Music history of the United States
Encyclopedia
The music history of the United States includes many styles of folk
, popular
and classical
music. Some of the best-known genres of American music are blues
, rock and roll
, country
, began with the Native Americans
, the first people to populate North America. The music of these people was highly varied in form, and was mostly religious in purpose.
With the arrival of large numbers of colonizers from European countries like France, Spain and Great Britain. These people brought Christian
choir
s, musical notation
, broadside
s, as well as large numbers of West Africa
n slave
s. These African American
s played a variety of instruments, especially including drums
and string instrument
s similar to the guitar
and banjo
, as well as polyrhythm
s and call-and-response style vocals.
As the United States incorporated more lands, spreading west towards the Pacific Ocean, a number of immigrants began to arrive in the country, bringing with them their own instruments and styles. During this time, the United States grew to incorporate the Cajun and Creole music
of Louisiana
, the Polynesia
n music of Hawaii
and Tex-Mex and Tejano music
. Immigrants brought with them the Eastern Europe
an polka
, Chinese
and Japanese
music, Ukrainian
and Polish fiddling
, Scottish
and Irish music
, Ashkenazi Jewish klezmer
, and other styles of Indian
, Russian
, French
, German
, Italian
, Arab
and Latin music.
In the 20th century, American popular music has achieved great international acclaim. Even since the ragtime
and minstrel
songs of the 19th century, African American music
has remained at the heart of American popular music. The rural blues
of poor black Southerners and the jazz
of black urbanites were among the earliest styles of American popular music. At the time, black performers typically did not perform their own material, instead using songs produced by the music publishing companies of Tin Pan Alley
. African American blues evolved during the 20th century, mixing with Appalachian folk music and other styles to create genres like country music
and rhythm and blues
. During this time, jazz diversified into steadily more experimental fields. By the end of the 1940s, jazz had grown into such varied fields as bebop
and jazz.
Rock and roll was soon to become the most important component of American popular music, beginning with the rockabilly
boom of the 1950s. In the following decade, gospel
evolved into secular soul
. Rock, country and soul, mixed with each other and occasionally other styles, spawned a legion of subgenres over the next few days, ranging from heavy metal
to punk
and funk
. In the 1970s, urban African Americans in New York City began performing spoken lyrics over a beat provided by an emcee; this became known as hip hop music
. By the dawn of the 21st century, hip hop had become a part of most recorded American popular music.
ns, who consist of hundreds of ethnic group
s across the country, each with their own unique styles of folk music
. Of these cultures, many, and their musical traditions, are now extinct, though some remain relatively vibrant in a modern form, such as Hawaiian music
.
By the 16th century, large-scale immigration
of English, French and Spanish settlers brought new kinds of folk music. This was followed by the importation of Africans as slaves
, bringing their music with them. The Africans were as culturally varied as the Native Americans, descended from hundreds of ethnic groups in West Africa
. American music is, like most of its hemispheric neighbors, a mixture of African, European and native influences. Still later in the country's history, ethnic and musical diversity grew as the United States grew into a melting pot of different peoples. Immigration from China began in large numbers in the 19th century, most of them settling on the West Coast. Later, Japanese, Indian, Scottish, Polish, Italian, Irish, Mexican, Swedish, Ukrainian
and Armenia
n immigrants also arrived in large numbers.
following the American Civil War
. The music of these slaves was primarily African in origin, displaying polyrhythm
and other distinctly African traits. Work song
s and field holler
s were popular, but it was spiritual
s which became a major foundation for music in the 20th century.
Spirituals (or Negro spirituals, as they were then known) were Christian songs, dominated by passionate and earthy vocals, which were performed in an African-style call-and-response
format using hymns derived from those sung in colonial New England choirs, which were based on Moravian, English and Dutch church music. These hymns spread south through Appalachia
in the late 18th century, where they were partnered with the music of the African slaves. During the Great Awakening
of religious fervor in the early 19th century, spirituals spread across the south. Among some whites, slave music grew increasingly popular, especially after the American Civil War
, when black and white soldiers worked together and Southern slaves fled north in huge numbers.
By the end of the century, minstrel
shows had spread across the country, and even to continental Europe. In minstrel shows, performers imitated slaves in crude caricatures, singing and dancing to what was called "Negro music", though it had little in common with authentic African American folk styles. An African American variety of dance music called the cakewalk
also became popular, evolving into ragtime
by the turn of the century.
run along the East Coast of the United States. The region has long been historically poor compared to much of the rest of the country; many of the rural Appalachian people travelled to cities for work, and were there labeled hillbillies
, and their music became known as hillbilly music. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Irish and Scottish immigrants arrived in large numbers. They mingled there with poor whites of other ethnic backgrounds, as well as many blacks. The result was a diverse array of folk styles which have been collectively referred to as Appalachian folk music. These styles included jug band
s, honky tonk
and bluegrass
, and are the root of modern country music
.
Appalachian folk music began its evolution towards pop-country in 1927, when Jimmie Rodgers
and the Carter Family
began recording in a historic session with Ralph Peer
(Barraclough and Wolff, 537). Rodgers sang often morbid lyrical themes that drew on the blues to create tales of the poor and unlucky (Collins, 11), while the Carters preferred more upbeat ballads with clear vocals, complementary instrumentation and wholesome lyrics (Garofalo, 53). Their success paved the way for the development of popular country, and left its mark on the developing genre of rock and roll
.
, the "King of the Ukrainian Fiddlers" (Kochan and Kytasty, 308). Some of these ethnic musicians eventually became well-known across the country, such as Frankie Yankovic
, the Slovenia
n polka
master.
This same period also saw the rise of Native American
powwow
s around the turn of the century. These were large-scale inter-tribal events featuring spiritual activity and musical performances, mostly group percussion based (Means, 594).
Large-scale immigration of Eastern Europe
an Jews and their klezmer
music peaked in the first few decades of the 20th century. People like Harry Kandel
and Dave Tarras
become stars within their niche, and made the United States the international center for klezmer (Broughton, 583).
In Texas
, ethnic Mexicans
who had lived in the area for centuries, played a distinct style of conjunto
, different from that played in Mexico. The influence of Czech
polka
music was a major distinguishing characteristic of this music, which gradually evolved into what is now known as norteño
(Burr, 604).
