Is anyone planning on going to any of the events on the Rock and Roll Turns 50 celebration? I get email updates from orbitz and saw that a series of cities around the US that are celebrating the history of rock by providing hotel deals and a tour persay of rock historical landmarks. It sounded cool so I thought that I would ask around.

How can Rock and Roll only be 50 Years Old?

Dick Clark is the father of R&R and he's like, 100 years old. Maybe older.

... and of course there's "Beehive" to celebrate the 60s. As the ad says, big hair, bigger music. Enjoy!

... some date from Rock Around the Clock, about '54, Bill Haley and of course, The Comets. But then, what about R'nB.

Trying to put a "start date" on something as fuzzy as rock and roll is difficult at best. The recording of "Rock Around the Clock" is as valid a point as any - the lyrics used the phrase "rock and roll", it was the first such song to go to #1 on the charts, and it tied to a teen-oriented film.

Purists date rock as much as five years earlier ("Rocket 88" by Ike Turner is the usual starting point for arguments) but such music got airplay only on R&B stations and never "crossed over".

Baligirl, 50 years have pretty much obliterated the cultural landmarks that would be part of such a tour. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland (it's there because Alan Freed was probably the first DJ to play such records exclusively) is probably the only place worth visiting because it has the physical memorabilia.

Would I pay to see the site of a once-grand ballroom where Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers got their start? Not really, because its now an apartment building. Ditto the radio station that recognized and latched onto rock in that first year.

Instead, go to this site and see the Top 50 for the first week in which "Rock Around the Clock" was #1: http://members.aol.com/_ht_a/randypn.../19550709.html, print out the chart, and then go to your favorite download service, find the other songs from that date, and listen to the utter dreck that passed for popular music at the time. That's the real revolution.

Rock and Roll's birth was in the rhythm and blues community in the early '50s, though some argument can be made for the late '40s.

The first crossover Rock and Roll that was played much by the white community was Gee by The Crows in 1953.

Keith

For what it's worth, Blackboard Jungle hit like a bolt of lightning when it came out in 1954.

I'd just turned 13, and all us kids in the teen years went out and bought Rock Around the Clock. Bill Haley was the man!

I even went to see the Comets once or twice, and still have the programs around here somewhere.

Scholars can debate it all they want, but if you were there, rock and roll started with "1,2,3 O'Clock, 4 O'Clock Rock..." (Hope I got that right!)

"Rock Around the Clock" from "Blackboard Jungle" made AFI's Top 100 Movie Songs--it was pretty high, in fact. (And, to think I thought it was from "American Graffitti!)

Rock and Roll can't be fifty because Rock and Roll died years ago. Rock and Roll is about as alive as the Soviet Empire.

Rock and Roll is far from dead. Elvis and The Beatles still make Millions of dollars a year,probably more than any top forty group out there.

As an amatuer rock historian, I find this discussion interesting, but a little off topic. No one really addressed Baligirl's question.
I would think Memphis might be an interesting destination for rock and roll history .These are Sun Studios, Graceland, Stax studios, Beal St., and the whole r&b and country scene that seemed to meld into rock and roll in Memphis. I don't know what other historic places are still in existance - the original Chess Studio on Michigan Ave in Chicago(Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, etc) is long gone. How about the Motown studio in Detriot? The Stone Pony in Asbury Park, where Springsteen got his start (I actually played there before Springsteen!). Maybe Norman Petty's studio in Clovis New Mexico (Buddy Holly), or the Brill Building in New York (Carol King, Neil Sedaka, the Drifters, Shirelles,etc). Are these places still standing?

OK, doc, rock and roll is a dinosaur. It is a fossil. The future is dead.

Checked the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame website and didn't see this mentioned. The Rock Hall is a great place for a visit, however!

http://www.rockhall.com/

I think i'm gonna try to go to the Vegas show!! Can you give us some more details on how to enter the contest..

Sure. Here is the link from Orbitz's website. http://www.orbitz.com/App/deals/summer_of_rock.jsp
I think that they are thinking 50 years from when Elvis recorded.

Sitting in Memphis here - "Home of the Blues, Birthplace of Rock and Roll" says the large sign overlooking to Mississippi skyline:

Sun studios is still up and tours available. Graceland too, for what it's worth. Although blues, more so than RnR, I had just recommended nearby Clarksdale, MS as a day trip. Starting place for countless blues musicians, reportedly a possible location of the "crossroads" mentioned in blues mythology.

Stax records just opened a re-creation of their studios where Otis Redding, among others, started out.

Shane, it's a Friday afternoon and so OT is permissible. Every generation has to find its own music to call its own.

At the risk of sounding like the absolute fossil that I am, my view is that the past 30 years - starting with the ascendancy of disco - has been a musical wasteland. But today's kids listen with pure rapture to what they hear on the radio, so it certainly must appeal to them.

Zootsi, I once took an afternoon in Memphis and made the rounds of Sun Records, Stax, etc. The music that came out of those buildings was electrifying, but the buildings themselves don't speak the way that other historic places do (Independence Hall in Philadelphia, for example). Maybe it takes a century or two for the reverb to establish itself.

Shane, I agree that Rock and Roll is dead. It died sometime in the early 1970s, a victim of 1) the demise of AM radio (which had forced us all to listen to soul, pop, bubblegum, or whatever was on the Hot 100 that week, thereby enriching us for the cross-fertilization); and 2) the ascendancy of the corporate music syndrome of "safe" albums that resulted from the consolidation of the record industry.

Rock and roll died at the age of about 17. It lived fast, died young, and left a wonderful sounding legacy of about 20,000 songs that will endure for a couple of generations.

Which raises the question... what on earth is in that 700,000 title compendium that Apple claims to have???

Interesting!
good posts; zootsi and Neal Sanders.
Yes, I agree...early 70's was about the last trace of what "we" remember as "Rock and Roll"....The Memphis scene is interest too....was there last March.
However, seems that there were pockets all over the U.S. about that era [early 50's]. Several just blossomed a bit early than others.

This morning NPR had a nice segment on the beginnings of Rock and Roll: http://www.npr.org/rundowns/segment.php?wfId=3063011

"Beehive" offers some pieces of this mosaic, and also brings in women's power and identify in the 60s. Great look back at the 45s.