Don't know, don't care.

I've been a multi-genre music listener since my teen years, thanks to my natural curiosity and love of music itself.

Technically, it wasn't really called "rock" until white people started making it, although "rock and roll" was black slang. When blacks were doing it was called blues and R&B and before that "race music". Alan Freed, a white DJ, termed the music "rock". Some blacks in the 1960s abandoned the blues saying it was embarrasing, low class, and country. Blues had an image of a guy in overalls chewing tobacco or snuff, a black hillbilly. B.B. King has said he tried to change this image by wearing suits and having a horn section. "Soul" became the new thing with the black audience, some of the older R&B fans considered soul watered down. It was British Invasion acts who started to shout out the blues to young white folks in the US. Pink Floyd was named after blues performers and The Rolling Stones got their name from blues song. The veteran blues acts started to get gigs in white coffeehouses and concert venues instead of the TOBA juke joints. They also made records with white acts (ig. Muddy Waters). Rolling Stone magazine came around in the late 1960s and started writing about rock acts. Some later forms of rock erased the blues influence and added more European elements like classical music. That's pretty much how rock became associated with whites.

[Edited 1/21/15 11:13am]

MickyDolenz said:

Technically, it wasn't really called "rock" until white people started making it, although "rock and roll" was black slang. When blacks were doing it was called blues and R&B and before that "race music". Alan Freed, a white DJ, termed the music "rock". Some blacks in the 1960s abandoned the blues saying it was embarrasing, low class, and country. Blues had an image of a guy in overalls chewing tobacco or snuff, a black hillbilly. B.B. King has said he tried to change this image by wearing suits and having a horn section. "Soul" became the new thing with the black audience, some of the older R&B fans considered soul watered down. It was British Invasion acts who started to shout out the blues to young white folks in the US. Pink Floyd was named after blues performers and The Rolling Stones got their name from blues song. The veteran blues acts started to get gigs in white coffeehouses and concert venues instead of the TOBA juke joints. They also made records with white acts (ig. Muddy Waters). Rolling Stone magazine came around in the late 1960s and started writing about rock acts. Some later forms of rock erased the blues influence and added more European elements like classical music. That's pretty much how rock became associated with whites.

[Edited 1/21/15 11:13am]

bastards

My impression is that black culture moves a lot more quickly than white culture when it comes to pop music. Ahmet Ertegun once said there is no audience with less nostalgia for the past than a black audience, it's all about what is happening now, today, that didn't exist yesterday. And to many of those people "rock" is something that happened a long time ago. Frankly you don't have a lot of young black folks following the modern jazz scene either.

bobzilla77 said:

My impression is that black culture moves a lot more quickly than white culture when it comes to pop music. Ahmet Ertegun once said there is no audience with less nostalgia for the past than a black audience, it's all about what is happening now, today, that didn't exist yesterday. And to many of those people "rock" is something that happened a long time ago. Frankly you don't have a lot of young black folks following the modern jazz scene either.

That's why record companies re-release different versions of Dark Side Of The Moon every few years and extravagant reissues of rock, pop, & jazz records like a 180 gram mono albums box set of Beatle albums. The main audience for these types of releases are white. You don't see this generally for R&B/soul acts, which in some cases only have a "greatest hits/best of" out. Or their albums are in print in Japan. You won't see a Beatles Anthology style release of Stevie Wonder tunes with flubbed takes and studio dialogue. Also popular rock acts tend to have more books written about them than R&B ones and the rock genre in general is more documented.

bobzilla77 said:

My impression is that black culture moves a lot more quickly than white culture when it comes to pop music. Ahmet Ertegun once said there is no audience with less nostalgia for the past than a black audience, it's all about what is happening now, today, that didn't exist yesterday. And to many of those people "rock" is something that happened a long time ago. Frankly you don't have a lot of young black folks following the modern jazz scene either.

True and I find it a bit distrubing. These acts deserve better treatment than this.

They can go overseas and get paid. Here in the US they can't make any real money.

bobzilla77 said:

My impression is that black culture moves a lot more quickly than white culture when it comes to pop music. Ahmet Ertegun once said there is no audience with less nostalgia for the past than a black audience, it's all about what is happening now, today, that didn't exist yesterday. And to many of those people "rock" is something that happened a long time ago. Frankly you don't have a lot of young black folks following the modern jazz scene either.

Wow,I once had a discussion with a friend,and he said the exact same thing there may be some truth to it.In the mid-80s,blacks began embracing hip-hop and turning their back on funk bands,who were suddenly seen as 'old fashioned'.

My guess is that rap killed blacks' interest in rock. They went where the money was, and that was in rap.

RodeoSchro said:

My guess is that rap killed blacks' interest in rock. They went where the money was, and that was in rap.

I'm not sure what that has to do with it, since R&B radio didn't play much music that could be considered rock before Rapper's Delight became a hit. Mother's Finest didn't really get any R&B airplay except for a slow jam called Love Changes. They would not play something like Joan Armatrading, Tracy Chapman, Jon Butcher Axis, or Fishbone. They didn't even play most of Tina Turner's music after Private Dancer. Jimi Hendrix had to go to Europe to get recognition and he was considered white music by R&B radio. R&B stations would play a so-called "blue eyed soul" act before plaing a black rock or folk type group. It was less common for a blues act to get a hit on R&B radio past the early 1960s when Motown became popular, but a blues rock act might get played on the AOR stations started in the 1970s.

.

I think that since rock is associated with blues, the blues was not something the average young black person was interested in. It was old people music. Similar to most young people who listened to Top 40 in the 1980s were not interested in Perry Como and The Andrews Sisters. When rap first came around they rhymed mostly over disco, funk, & soul, not really blues. Then there was a more Kraftwerk style electro sound in rap. When Run DMC came out with Rock Box, that was unusual at the time. Along with the Beastie Boys and maybe the Fat Boys collabs with Chubby Checker & The Beach Boys, they were pretty much the only hip hop acts using a more rock sound. That's probably why all 3 crossed over unlike the earlier rap acts.