The Cajun
s and Creole
s of Louisiana
have long constituted a distinct minority with their own cultural identity. The Cajuns are descendants of French-Canadians from the region of Acadia
, the Creoles are black and French-speaking. Their music was a mixture of bluesy work songs mixed with jazz and other influences, and included styles like la la
and juré
. Though these genres were geographically limited, they were modernized and mixed with more mainstream styles, evolving into popular zydeco
music by the middle of the century (Broughton and Kaliss, 558).
, rather than classical or folk
, was the singing of the colonial New England choirs, and travelling singing masters like William Billings
. It was here that techniques and traditions like shape note
, lined-out hymnody
and Sacred Harp
were created, gradually spreading south and becoming an integral part of the Great Awakening
. The Great Awakening was a period of religious fervor, among whites and blacks (both slave and free), that saw passionate, evangelical "Negro spirituals" grow in popularity (Ferris, 98).
During the 19th century, it was not spirituals that gained truly widespread acclaim, but rather peppy comic songs performed by minstrel
s in blackface
, and written by legendary songwriters like Stephen Foster
and Daniel Emmett. During the Civil War, popular ballads were common, some used liberally by both the North and the South as patriotic songs. Finally, late in the century, the African American cakewalk
evolved into ragtime
, which became a North American and European sensation, while mainstream America was enthralled by the brass band marches of John Philips Sousa.
Tin Pan Alley
was the biggest source of popular music
early in the 20th century (Garofolo, 17). Tin Pan Alley was a place in New York City which published sheet music
for dance songs like "After the Ball Is Over". The first few decades of the 20th century also saw the rise of popular, comic musical theater, such as the vaudeville
tradition and composers and writers like Oscar Hammerstein II
, Jerome Kern
and Ira Gershwin
. At the same time, jazz
and blues
, two distinct but related genres, began flourishing in cities like Chicago and New Orleans and began to attract some mainstream audiences.
Blues and jazz were the foundation of what became American popular music. The ability to sell recorded music through phonograph
s changed the music industry into one that relied on the charisma of star performers rather than songwriters. There was increased pressure to record bigger hits, meaning that even minor trends and fads like Hawaiian steel guitar
left a permanent influence (the steel guitar is still very common in country music
). Dominican
merengue
and Argentinian
tango
also left their mark, especially on jazz, which has long been a part of the music scene in Latin America. During the 1920s, classic female blues
singers like Mamie Smith
became the first musical celebrities of national renown. Gospel
, blues and jazz were also diversifying during this period, with new subgenres evolving in different cities like New York, New Orleans and Chicago.
Jazz quickly replaced the blues as American popular music, in the form of big band
swing, a kind of dance music
from the early 1930s. Swing used large ensembles, and was not generally improvised, in contrast with the free-flowing form of other kinds of jazz. With swing spreading across the nation, other genres continued to evolve towards popular traditions. In Louisiana, Cajun and Creole music
was adding influences from blues
and generating some regional hit records, while Appalachian folk music was spawning jug band
s, honky tonk
bars and close harmony duets, which were to evolve into the pop-folk of the 1940s, bluegrass and country.
, while jazz evolved into an ever more experimental bebop
scene. Country and folk music further developed as well, gaining newfound popularity and acclaim for hard-edged folk music
. Perhaps most importantly, the 1940s saw the rise of the youth culture. Teenagers from across the country began to identify with each other and launched numerous trends. The first teen stars
arose, beginning with the bobby soxer
idol Frank Sinatra
; this opened up new audiences for popular music, which had been primarily an adult phenomenon prior to the 40s.
emerged, in groups like the Almanac Singers
and The Weavers
. Lyrically, these performers drew on early singer-songwriter
s like Woody Guthrie
, and the whole scene became gradually associated with the political left (Garofolo, 196). By the 1950s, the anti-Communism scare was in full swing, and some performers with a liberal or socialist
bent were blacklisted from the music industry.
In the middle of the 40s, Western swing
reached its peak of popularity. It was a mixture of diverse influences, including swing, blues
, polka
and popular cowboy
songs, and included early stars like Bob Wills
, who became among the best known musicians of the era.
With a honky tonk root, modern country music
arose in the 1940s, mixing with R&B
and the blues to form rockabilly
. Rockabilly's earliest stars were Elvis Presley
and Bill Haley
, who entertained to crowds of devoted teenage fans. At the time, black audiences were listening to R&B, doo wop and gospel, but these styles were not perceived as appropriate for white listeners. People like Haley and Presley were white, but sang in a black style. This caused a great deal of cheeze controversy from concerned parents who felt that "race music", as it was then known, would corrupt their children. Nevertheless, rockabilly's popularity continued to grow, paving the way for the earliest rock stars like Chuck Berry
, Bo Diddley
, Little Richard
and Fats Domino
.
Among country fans, rockabilly was not well-regarded. Instead, the pop sounds of singers like Hank Williams and Patsy Cline
became popular. Williams had an unprecedented run of success, with more than ten chart-topping singles in two years (1950-1951), including well-remembered songs still performed today like "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
" and "Cold, Cold Heart
". It was performers like Williams that established the city of Nashville, Tennessee
as the center of the country music industry. There, country and pop were mixed, resulting in what was known as the Nashville Sound
.
and doo wop
The 1950s also saw the widespread popularization of gospel music
, in the form of powerful singers like Mahalia Jackson
. Gospel first broke into international audiences in 1948, with the release of Jackson's "Move On Up a Little Higher", which was so popular it couldn't be shipped to record stores fast enough. As the music became more mainstream in the later part of the decade, performers began adding influences from R&B
to make a more palatable and dance-able sound. Early in the next decade, the lyrics were secularized, resulting in soul music
. Some of soul's biggest stars began performing in the 50s gospel scene, including Sam Cooke
, Dinah Washington
, Dionne Warwick
and Aretha Franklin
.
