The Day the Music Died - The History of Rock Music (Part 2)

1:18 What's good everybody? Welcome back to the history of rock and roll. This is part two of theMulti-part series and probably be about six episodes or so and

1:50 I definitely recommend you listen to the first one first because it kind of sets us up hereBut if not, you know, let's go on a ride. So where are we at?

1:59 We are at1957So rock and roll is just kind of started to get establishedIt's been about 10 years depending on where you put the starting line right and we talked about that in the last episodeBut so rock is becoming like this establishes genre and as Genres do after it establishesUsually some of the later comers bring a whole new bag a whole new perspective

2:27 Into that style of music and the person that I really want to focus on is buddy HollyBuddy Holly iskind of theThe singer songwriter of rock

2:40 Like he he broke in with this perspective of like I am not relying on a bunch of other people to do the job

2:49 Where a lot of the other rock people not all the other rock people were playing songs that other people wrote or other peopleWe're doing heavy production and arranging and they were more like a vocalist or more of a personalityBuddy Holly was all of that as well, but also really really hung his hat on

3:07 Innovation and innovation in songwriting. So interestingly enough Decca that same label that sister Rosetta Tharpe was ondropped him andthis is the early part ofRecord business people and I also really like this too because

3:29 You know managers and labels and stuff are often much maligned. They often become like the bad guysBut there are plenty of good guys tooThatWithout which we do not have the Beatles or we do not have buddy Holly the people that read the contracts really carefully because guess what artists aren't going toAnd find out like buddies manager Norman PettyThat yes, while buddy was dropped by Decca

4:00 There are other companies under the Decca umbrella subsidiariesThese smaller companies these smaller labelsthat he couldPut buddy into without technically being in breach of contractSoNorman and buddy kind of worked on a new soundWorked on a new way to pitch him and also started a band called the crickets

4:23 And he ended up getting two different recording contracts both under Decca subsidiariesSo while the top dog Decca dropped him and said you're never going to be successfulHe found kind of a side doorAnd not just one he found two side doors

4:39 So buddy starts recording with Norman and the crickets and he started to use some of these new recording techniques

4:46 But where do these recording techniques come from that's Les Paul among others, of courseBut Les Paul I don't know if you've seen like the Les Paul guitar. That's like what slash plays.

4:58 It's very very famous guitar andLes Paul was one of thoseHybrid technologists slash musicians will see these coming up in future rock stuff when we talk about the synthesizer But one of the cool things about rock and roll specifically is that it is an electric genreIt is one that is

5:20 Always being pushed by things like Marshall amps which are those big half stack the the large speakers behind guitaristThose change the sound of rock it gets crunchier that comes laterBut Les Paul he changes the sound of rock

5:36 A few different ways first of all that solid body electric guitar the Gibson Les Paulbunch of people play that to this day my chemical romanceGuns and roses ZZ Top Led ZeppelinYou know awesome guitar and it sounds it has like a punch to itHas a a grit which is perfect for rock musicAnd then the other thing that he helped invent was sound on sound recordingSo typically when you were recording a lot of these

6:05 Early records the band was just in the room and they just played itAnd they printed it on to wax and then they replicated it onto vinyl recordsIs very simple straightforward and a lot of the early early recordings they only have one microphone in a roomSo it's literally just like youYou're just dropping the listener into the room with the musicians and they're going to play this on

6:28 Is that really recording in the way that we conceptualize of it?You know, that sounds like a live record that is a live record

6:36 Les Paul realizes like hey, I want to play guitar and then on top of that I want to play more guitarI want to put sound on top of soundAnd that unlocks something very new called overdubbingor doublingandBuddy Holly makes great use of thisBy singing along to himselfThat sound ends up

7:00 Kind of like catapulting a different kind of vocalist into the rock world of which I sort of am you know like the music that I makeBy being able to vocally double yourself so sing along to yourselfYou're able to get different tones and different qualities out of your voiceIt also allows for people that might not have as big of a voice as Elvis to sound bigger and cut through a very electric mix