I was watching the VH1 doc "Finding The Funk" last night (very good btw) and they had Arthur Baker, the producer of Planet Rock, talking about how yeah, drum machines kind of killed the "funk band" as it was known. He didn't sound happy about it. He said they were just trying to go somewhere different with it, they needed something different than a live drummer. He didn't expect to replace drummers completely. But that's how it went down.

RodeoSchro said:

My guess is that rap killed blacks' interest in rock. They went where the money was, and that was in rap.

Rap killed 'soul' music.

According to Nelson George in "The Death of Rhythm and Blues" (1989), it basically was a rejection of guitar based music in general and what was considered "undanceable" in particular that accounts for it. He feels that this accounts for the rejection of Hendrix in particular.

bobzilla77 said:

My impression is that black culture moves a lot more quickly than white culture when it comes to pop music. Ahmet Ertegun once said there is no audience with less nostalgia for the past than a black audience, it's all about what is happening now, today, that didn't exist yesterday. And to many of those people "rock" is something that happened a long time ago. Frankly you don't have a lot of young black folks following the modern jazz scene either.

I wonder why AND how mainstream hip-hop/rap has yet to be full-time rejected as rock & jazz?

TonyVanDam said:

bobzilla77 said:

My impression is that black culture moves a lot more quickly than white culture when it comes to pop music. Ahmet Ertegun once said there is no audience with less nostalgia for the past than a black audience, it's all about what is happening now, today, that didn't exist yesterday. And to many of those people "rock" is something that happened a long time ago. Frankly you don't have a lot of young black folks following the modern jazz scene either.

I wonder why AND how mainstream hip-hop/rap has yet to be full-time rejected as rock & jazz?

Three words "prison industrial complex"...

[Edited 1/21/15 21:14pm]

I remember an interview where Lenny Kravitz expressed his disappointment that very few black people were attending his shows.Jimi Hendrix was also disappointed that more blacks weren't into his music.

On the other hand,blacks loved Michael Jackson's "Beat It" (a guitar-heavy rock song featuring a guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen) and of course,Prince's rock songs were also popular with R&B audiences,too.The Isley Brothers had alot of 'rock' guitar in their 70s music and it was accepted.

SoulAlive said:

I remember an interview where Lenny Kravitz expressed his disappointment that very few black people were attending his shows.Jimi Hendrix was also disappointed that more blacks weren't into his music.

On the other hand,blacks loved Michael Jackson's "Beat It" (a guitar-heavy rock song featuring a guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen) and of course,Prince's rock songs were also popular with R&B audiences,too.The Isley Brothers had alot of 'rock' guitar in their 70s music and it was accepted.

Yeah that does kind of make you wonder...

SoulAlive said:

I remember an interview where Lenny Kravitz expressed his disappointment that very few black people were attending his shows.Jimi Hendrix was also disappointed that more blacks weren't into his music.

On the other hand,blacks loved Michael Jackson's "Beat It" (a guitar-heavy rock song featuring a guitar solo by Eddie Van Halen) and of course,Prince's rock songs were also popular with R&B audiences,too.The Isley Brothers had alot of 'rock' guitar in their 70s music and it was accepted.

That's probably because it was Michael Jackson who already got R&B radio play. The same with Dirty Diana, which isn't really dance based like Beat It. Interestingly some of the singles from Thriller were not that big on the R&B chart like Human Nature & PYT. They did not all go Top 10 R&B like on the pop chart. If Pat Benatar or Charley Pride had released Beat It instead with the same exact music, it most likely wouldn't have recieved much R&B play if at all, nor it with David Lee Roth singing.

bobzilla77 said:

My impression is that black culture moves a lot more quickly than white culture when it comes to pop music. Ahmet Ertegun once said there is no audience with less nostalgia for the past than a black audience, it's all about what is happening now, today, that didn't exist yesterday. And to many of those people "rock" is something that happened a long time ago. Frankly you don't have a lot of young black folks following the modern jazz scene either.

True! I live in the Detroit area and it is impossible to find an adult black radio station willing play any Motown or Aretha songs from the 60's. If you want to hear those, you have to tune into classic Pop/Rock stations.

first time "rockn roll " was mentioned was by Ed Norton on the Honeymooners

luvsexy4all said:

first time "rockn roll " was mentioned was by Ed Norton on the Honeymooners

This was made in 1941, which is way before that show existed

certain black artist do not represent certain vaules and aspiration of the black community. a lot of black folks support these artist, but a lot of us don't because they just want to copy what white artist do.

RodeoSchro said:

My guess is that rap killed blacks' interest in rock. They went where the money was, and that was in rap.

http://www.hiphopisread.com/2012/04/secret-meeting-that-changed-rap-music.html?m=1

thread

jackson35 said:

certain black artist do not represent certain vaules and aspiration of the black community. a lot of black folks support these artist, but a lot of us don't because they just want to copy what white artist do.

Can you name some of these artists? I'm kind of curious.

HuMpThAnG said:

thread

As long as it doesn't get derailed.

Graycap23 said:

HuMpThAnG said:

thread

As long as it doesn't get derailed.

That tends to happen a lot in these parts...

bobzilla77 said:

SuperSoulFighter said:

bobzilla77 said:

Can you name some of these artists? I'm kind of curious.

And while you're at it, can you name some of the values they're supposed to represent as well? (Although this might derail the thread.) [Edited 1/23/15 1:34am]

Anything related 2 Blacks and rock is all good.