Doo wop, a complex type of vocal music, also became popular during the 1950s, and left its mark on 1960s soul and R&B. The genre's exact origins are debatable, but it drew on groups like the Mills Brothers
and The Ink Spots
, who played a kind of R&B with smooth, alternating lead vocals. With the addition of gospel inflections, doo wop's polished sound and romantic ballads made it a major part of the 50s music scene, beginning in 1951. The first popular groups were The Five Keys
("Glory Of Love") and The Flamingos
("Golden Teardrops"). Doo wop diversified considerably later in the decade, with groups like The Crows
("Gee"), creating a style of uptempo doo wop and the ballad style via The Penguins
("Earth Angel"), while singers like Frankie Lymon
became sensations; Lymon became the first black teen idol in the country's history after the release of the Top 40 pop hit "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" (1956).
Latin music imported from Cuba
(chachachá
, mambo, rumba
) and Mexico (ranchera
and mariachi
) had brief periods of popularity during the 50s. The earliest popular Latin music in the United States came with rumba in the early 1930s, and was followed by calypso
in the mid-40s, mambo in the late 40s and early 50s, chachachá and charanga
in the mid-50s, bolero
in the late 50s and finally boogaloo
in the mid-60s, while Latin music mixed with jazz during the same period, resulting in Latin jazz
and the bossa nova
fusion cool jazz
.
The first Mexican-Texan pop star was Lydia Mendoza
, who began recording in 1934. It was not until the 40s, however, that musica norteña became popularized by female duets like Carmen y Laura and Las Hermanas Mendoza, who had a string of regional hits. The following decade saw the rise of Chelo Silva, known as the "Queen of the (Mexican) Bolero
", who sang romantic pop songs.
The 50s saw further innovation in the Mexican-Texan community, as electric guitars, drums and elements of rock and jazz were added to conjunto
. Valeria Longoria was the first major performer of conjunto, known for introducing Colombian cumbia
and Mexican ranchera
to conjunto bands. Later, Tony de la Rosa
modernized the conjunto big bands by adding electric guitars, amplified bajo sexto
and a drum kit and slowing down the frenetic dance rhythms of the style. In the mid-1950s, bandleader Isidro Lopez
used accordion in his band, thus beginning the evolution of Tejano music
. The rock-influenced Little Joe
was the first major star of this scene.
, who began recording for Speciality Records in 1955. He took authentic Cajun and Creole music and added more elements of rock and roll: a rollicking beat, frenetic vocals and a dance-able rhythm; the result was a style called zydeco
. Chenier continued recording for more than thirty years, releasing over a hundred albums and paving the way for later stars like Boozoo Chavis
and Buckwheat Zydeco
.
, as well as various social and political causes. The beginning of the decade saw the peak of doo wop's popularity, in about 1961, as well as the rise of surf
, girl group
s and the first soul
singers. Psychedelic
and progressive rock
arose during this period, along with the roots of what would later become funk
, hip hop
, salsa
, electronic music
, punk rock
and heavy metal
. An American roots revival
occurred simultaneously as a period of sexual liberation and racial conflict, leading to growth in the lyrical maturity and complexity of popular music as songwriters wrote about the changes the country was going through.
. Girl group
s, surf
and hot rod, and the Nashville Sound
were popular, while an Appalachian folk and African American blues roots revival
became dominant among a smaller portion of the listening audience. An even larger population of young audiences in the United Kingdom listened to American blues. By the middle of the decade, British blues
and R&B
bands like The Beatles
, The Who
and the Rolling Stones were topping the charts in what became known as the British Invasion
, alongside newly-secularized soul music
and the mainstreaming of the Bakersfield Sound
. Folk-based singer-songwriter
s like Bob Dylan
also added new innovations to popular music, expanding its possibilities, such as by making singles more than the standard three minutes in length.
, Rolling Stones and The Who
dominated the charts and only a few American bands, such as The Beach Boys
and The Mamas & the Papas
, could compete. It became associated with hippie
s and the anti-war movement, civil rights, feminism and environmentalism, paralleling the similar rise of Afrocentric
Black Power
in soul
and funk
. Events like Woodstock
became defining symbols for the generation known as the Baby Boomer
s, who were born immediately following World War 2 and came of age in the mid to late 60s.
Later in the decade, psychedelic rock and the youth culture splintered. Punk rock
, heavy metal
, singer-songwriter
and progressive rock
appeared, and the connection between music and social activism largely disappeared from popular music.
and funk
In the middle of the decade, female soul singers like Dionne Warwick
, Aretha Franklin
and Diana Ross
were popular, while innovative performers like James Brown invented a new style of soul called funk
. Influenced by psychedelic rock, which was dominating the charts at the time, funk was a very rhythmic, dance-able kind of soul. Later in the decade and into the 70s, funk too split into two strands. Sly & the Family Stone
made pop-funk palatable for the masses, while George Clinton
and his P Funk collective pioneered a new, psychedelia- and heavy metal-influenced form of avant-garde funk. Album-oriented soul also appeared very late in the decade and into the next, with artists like Marvin Gaye
, Al Green
and Curtis Mayfield
taking soul beyond the realm of the single into cohesive album-length artistic statements with a complex social conscience.
It was in this context, of album-oriented soul and funk, influenced by Black Power
and the civil rights movement, that African Americans in Harlem invented hip hop music
.
and folk music
Merle Haggard
led the rise of the Bakersfield Sound
in the 60s, when the perceived superficiality of the Nashville Sound led to a national wave that almost entirely switched country music's capital and sound within the space of a few years. At the same time, bluegrass became a major influence on jam band
s like Grateful Dead
and also evolved into new, progressive genres like newgrass
. As part of the nationwide roots revival
, Hawaiian slack-key guitar
and Cajun
swamp pop
also saw mainstream success.
's big band conjunto
in the late 1950s, the style became more influenced by rock and pop. Esteban Jordan
's wild, improvised style of accordion became popular, paving the way for the further success of El Conjunto Bernal. The Bernal brothers' band sold thousands of albums and used faster rhythms than before.
s like John Denver
, Carole King
and James Taylor
, followed by the rise of heavy metal
subgenres, glam
, country rock
and later, disco. Philly soul and pop-funk was also popular, while world music
fusions became more commonplace and a major klezmer
revival occurred among the Jewish community. Beginning in the early 70s, hip hop
arose in New York City, drawing on diverse influences from both white and black folk music, Jamaican toasting and the performance poetry of Gil Scott-Heron
.
