By: Kevin

Kevin — Sat, 04 Oct 2008 16:44:01 +0000

I have to disagree with your statement, “But white people didn’t steal rock & roll: it was an evolution in popular music.” While bands like the Rolling Stones and Led Zeppelin may have evolved the sound of rock & roll, it was a sound clearly taken from black artists and made more friendly to white teenagers who could listen to someone who looked like them and not feel uncomfortable about listening to Black musicians. Clearly in the case of a band like Zeppelin you can see that much of their”original” sound was stolen by the many lawsuits that they have settled out of court. For many to Consider Elvis the “King of Rock” shows how this Black sound was indeed stolen, because all Elvis did was sing songs that black artists sang and in some cases not as well. But due to the fact that he was a good looking white man he exploded on the scene. You even say “Rock & roll was in the air with blues and jazz” and their are no more uniquely black art forms than the blues or jazz. While I agree “Exile on Main Street” is one of the best records ever made please do not forget that “Hip Shake” was an appropriation of the Slim Harpo song “Shake your Hips”. To say that Rock & Roll was not originally a Black art form originally is to downplay Chuck Berry, Ike Turner, Big Joe Turner and Jackie Brenston. All of these men had songs covered by white artist who achieved far more success than the black artists ever did including “Surfing USA” by the Beach Boys which was a copy of Chuck Berry’s “Sweet Little Sixteen” and “Shake, Rattle and Roll” by Bill Haley and the Comets which was just a cleaned up version of the same song by Big Joe Turner. I think Mos Def’s argument in his song “Rock N Roll” is a very valid one and one that can not be dismissed by a simple “so what”, if one is to really get a historical sense of the evolution of music.

Comments on: Rolling Stones, The — Exile on Main Street

By: Kevin