7:23 Because there's more of you. It's like a little choir of onesoThat innovation enables Buddy Holly to

7:34 Yeah, cut through that electric mix and then you add Buddy Holly's songwriting innovations

7:41 And those songwriting innovations just like most innovations come from a adjacent placesSo rather than a rock person only making rock musicThe best musicians are influenced by everything around themAnd Buddy Holly was influenced by jazz and classicalAnd that brought in a different sort of

8:04 orchestration a different way of looking at instruments and a different way of thinking about the flow of the song the song formAnd so he was adding in these sudden stops these breaks these things that are very common in jazzbut weren't as known in rock and roll andThat contrast that changed that added a little bit of complexityMakes it so that you can write different kinds of melodies

8:30 So I had a mentor and he said that the best way toWrite a great melody is to write some great chords

8:37 Because really what melodies are doing is it's constantly dancing between harmonySo like if you write a C chord there are three notes inside of a C chord C E and GIt's very easy to sing either C E or G over a C chordBut if you play a C7 chord you're adding in one more noteSo now you can add in a B flatObviously you don't have to really know this but it's basically the idea of

8:59 If you're playing three note chords or four note four note chordsYou have now three strong notes or four strong notes so you can sing within your melody

9:07 And so part of that jazz influence is saying hey we can we can use a little bit more complicated chordsWe can use some of these techniques to open up melodicDirections that we can takeSo that we can sing more complex or more open stuffRather than just playing the same basic chordsNothing wrong with the basic chords of course

9:27 It's just as nice to have that tool in your toolkit in case you want to do something a little different

9:33 And a lot of times those different moments quote-unquote are the moments that helpPropel you into the next section they add a little bit of tension a little bit of changeAnd it makes kind of your eyebrows or is like hmmAnd listening to buddy Holly to this day still gives you a little bit of thatWhich I think is really cool that he he was dynamic enough that even what like

9:52 80 years later like you can still listen to it be like that's that's a modern choicesoHe wasn't alone though.

10:00 This is like an explosion of a bunch of really really great musicians like Roy Orbison who IHave always really liked andLearned a bunch of his songs and I was first learning guitarJerry Lee Lewis who is like the goodness gracious great balls of fire guy who would playpiano really fast And then the Everly brothers Everly brothers are interesting because they're not really super rockThey're kind of more like folk

10:27 But they're the precursor of the thing called folk rock because rock is about to splinter into a bunch of different sub genresAnd again, it's a very young kind of new

10:38 Thing it's a craze that's sweeping the world and some more people are trying to get in on itJust like buddy Holly who was dropped from DeccaBut then he started making rock music and they became a number one musicianEverybody is starting to go like hmm rocks making money rocks popularI should do a little bit more of thatBut they're bringing what they had before like the Everly brothersTo that genre

11:00 And by doing so now you've got a little bit of jazz rock and now you've got a little bit of folk rock. You're blurring the lines

11:07 Also interestingly enough at the same time like I'm talking about this global phenomenon is happening

11:13 Elvis is emerging as a film star and so like we think about like modern people like Rihanna or whatever doing

11:20 Movies and Elvis started that where you come up as a pop singer and now you are a movie starAnd each informs the other so you end up becoming this like superstar like Rihanna byExpanding what it means to be a musician Elvis started with thatAnd it's interesting to to see likeThe ways that rock is still this bad boy

11:44 Energy it's like the Fonz you know Elvis is in jailhouse rock. There's this edge to rock as it exists right nowAnd along those same lines talking about the

11:55 combination and changing and adding in sub genre you have LaBamba come out by Ritchie Valens.

12:01 So LaBambaDidn't you know reach super high on the charts only number 22But it's got this longevity and in part because it takes Mexican traditional folk music and adds it into rock and rollSo now you have this latino Culture interacting with that rock and roll culture derived from black music and you're seeing how rock is becoming this incredible mixing pot

12:26 Where it's able to adopt everything from the tight vocal harmonies of the Everly brothers totraditional Mexican music andNo matter what you're doing. It's a hit because it rocks. It sounds awesome.