's early pioneers included the British bands Led Zeppelin
and Black Sabbath
, though American cult bands Blue Cheer
and The Velvet Underground
also played a major role. Their music was hard-edged and bluesy, with an often menacing tone that became more pronounced in later subgenres. In the beginning of the 70s, heavy metal-influenced glam rock
arose, and musicians like David Bowie
became famous for gender-bending costumes and themes. Glam was followed by mainstream bombastic arena rock
and light progressive rock
bands becoming mainstream, with bands like Styx
and Chicago
launching popular careers that lasted most of the decade. Glam metal
, a glitzy form of Los Angeles
metal, also found a niche audience but limited mainstream success.
and Waylon Jennings
were the biggest country stars of the 70s, alongside country rock
bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd
and Allman Brothers Band who were more oriented towards crossover audiences. Later in the decade and into the next, these both mixed with other genres in the form of heartland rock
ers like Bruce Springsteen
, while a honky tonk
revival hit the country charts, led by Dwight Yoakam
.
and DJing, make up hip hop music
. These two elements were imported from Jamaica by DJ Kool Herc
. At neighborhood block parties
, DJs would spin popular records while the audience danced. Soon, an MC
arose to lead the proceedings, as the DJ began isolating and repeating the percussion breaks (the most popular, dance-able part). MCs' introductions became more and more complex, drawing on numerous African-derived vocal traditions, and became the foundation of rapping
. By the end of the decade, hip hop had spread across the country, especially in Los Angeles
and Chicago.
and bomba
and Cuban chachacha
, son montuno
and mambo were the biggest influences, alongside Jamaica
n, Mexican, Dominican
, Trinidad
ian, Argentinian
, Colombia
n and Brazil
ian sources. Many of the earliest salsa musicians, like Tito Puente
, had had a long career in various styles of Latin music. Salsa grew very popular in the 70s and into the next two decades, spreading south to Venezuela, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Peru and especially Cuba.
and Patti Smith
saw unprecedented success for their defiantly anti-mainstream genre. It was the British band The Clash
, however, that became wildly popular, more so in the UK than the U.S., and set the stage for adoption of elements of punk in popular music in the 80s.
dominating the charts, and continued through a new form of silky smooth soul, and ended with a popular glam metal
trend dominating mainstream America. Meanwhile, the first glimmer of punk rock's popularity began, and new alternative rock
and hardcore
found niche markets. Hip hop diversified as a few artists gained mainstream success, finally breaking through in the last few months of the decade.
and Kurtis Blow
. Meanwhile, hip hop was continuing its spread from the East Coast to most major urban areas across the country, and abroad. At the end of the decade, two albums broke the genre into the mainstream. Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
and N.W.A.
's Straight Outta Compton
broke through with highly controversial and sometimes violent lyrics. N.W.A. proved especially important, launching the career of Dr. Dre
and the dominant West Coast rap sound of the next decade. That same year (1989), De La Soul
's 3 Feet High and Rising
became the earliest release of alternative hip hop
, and numerous regional styles of hip hop saw their first legitimatization, including Chicago hip house
, Los Angeles electroclash
, Miami's bass
, Washington, D.C.
's go-go and Detroit's ghettotech
. Drawing inspiration from the rebellious attitudes of the Civil Rights Movement and groups like Public Enemy, many intelligent and politically-minded rappers began what is known as underground hip-hop with artists like Boots Riley from The Coup leading the way.
. In reaction to that, the first few years saw a sea change in American popular music. Nirvana
's Nevermind
along with Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden launched the defiantly anti-mainstream grunge
movement among mainstream audiences, while Dr. Dre
's The Chronic
brought his West Coast G Funk sound to widespread success.
Both these trends died out quickly, however, grunge done in by Kurt Cobain
's death and disillusionisment with grunge, a form of alternative rock, becoming mainstream. G Funk lasted a few years, displacing East Coast rap as the dominant sound of hip hop. A rivalry began, fed by the music news, focusing on West Coast's Tupac Shakur
and the East Coast's Notorious B.I.G.. By the middle of the decade, Tupac and Biggie were shot dead, and Dr Dre's Death Row Records
had fallen apart. East Coast rappers like Puff Daddy and Busta Rhymes
re-established the East Coast, while Atlanta's OutKast
and other performers found a mainstream audience.
Alanis Morissette
, one of the top-selling artist of the 90s, injected renewed popularity to singer-songwriters such as Tori Amos
, Jewel
, and Sarah MacLachlan. In the wake of grunge and gangsta rap came a fusion of soul and hip hop, called nu soul, some popularity for British Britpop
and the rise of bands like Sublime
and No Doubt
, playing a form of pop punk influenced by Jamaican ska
and British two tone ska/punk fusionists from the early 80s. Techno also became popular, though nowhere's near as much so as in most of the rest of the world.
At the turn of the millennium, bubblegum pop
groups like Backstreet Boys
and Britney Spears
were dominating the charts, many of them with a Latin beat (Shakira
, Ricky Martin
), and rappers like Jay-Z
and Eminem
were huge stars. Some garage rock
revivalists like The White Stripes
and The Hives
became highly-hyped bands in the indie rock
field, and achieved substantial mainstream success. The first few years of the 2000s saw the further rise of pop-hip hop, fed by the breakthrough success of Eminem. Indeed, hip hop became an essential element of nearly all popular music during this period, resulting in new fusions like nu metal
. Pop thug rappers like Ja Rule
were nationally renowned, though hard-edged hip made a return within a few years with the rise of 50 Cent
. Politically-minded hip hop in the tradition of Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions has also diversified since the early 90's with groups like The Coup, Sweatshop Union, Mr. Lif, Paris, Immortal Technique and many others.
American Roots Music
American Roots Music is a 2001 multi-part documentary film that explores the historical roots of American Roots music through footage and performances by the creators of the movement: Folk, Country, Blues, Gospel, Bluegrass, and many others....
, popular
American popular music
American popular music had a profound effect on music across the world. The country has seen the rise of popular styles that have had a significant influence on global culture, including ragtime, blues, jazz, swing, rock, R&B, doo wop, gospel, soul, funk, heavy metal, punk, disco, house, techno,...
and classical
American classical music
American classical music is music written in the United States but in the European classical music tradition. In many cases, beginning in the 18th century, it has been influenced by American folk music styles; and from the 20th century to the present day it has often been influenced by folk, jazz,...
music. Some of the best-known genres of American music are blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, country
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
, began with the Native Americans
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
, the first people to populate North America. The music of these people was highly varied in form, and was mostly religious in purpose.
