Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
light district. In 1917 Storyville shut down, and the musicians dispersed. Key player
Louis Armstrong moved to Chicago to blow his trumpet, and set the tone for decades to
come.
The 1920s and '30s are known as the Jazz Age, and New York City's Harlem was its
hot spot, where Duke Ellington and Count Basie led their swingin' big bands. In the
1950s and '60s, Miles Davis, John Coltrane and others deconstructed the sound and
made up a new one that was cool, free and avant-garde. NYC, New Orleans and Chicago
remain the core of the scene today.
Country
Early Scottish, Irish and English immigrants brought their own instruments and folk mu-
sic to America, and what emerged over time in the secluded Appalachian Mountains was
fiddle-and-banjo hillbilly, or 'country,' music. In the Southwest, steel guitars and larger
bands distinguished 'western' music. In the 1920s, these styles merged into 'country and
western' and Nashville became its center, especially once the Grand Ole Opry began its
radio broadcasts in 1925.
Something about the 'cry a tear in your beer' twanging clearly resonated with listen-
ers, because country music is now big business. Singer-songwriters such as Blake
Shelton, Tim McGraw and Taylor Swift have sold millions of albums. Subsequent riffs
on the genre include bluegrass, rockabilly and alt-country. The South remains the genre's
boot-wearin' stronghold.
Rock
Most say rock and roll was born in 1954 the day Elvis Presley walked into Sam Philips'
Sun Studios and recorded 'That's All Right.' Initially, radio stations weren't sure why a
white country boy was singing black music, or whether they should play him. It wasn't
until 1956 that Presley scored his first big breakthrough with 'Heartbreak Hotel,' and in
some ways, America never recovered from the rock-and-roll aftermath.
Musically, rock was a hybrid of guitar-driven blues, black rhythm and blues (R&B),
and white country-and-western music. R&B evolved in the 1940s out of swing and the
blues, and was then known as 'race music.' With rock and roll, white musicians (and
some African American musicians) transformed 'race music' into something that white
youths could embrace freely - and boy, did they.
Rock morphed into the psychedelic sounds of the Grateful Dead and Jefferson Air-
plane, and the electric wails of Janis Joplin, Jimi Hendrix, Bob Dylan and Patti Smith.
Since then, rock has been about music and lifestyle, alternately torn between hedonism
