and promised performances from the Dominoes, saxophonist Paul Williams and guitarist Tiny Grimes, among others. A riot erupted after the police shut down the concert due to extreme overcrowding.
The most famous and historic rock concert was the 1969 3-day concert at Woodstock. Billed as "Three Days of Peace and Music", the concert promoters expected 50,000 people maximum, but 500,000 showed up. Actually, the event was not even held in Woodstock, but a few miles away on a farm in Bethel, N.Y. During those 3 days, 3 people died in the audience - one from a heroin overdose, another one from a ruptured appendix, and one was ran over by a tractor. There were also 2 pregnant women among the audience who gave birth during the event.
Guitar smashing is a common stunt during rock concerts. The first one to ever did this act was The Who in 1964. Performing at a stage in Railway Hotel in Harrow, England, the ceiling was so low that Pete Townshend often hit his guitar against it. Losing his cool, Townshend smashed the guitar to pieces. Another Who incident, this time on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in September 1967, Keith Moon's base drum exploded when a pyrothechnics effects went awry. It left Pete Townshend partially deaf.
Another bizarre concert incident was when an audience threw a live bat onstage during a 1982 Black Sabath concert. Thinking it was a fake, Ozzie Osborne bit the head of the bat and afterwards was forced to undergo a painful round of rabies shots. And in a 1969 Alice Cooper Toronto concert, a chicken found its way on the stage. Not knowing that chicken could not fly, Cooper threw the chicken into the audience. The audience got hold of the chicken and like savages, tore the animal to pieces.
Rock songs have the reputation of having hidden or subliminal messages within it. The Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was banned from the airwaves by BBC, thinking that the song, with initials LSD, was about drugs. John Lennon insisted that it was inspired by a drawing Julian Lennon had done of a friend named Lucy. And during the early 70's the U.S. army, on order by then President Nixon, compiled a list of songs and warned radio stations not to play any of the songs in the list or risk losing their license. Among the songs is "Puff, the Magic Dragon" by Peter, Paul and Mary, which many thought is a euphemism for smoking marijuana. However, the group insisted that the song is merely about a boy, his mystical magic dragon, and growing up.
The most extensive investigation regarding a song was a 2-year investigation of the song "Louie Louie" done by FBI from 1963. Rumors circulated that the song contained dirty words that were intelligible only when the record was played at a slower speed. After the extensive examinations, FBI concluded "Louie Louie" was "unintelligible at any speed".
Random Odds & Ends
The first Rock and Roll concert was held March 21, 1952 in Cleveland. The event titled as "The Moondog Coronation Ball" was organized by Alan Freed and promised performances from the Dominoes, saxophonist Paul Williams and guitarist Tiny Grimes, among others. A riot erupted after the police shut down the concert due to extreme overcrowding.
The most famous and historic rock concert was the 1969 3-day concert at Woodstock. Billed as "Three Days of Peace and Music", the concert promoters expected 50,000 people maximum, but 500,000 showed up. Actually, the event was not even held in Woodstock, but a few miles away on a farm in Bethel, N.Y. During those 3 days, 3 people died in the audience - one from a heroin overdose, another one from a ruptured appendix, and one was ran over by a tractor. There were also 2 pregnant women among the audience who gave birth during the event.
Guitar smashing is a common stunt during rock concerts. The first one to ever did this act was The Who in 1964. Performing at a stage in Railway Hotel in Harrow, England, the ceiling was so low that Pete Townshend often hit his guitar against it. Losing his cool, Townshend smashed the guitar to pieces. Another Who incident, this time on The Smothers Brothers Comedy Hour in September 1967, Keith Moon's base drum exploded when a pyrothechnics effects went awry. It left Pete Townshend partially deaf.
Another bizarre concert incident was when an audience threw a live bat onstage during a 1982 Black Sabath concert. Thinking it was a fake, Ozzie Osborne bit the head of the bat and afterwards was forced to undergo a painful round of rabies shots. And in a 1969 Alice Cooper Toronto concert, a chicken found its way on the stage. Not knowing that chicken could not fly, Cooper threw the chicken into the audience. The audience got hold of the chicken and like savages, tore the animal to pieces.
Rock songs have the reputation of having hidden or subliminal messages within it. The Beatles' "Lucy in the Sky with Diamonds" was banned from the airwaves by BBC, thinking that the song, with initials LSD, was about drugs. John Lennon insisted that it was inspired by a drawing Julian Lennon had done of a friend named Lucy. And during the early 70's the U.S. army, on order by then President Nixon, compiled a list of songs and warned radio stations not to play any of the songs in the list or risk losing their license. Among the songs is "Puff, the Magic Dragon" by Peter, Paul and Mary, which many thought is a euphemism for smoking marijuana. However, the group insisted that the song is merely about a boy, his mystical magic dragon, and growing up.
The most extensive investigation regarding a song was a 2-year investigation of the song "Louie Louie" done by FBI from 1963. Rumors circulated that the song contained dirty words that were intelligible only when the record was played at a slower speed. After the extensive examinations, FBI concluded "Louie Louie" was "unintelligible at any speed".
Random Odds & Ends
- The first music video was "Bohemian Rhapsody" by Queen, which was shown on the British show Top of the Pops in 1975. The first video shown on MTV was "Video Killed the Radio Star" by the Buggles, aired on August 1, 1981 at 12:01 am when MTV first signed on the air.
- Elvis Presley earned $5,000 on his first record contract. In 2004, Elvis earned $40 million, most of it goes to his daughter, Lisa Marie, who owns his estate.
- 2 Live Crew was arrested in 1990 when a federal court declared their 80-minute LP to be "obscene." The said album contains 226 uses of F-word, 87 descriptions of oral sex, and many references to female and male genitals.
- Led Zeppelin's "Stairway to Heaven" is the most famous Rock song of all time but never charted because it was never released as a single to the general public. Radio stations received promotional singles which quickly became collector's items.
- Phil Collins was one of the school kids brought in as extras for a scene in the Beatles movie "A Hard Days Night." He didn't make the cut, but years later, the film's producer gave Collins the outtake footage with him in it and had Collins add commentary to the DVD release.
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