With the arrival of large numbers of colonizers from European countries like France, Spain and Great Britain. These people brought Christian
Christianity
Christianity is a monotheistic religion based on the life and teachings of Jesus as presented in canonical gospels and other New Testament writings...
choir
Choir
A choir, chorale or chorus is a musical ensemble of singers. Choral music, in turn, is the music written specifically for such an ensemble to perform.A body of singers who perform together as a group is called a choir or chorus...
s, musical notation
Musical notation
Music notation or musical notation is any system that represents aurally perceived music, through the use of written symbols.-History:...
, broadside
Broadside (music)
A broadside is a single sheet of cheap paper printed on one side, often with a ballad, rhyme, news and sometimes with woodcut illustrations...
s, as well as large numbers of West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
n slave
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
s. These African American
African American
African Americans are citizens or residents of the United States who have at least partial ancestry from any of the native populations of Sub-Saharan Africa and are the direct descendants of enslaved Africans within the boundaries of the present United States...
s played a variety of instruments, especially including drums
Drum kit
A drum kit is a collection of drums, cymbals and often other percussion instruments, such as cowbells, wood blocks, triangles, chimes, or tambourines, arranged for convenient playing by a single person ....
and string instrument
String instrument
A string instrument is a musical instrument that produces sound by means of vibrating strings. In the Hornbostel-Sachs scheme of musical instrument classification, used in organology, they are called chordophones...
s similar to the guitar
Guitar
The guitar is a plucked string instrument, usually played with fingers or a pick. The guitar consists of a body with a rigid neck to which the strings, generally six in number, are attached. Guitars are traditionally constructed of various woods and strung with animal gut or, more recently, with...
and banjo
Banjo
In the 1830s Sweeney became the first white man to play the banjo on stage. His version of the instrument replaced the gourd with a drum-like sound box and included four full-length strings alongside a short fifth-string. There is no proof, however, that Sweeney invented either innovation. This new...
, as well as polyrhythm
Polyrhythm
Polyrhythm is the simultaneous sounding of two or more independent rhythms.Polyrhythm in general is a nonspecific term for the simultaneous occurrence of two or more conflicting rhythms, of which cross-rhythm is a specific and definable subset.—Novotney Polyrhythms can be distinguished from...
s and call-and-response style vocals.
As the United States incorporated more lands, spreading west towards the Pacific Ocean, a number of immigrants began to arrive in the country, bringing with them their own instruments and styles. During this time, the United States grew to incorporate the Cajun and Creole music
Music of Louisiana
The music of Louisiana can be divided into four general regions. Southwest Louisiana, , Southern Louisiana, west of New Orleans the southeast, the region in and around Greater New Orleans has a unique musical heritage tied to Dixieland jazz, blues and Afro-Caribbean rhythms...
of Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
, the Polynesia
Polynesia
Polynesia is a subregion of Oceania, made up of over 1,000 islands scattered over the central and southern Pacific Ocean. The indigenous people who inhabit the islands of Polynesia are termed Polynesians and they share many similar traits including language, culture and beliefs...
n music of Hawaii
Music of Hawaii
The music of Hawaii includes an array of traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Hawaii's musical contributions to the music of the United States are out of proportion to the state's small size. Styles like slack-key guitar are well-known...
and Tex-Mex and Tejano music
Tejano music
Tejano music or Tex-Mex music is the name given to various forms of folk and popular music originating among the Mexican-American populations of Central and Southern Texas...
. Immigrants brought with them the Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
an polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
, Chinese
Music of China
Chinese Music has been made since the dawn of Chinese civilization with documents and artifacts providing evidence of a well-developed musical culture as early as the Zhou Dynasty...
and Japanese
Music of Japan
The music of Japan includes a wide array of performers in distinct styles both traditional and modern. The word for music in Japanese is 音楽 , combining the kanji 音 with the kanji 楽...
music, Ukrainian
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
and Polish fiddling
Fiddle
The term fiddle may refer to any bowed string musical instrument, most often the violin. It is also a colloquial term for the instrument used by players in all genres, including classical music...
, Scottish
Music of Scotland
Scotland is internationally known for its traditional music, which has remained vibrant throughout the 20th century, when many traditional forms worldwide lost popularity to pop music...
and Irish music
Music of Ireland
Irish Music is the generic term for music that has been created in various genres on the island of Ireland.The indigenous music of the island is termed Irish traditional music. It has remained vibrant through the 20th, and into the 21st century, despite globalizing cultural forces...
, Ashkenazi Jewish klezmer
Klezmer
Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...
, and other styles of Indian
Music of India
The music of India includes multiple varieties of folk, popular, pop, classical music and R&B. India's classical music tradition, including Carnatic and Hindustani music, has a history spanning millennia and developed over several eras. It remains fundamental to the lives of Indians today as...
, Russian
Music of Russia
Music of Russia denotes music produced in Russia and/or by the Russians. Russia is a large and culturally diverse country, with many ethnic groups, each with their own locally developed music...
, French
Music of France
France has a wide variety of indigenous folk music, as well as styles played by immigrants from Africa, Latin America and Asia. In the field of classical music, France has produced a number of legendary composers, while modern pop music has seen the rise of popular French hip hop, techno/funk,...
, German
Music of Germany
Forms of German-language music include Neue Deutsche Welle , Krautrock, Hamburger Schule, Volksmusik, Classical, German hip hop, trance, Schlager, Neue Deutsche Härte and diverse varieties of folk music, such as Waltz and Medieval metal....
, Italian
Music of Italy
The music of Italy ranges across a broad spectrum of opera and instrumental classical music and a body of popular music drawn from both native and imported sources. Music has traditionally been one of the cultural markers of Italian national and ethnic identity and holds an important position in...
, Arab
Arab music
Arabic music or Arab music is the music of the Arab World, including several genres and styles of music ranging from Arabic classical to Arabic pop music and from secular to sacred music....
and Latin music.