12:36 There's a reason why I say it rocksSomebody else that I want to mention is the big bopperSo the big bopper is a perfect example of like the connection between music and film like I was talking about with Elvis So he started off as a radio DJ and radio DJs are so prominent at this time that they like we saw with Sam Phillips who

12:58 Discovered Elvis. You know these DJs are interacting with the most amount of music out of everybodyThey have power in the industry because they control the airwaves and they have big personalities

13:08 So naturally you're gonna have some of them pick up the mic and start singing themselvesSo the big bopper was one of those and the big bopper is funny because hereally focused onThe humor side like he wasn't he wasn't trying to be the sexy Elvis typeHe was taking his radio persona and turning it on to the record and he was focusing on his music not as this like serious bad boy lookbut instead as a

13:34 quasi-parity and he was using the term music video for the first time out of anybody and

13:40 he's like focused on the visual aspect of his comedy because it is it's comedy, but it's also good music and soyou have all these differentEntries entrants onto the scene and just as that happens rockdives into crisisSo just as it seems like rock scene to go up and up and up and up forever Elvis gets drafted in the United States ArmyJerry Lee Lewis marries his 13-year-old cousin

14:12 You and then Chuck Berry was accused and then imprisoned for some really bad stuff that if you want to check out read about itYeah, it's it's a rough time for rock and roll where we have these huge starsGetting confronted by bad scandals like reallyYou know hard for the public to

14:35 Overlook kind of scandals and it's it shakes the genre because these are the people thatRepresent rock and now

14:45 They're doing terrible things with their fame and and also Elvis is getting taken away to the militarySo like your number one star is gone like we see this in kpop, too, which it find very interestingWhat do you do?AndWhat ends up happening isPeople just kind of keep touring thinking it's all gonna work out or they'll pull through or maybe this new upstartWho you know, we were talking about the very beginning

15:12 Is going to take it over with buddy Holly and the cricketsbut unfortunatelybuddy HollyisYou know tired you just finished a gig and he's ready to go to the next gig in North DakotaHe chargers the plane because he doesn't want to deal with the drive.

15:29 I understand that I have been thereI've never been able to charter a planeBut I understand the not wanting to tourOr not wanting to drive on tour after a tough night and The big bopper joins him because he's got the flu.

15:42 He also doesn't want to driveThey want to just get in get to the hotel andRitchie Valens and the guitarist for the crickets they flip a coinRichie wins and he gets the last seat on the plane The plane goes down theDay that the music diedif you've heardAmerican pieThat awesome super long song by Don McLeanThat was uhthe truestEnd of that early rock era where

16:21 Elvis was drafted Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry face terrible scandals andThree of the biggest rock and roll stars die in a sudden plane crashWhat do you do now?And like I was talking about the music executive ends up taking on a bigger and bigger role in this time because the artistWhere this was a this was an artist driven

16:46 Um genre for the most part. I mean Sam Phillips was doing ton of the strengths behind the scenesBut um it was at least outwardly facing an artist driven genre and now after the scandal and the the death of theseThese gratesThe industry turns to clean cutThey turn to idolsThen we you know, I was talking about kpop with with the getting drafted thing

17:12 There's a lot of members of south korean um army. They you know, everybody gets draftedSo um doesn't matter who you are if you are a um maleKpop singer you will get drafted at some point and removed from your careerSo with all that in mindThe artists are nowWhat the labels think will sell

17:35 And that means that the edge is going to get dialed down because they're in damage control modeAnd from that that's where we getThe turn towards southern california

17:48 Southern california ends up becoming like the home of rock rather than the grittier, you know ChicagoNew York and then the southKind of energy that we were seeing all the way up until nowNow it's turning towards let's go surfing. Let's have a good time.

