Ritchie Valens
Elvis Presley And The Music He Helped To Engender
With an Elvis Presley vinyl going, a listener cannot help but be reminded of the giant he was. It is quite arguable that in his absence, rock and roll as we know it would not be here today.
Women across the United States were charmed by his good looks, and men strived to emulate his tough personality. He was a much different artist from the crooners whom the older generation had followed, which is a further reason why adolescents were drawn to him. The youth of the day felt that they were rejecting the old ways and scorning their elders by escaping into his music.
The vast majority of the younger crowd of listeners was hypnotized by Elvis and his tunes, and there was no going back. His music and that of others such as Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and Chuck Berry would transform the entire landscape from that point forward. Instruments, although certainly audible in pop, played second-fiddle to vocals; guitar, bass, and drums were now making their presence more felt in compositions. Another hallmark of this music was that the singers, Elvis included, made use of varied vocal pitches and syncopations that were heretofore unheard of. This new concoction of unpredictable vocals and energetic instruments hooked the younger listener’s attention and constantly demanded it.
Because music like Elvis’ incorporated more genres than just the historically dominant traditional pop, it transformed the whole outlook of popular music. There had been an association of pop and big band styles mainly with the city-based white culture of the Northeast. Rock and roll, though, called upon some other styles like R&B, blues, and gospel that had usually been popular inside of black communities. Those who helped engender these genres came from various areas of the country, both urban and rustic, so they lacked the geographical ties that the aforementioned styles seemed to have. The rural white culture of the South and West had nourished country, which was another influence on the music of Elvis and a handful of other rock personalities. Being a Mississippi and Tennessee native himself, Elvis was likely exposed to much country music as a juvenile, and was probably quite happy that it had been inserted by his writers into some of the works he popularized. With the large sampling of national musical forms that was evident in Elvis and related musicians’ work, rock could be viewed as a truly “American” style.
Even in Elvis’ older years, he had a large following, mainly comprised of the same individuals who had grown up with his music in the 1950’s; his hold on them was continual. A great number who lived through those eras still own vinyl records of his albums and singles. Years after his passing, Elvis remains highly celebrated, and widely acknowledged as one of America’s most important and most pioneering musicians.
The Real Ritchie Valens – La Bamba