In the 20th century, American popular music has achieved great international acclaim. Even since the ragtime
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
and minstrel
Minstrel
A minstrel was a medieval European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories of distant places or of existing or imaginary historical events. Although minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish the works of others. Frequently they were retained by royalty...
songs of the 19th century, African American music
African American music
African-American music is an umbrella term given to a range of musics and musical genres emerging from or influenced by the culture of African Americans, who have long constituted a large and significant ethnic minority of the population of the United States...
has remained at the heart of American popular music. The rural blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
of poor black Southerners and the jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
of black urbanites were among the earliest styles of American popular music. At the time, black performers typically did not perform their own material, instead using songs produced by the music publishing companies of Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...
. African American blues evolved during the 20th century, mixing with Appalachian folk music and other styles to create genres like country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
and rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
. During this time, jazz diversified into steadily more experimental fields. By the end of the 1940s, jazz had grown into such varied fields as bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
and jazz.
Rock and roll was soon to become the most important component of American popular music, beginning with the rockabilly
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...
boom of the 1950s. In the following decade, gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
evolved into secular soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
. Rock, country and soul, mixed with each other and occasionally other styles, spawned a legion of subgenres over the next few days, ranging from heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
to punk
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
and funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
. In the 1970s, urban African Americans in New York City began performing spoken lyrics over a beat provided by an emcee; this became known as hip hop music
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
. By the dawn of the 21st century, hip hop had become a part of most recorded American popular music.
American roots music
The first musicians anywhere in North America were Native AmericaNative Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
ns, who consist of hundreds of ethnic group
Ethnic group
An ethnic group is a group of people whose members identify with each other, through a common heritage, often consisting of a common language, a common culture and/or an ideology that stresses common ancestry or endogamy...
s across the country, each with their own unique styles of folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
. Of these cultures, many, and their musical traditions, are now extinct, though some remain relatively vibrant in a modern form, such as Hawaiian music
Music of Hawaii
The music of Hawaii includes an array of traditional and popular styles, ranging from native Hawaiian folk music to modern rock and hip hop. Hawaii's musical contributions to the music of the United States are out of proportion to the state's small size. Styles like slack-key guitar are well-known...
.
By the 16th century, large-scale immigration
Immigration
Immigration is the act of foreigners passing or coming into a country for the purpose of permanent residence...
of English, French and Spanish settlers brought new kinds of folk music. This was followed by the importation of Africans as slaves
Slavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
, bringing their music with them. The Africans were as culturally varied as the Native Americans, descended from hundreds of ethnic groups in West Africa
West Africa
West Africa or Western Africa is the westernmost region of the African continent. Geopolitically, the UN definition of Western Africa includes the following 16 countries and an area of approximately 5 million square km:-Flags of West Africa:...
. American music is, like most of its hemispheric neighbors, a mixture of African, European and native influences. Still later in the country's history, ethnic and musical diversity grew as the United States grew into a melting pot of different peoples. Immigration from China began in large numbers in the 19th century, most of them settling on the West Coast. Later, Japanese, Indian, Scottish, Polish, Italian, Irish, Mexican, Swedish, Ukrainian
Ukraine
Ukraine is a country in Eastern Europe. It has an area of 603,628 km², making it the second largest contiguous country on the European continent, after Russia...
and Armenia
Armenia
Armenia , officially the Republic of Armenia , is a landlocked mountainous country in the Caucasus region of Eurasia...
n immigrants also arrived in large numbers.
African American music
In the 19th century, African-Americans were freed from slaverySlavery
Slavery is a system under which people are treated as property to be bought and sold, and are forced to work. Slaves can be held against their will from the time of their capture, purchase or birth, and deprived of the right to leave, to refuse to work, or to demand compensation...
following the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
. The music of these slaves was primarily African in origin, displaying polyrhythm
Polyrhythm
Polyrhythm is the simultaneous sounding of two or more independent rhythms.Polyrhythm in general is a nonspecific term for the simultaneous occurrence of two or more conflicting rhythms, of which cross-rhythm is a specific and definable subset.—Novotney Polyrhythms can be distinguished from...
and other distinctly African traits. Work song
Work song
A work song is a piece of music closely connected to a specific form of work, either sung while conducting a task or a song linked to a task or trade which might be a connected narrative, description, or protest song....
s and field holler
Field holler
Field Hollers as well as work songs were African American styles of music from before the American Civil War, this style of music is closely related to spirituals in the sense that it expressed religious feelings and included subtle hints about ways of escaping slavery, among other things...
s were popular, but it was spiritual
Spiritual (music)
Spirituals are religious songs which were created by enslaved African people in America.-Terminology and origin:...
s which became a major foundation for music in the 20th century.
Spirituals (or Negro spirituals, as they were then known) were Christian songs, dominated by passionate and earthy vocals, which were performed in an African-style call-and-response
Call and response (music)
In music, a call and response is a succession of two distinct phrases usually played by different musicians, where the second phrase is heard as a direct commentary on or response to the first...
format using hymns derived from those sung in colonial New England choirs, which were based on Moravian, English and Dutch church music. These hymns spread south through Appalachia
Appalachia
Appalachia is a term used to describe a cultural region in the eastern United States that stretches from the Southern Tier of New York state to northern Alabama, Mississippi, and Georgia. While the Appalachian Mountains stretch from Belle Isle in Canada to Cheaha Mountain in the U.S...
in the late 18th century, where they were partnered with the music of the African slaves. During the Great Awakening
Second Great Awakening
The Second Great Awakening was a Christian revival movement during the early 19th century in the United States. The movement began around 1800, had begun to gain momentum by 1820, and was in decline by 1870. The Second Great Awakening expressed Arminian theology, by which every person could be...
of religious fervor in the early 19th century, spirituals spread across the south. Among some whites, slave music grew increasingly popular, especially after the American Civil War
American Civil War
The American Civil War was a civil war fought in the United States of America. In response to the election of Abraham Lincoln as President of the United States, 11 southern slave states declared their secession from the United States and formed the Confederate States of America ; the other 25...
, when black and white soldiers worked together and Southern slaves fled north in huge numbers.