18:07 Let's enjoy being youngAnd it also turns to dance crazes so people start like you know doing the twistBut I think it's interesting howtheTurn away from You know like theseThese inigmatic bad boys now goes towards more instrumental music more movie-based music and again sonnier musicSo that that's where we get Dick DaleSo Dick Dale is the king of surf guitar and Dick Dale is

18:38 A son of him immigrants, which I just love telling the stories about the history of music that are not

18:45 I'm not told enough and are also based on culture because music is culture and the United States are strongestCoolest thing is that we have a lot of different cultures and the intermingling and the intermixing creates musicUnlike anywhere else on the globeAnd that's what rock music is that's what the history of American music is and Dick Dale is a perfect example of thatSo Dick Dale is from a Lebanese background

19:11 Lebanese music uh, I used to play a guitar with an artist that I love and I recommend you should listen to herHer name is tamtam. She's out of Saudi Arabia and we would play these Saudi ArabianumKind of music festivals and cultural events where there would be players playing the oodI'm so bad at pronouncing arabic.

19:34 I really really try um the ood uh o-u-d And it is a really cool like lute-esque instrument that is played with a pick almost like a mandolinkind of sound but bigger andtheTuning and notes are very different and it's not just scalarIt's like the whole way you look at the instrument is different than the way that you look at the guitarBut there's plenty of overlap because you play them basically the same

20:04 And I had a ton of fun watching these players in person and going huhI didn't think about playing so much up and down on one stringI didn't think so much about you knowglissando like like moving fluidly from one place to the nextI'm thinking about these micro tonal that's tiny pitches in between pitchesAnd I got that experience by you know playing in Kuwait playing and these

20:29 Music festivals and things in Los Angeles that helped me get thatAnd it was so cool to learn the Dick Dale had the same exact thing and it makes so much sense because you listen to his big songAnd if you don't know that song you probably know theversion ofBlack Eyed Peas pump it andthatSound that scale that way of playing is veryDifferent to what guitar is typically played even to the day and

21:02 It is it is that middle eastern influence coming through and then you add in the technological innovationsThe fender guitar the fender guitar amps spring reverb which is like I've got a podcast on reverb if you want check that outhighly recommend it it

21:21 It's all of this technology added into cultural ad mixture added into the shifting sands of time of scandal andImage that allows someone like Dick Dale who probably would not have gotten heardTo become the king of surf guitar and not just the king of some small little genre called surf guitarBut like the dominant rock genre and that's when we get the beach boys Surfin' SafariandOff we go spring reverb

21:53 plus all of this kind of energy isWhat also helps rock kind of expand outside of borders

22:01 So to this day one of my favorite bands is the ventures and they come out of this time they

22:07 Were absolutely massive in Japan. They had they played these huge huge Japanese shows andOf course they did because it was cool california musicWith no words or very little words, you know it was instrumental music and so that goes across culture that goes across timeAnd surf guitar was kind of the thing that helped bridgeFrom early rock musicTo the next chapter of rock musicthe Beatles and without that bridge

22:39 I don't know maybe the uh, maybe the swell doesn't remain maybe rock ends up becoming just a chapterasmall phenomenonrather than an enduringmultifacetedart form that you know is spanned almost a hundred yearsSo thank you Dick Dale. Thank you ventures.

23:03 Thank you surf rock For helping keep life life support on rock through the the tough times through the day that the music died and then resurrected

23:12 In the second coming of the crickets the Beatles more on that next time. Hope you guys enjoyed itOnce again, this pod is called love music more and i am Scoobert Doobert, I would like to invite you to subscribe to it hit it with the five starsIf you could and tell your friends really helps to grow the pod and hopefully more people can learn about stuff like thisBecause I think it's valuable and i also hopefully

23:33 I'm sharing maybe some musicians you've never heard of and can inspire some future listeningIf you'd like to read more about thisI go a little bit more in depth with youtube videos and audio examples on my sub stackYou can find that at my website Scoobert Doobert dot pizza or you can go to love music more dot sub stack dot comTo check it out

23:56 And i hope to see you next episodenext lot