By the end of the century, minstrel
Minstrel
A minstrel was a medieval European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories of distant places or of existing or imaginary historical events. Although minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish the works of others. Frequently they were retained by royalty...
shows had spread across the country, and even to continental Europe. In minstrel shows, performers imitated slaves in crude caricatures, singing and dancing to what was called "Negro music", though it had little in common with authentic African American folk styles. An African American variety of dance music called the cakewalk
Cakewalk
The Cakewalk dance was developed from a "Prize Walk" done in the days of slavery, generally at get-togethers on plantations in the Southern United States. Alternative names for the original form of the dance were "chalkline-walk", and the "walk-around"...
also became popular, evolving into ragtime
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
by the turn of the century.
Appalachian folk music
The Appalachian MountainsAppalachian Mountains
The Appalachian Mountains #Whether the stressed vowel is or ,#Whether the "ch" is pronounced as a fricative or an affricate , and#Whether the final vowel is the monophthong or the diphthong .), often called the Appalachians, are a system of mountains in eastern North America. The Appalachians...
run along the East Coast of the United States. The region has long been historically poor compared to much of the rest of the country; many of the rural Appalachian people travelled to cities for work, and were there labeled hillbillies
Hillbilly
Hillbilly is a term referring to certain people who dwell in rural, mountainous areas of the United States, primarily Appalachia but also the Ozarks. Owing to its strongly stereotypical connotations, the term is frequently considered derogatory, and so is usually offensive to those Americans of...
, and their music became known as hillbilly music. In the 19th and early 20th centuries, Irish and Scottish immigrants arrived in large numbers. They mingled there with poor whites of other ethnic backgrounds, as well as many blacks. The result was a diverse array of folk styles which have been collectively referred to as Appalachian folk music. These styles included jug band
Jug band
A Jug band is a band employing a jug player and a mix of traditional and home-made instruments. These home-made instruments are ordinary objects adapted to or modified for making of sound, like the washtub bass, washboard, spoons, stovepipe and comb & tissue paper...
s, honky tonk
Honky tonk
A honky-tonk is a type of bar that provides musical entertainment to its patrons...
and bluegrass
Bluegrass music
Bluegrass music is a form of American roots music, and a sub-genre of country music. It has mixed roots in Scottish, English, Welsh and Irish traditional music...
, and are the root of modern country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
.
Appalachian folk music began its evolution towards pop-country in 1927, when Jimmie Rodgers
Jimmie Rodgers (country singer)
James Charles Rodgers , known as Jimmie Rodgers, was an American country singer in the early 20th century known most widely for his rhythmic yodeling...
and the Carter Family
Carter Family
The Carter Family was a traditional American folk music group that recorded between 1927 and 1956. Their music had a profound impact on bluegrass, country, Southern Gospel, pop and rock musicians as well as on the U.S. folk revival of the 1960s. They were the first vocal group to become country...
began recording in a historic session with Ralph Peer
Ralph Peer
Ralph Sylvester Peer was an American talent scout, recording engineer and record producer in the field of music in the 1920s and 1930s...
(Barraclough and Wolff, 537). Rodgers sang often morbid lyrical themes that drew on the blues to create tales of the poor and unlucky (Collins, 11), while the Carters preferred more upbeat ballads with clear vocals, complementary instrumentation and wholesome lyrics (Garofalo, 53). Their success paved the way for the development of popular country, and left its mark on the developing genre of rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
.
Other forms of American roots music
Though Appalachian and African American folk music became the basis for most of American popular music, the United States is home to a diverse assortment of ethnic groups. In the early 20th century, many of these ethnic groups supported niche record industries and produced minor folk stars like Pawlo HumeniukPawlo Humeniuk
Pawlo Humeniuk was a Ukrainian-American fiddler from the early 20th century, one of the biggest stars of the era's ethnic music.-Biography:...
, the "King of the Ukrainian Fiddlers" (Kochan and Kytasty, 308). Some of these ethnic musicians eventually became well-known across the country, such as Frankie Yankovic
Frankie Yankovic
Frankie Yankovic was a Grammy Award-winning polka musician. Known as "America's Polka King," Yankovic was the premier artist to play in the Slovenian style during a long and successful career.-Background:Of Slovene descent, he was raised in South Euclid, Ohio...
, the Slovenia
Slovenia
Slovenia , officially the Republic of Slovenia , is a country in Central and Southeastern Europe touching the Alps and bordering the Mediterranean. Slovenia borders Italy to the west, Croatia to the south and east, Hungary to the northeast, and Austria to the north, and also has a small portion of...
n polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
master.
This same period also saw the rise of Native American
Native Americans in the United States
Native Americans in the United States are the indigenous peoples in North America within the boundaries of the present-day continental United States, parts of Alaska, and the island state of Hawaii. They are composed of numerous, distinct tribes, states, and ethnic groups, many of which survive as...
powwow
PowWow
PowWow is a wireless sensor network mote developed by the Cairn team of IRISA/INRIA. The platform is currently based on IEEE 802.15.4 standard radio transceiver and on an MSP430 microprocessor...
s around the turn of the century. These were large-scale inter-tribal events featuring spiritual activity and musical performances, mostly group percussion based (Means, 594).
Large-scale immigration of Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe
Eastern Europe is the eastern part of Europe. The term has widely disparate geopolitical, geographical, cultural and socioeconomic readings, which makes it highly context-dependent and even volatile, and there are "almost as many definitions of Eastern Europe as there are scholars of the region"...
an Jews and their klezmer
Klezmer
Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...
music peaked in the first few decades of the 20th century. People like Harry Kandel
Harry Kandel
Harry Kandel was an American clarinetist and bandleader, one of the pioneers of modern klezmer music. He ran an orchestra which consisted of a variety of instruments, including himself on clarinet, trombone, tuba, xylophone, cornet, violin, flute, viola and piano...
and Dave Tarras
Dave Tarras
Dave Tarras was possibly the most famous 20th century klezmer musician. He is known for his long career and his very skilled clarinet playing.-Biography:...
become stars within their niche, and made the United States the international center for klezmer (Broughton, 583).
In Texas
Texas
Texas is the second largest U.S. state by both area and population, and the largest state by area in the contiguous United States.The name, based on the Caddo word "Tejas" meaning "friends" or "allies", was applied by the Spanish to the Caddo themselves and to the region of their settlement in...
, ethnic Mexicans
Mexico
The United Mexican States , commonly known as Mexico , is a federal constitutional republic in North America. It is bordered on the north by the United States; on the south and west by the Pacific Ocean; on the southeast by Guatemala, Belize, and the Caribbean Sea; and on the east by the Gulf of...
who had lived in the area for centuries, played a distinct style of conjunto
Conjunto
Conjunto literally translates as "group," and is regionally accepted in Texas as defining a genre of music that was born out of south Texas at the end of the 19th Century, after German settlers introduced the button accordion. The bajo sexto has come to accompany the button accordion and is...
, different from that played in Mexico. The influence of Czech
Czech Republic
The Czech Republic is a landlocked country in Central Europe. The country is bordered by Poland to the northeast, Slovakia to the east, Austria to the south, and Germany to the west and northwest....
polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
music was a major distinguishing characteristic of this music, which gradually evolved into what is now known as norteño
Norteño (music)
Norteño , also norteña or conjunto, is a genre of Mexican music. The accordion and the bajo sexto are norteño's most characteristic instruments. The norteño genre is popular in both Mexico and the United States, especially among the Mexican community...
(Burr, 604).
The Cajun
Cajun
Cajuns are an ethnic group mainly living in the U.S. state of Louisiana, consisting of the descendants of Acadian exiles...
s and Creole
Louisiana Creole people
Louisiana Creole people refers to those who are descended from the colonial settlers in Louisiana, especially those of French and Spanish descent. The term was first used during colonial times by the settlers to refer to those who were born in the colony, as opposed to those born in the Old World...
s of Louisiana
Louisiana
Louisiana is a state located in the southern region of the United States of America. Its capital is Baton Rouge and largest city is New Orleans. Louisiana is the only state in the U.S. with political subdivisions termed parishes, which are local governments equivalent to counties...
have long constituted a distinct minority with their own cultural identity. The Cajuns are descendants of French-Canadians from the region of Acadia
Acadia
Acadia was the name given to lands in a portion of the French colonial empire of New France, in northeastern North America that included parts of eastern Quebec, the Maritime provinces, and modern-day Maine. At the end of the 16th century, France claimed territory stretching as far south as...
, the Creoles are black and French-speaking. Their music was a mixture of bluesy work songs mixed with jazz and other influences, and included styles like la la
La La
-Music:* La la , a style of Louisianan Creole music* "La La" , an Ashlee Simpson song from 2004* Lala , a former online music store, originally a web-based CD trading community* L.A...
and juré
Juré
For the style of Louisianan Creole music, see Juré .Juré is a commune in the Loire department in central France....
. Though these genres were geographically limited, they were modernized and mixed with more mainstream styles, evolving into popular zydeco
Zydeco
Zydeco is a form of uniquely American roots or folk music. It evolved in southwest Louisiana in the early 19th century from forms of "la la" Creole music...
music by the middle of the century (Broughton and Kaliss, 558).
Popular music
The first field of American music that could be viewed as popularPopular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
, rather than classical or folk
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
, was the singing of the colonial New England choirs, and travelling singing masters like William Billings
William Billings
William Billings was an American choral composer, and is widely regarded as the father of American choral music...
. It was here that techniques and traditions like shape note
Shape note
Shape notes are a music notation designed to facilitate congregational and community singing. The notation, introduced in 1801, became a popular teaching device in American singing schools...
, lined-out hymnody
Lining out
Lining out is a form of a cappella hymn-singing or hymnody in which a leader, often called the clerk or precentor, gives each line of a hymn tune as it is to be sung, usually in a chanted form giving or suggesting the tune...
and Sacred Harp
Sacred Harp
Sacred Harp singing is a tradition of sacred choral music that took root in the Southern region of the United States. It is part of the larger tradition of shape note music.- The music and its notation :...
were created, gradually spreading south and becoming an integral part of the Great Awakening
Second Great Awakening
The Second Great Awakening was a Christian revival movement during the early 19th century in the United States. The movement began around 1800, had begun to gain momentum by 1820, and was in decline by 1870. The Second Great Awakening expressed Arminian theology, by which every person could be...
. The Great Awakening was a period of religious fervor, among whites and blacks (both slave and free), that saw passionate, evangelical "Negro spirituals" grow in popularity (Ferris, 98).
During the 19th century, it was not spirituals that gained truly widespread acclaim, but rather peppy comic songs performed by minstrel
Minstrel
A minstrel was a medieval European bard who performed songs whose lyrics told stories of distant places or of existing or imaginary historical events. Although minstrels created their own tales, often they would memorize and embellish the works of others. Frequently they were retained by royalty...
s in blackface
Blackface
Blackface is a form of theatrical makeup used in minstrel shows, and later vaudeville, in which performers create a stereotyped caricature of a black person. The practice gained popularity during the 19th century and contributed to the proliferation of stereotypes such as the "happy-go-lucky darky...
, and written by legendary songwriters like Stephen Foster
Stephen Foster
Stephen Collins Foster , known as the "father of American music", was the pre-eminent songwriter in the United States of the 19th century...
and Daniel Emmett. During the Civil War, popular ballads were common, some used liberally by both the North and the South as patriotic songs. Finally, late in the century, the African American cakewalk
Cakewalk
The Cakewalk dance was developed from a "Prize Walk" done in the days of slavery, generally at get-togethers on plantations in the Southern United States. Alternative names for the original form of the dance were "chalkline-walk", and the "walk-around"...
evolved into ragtime
Ragtime
Ragtime is an original musical genre which enjoyed its peak popularity between 1897 and 1918. Its main characteristic trait is its syncopated, or "ragged," rhythm. It began as dance music in the red-light districts of American cities such as St. Louis and New Orleans years before being published...
, which became a North American and European sensation, while mainstream America was enthralled by the brass band marches of John Philips Sousa.
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley
Tin Pan Alley is the name given to the collection of New York City music publishers and songwriters who dominated the popular music of the United States in the late 19th century and early 20th century...
was the biggest source of popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
early in the 20th century (Garofolo, 17). Tin Pan Alley was a place in New York City which published sheet music
Sheet music
Sheet music is a hand-written or printed form of music notation that uses modern musical symbols; like its analogs—books, pamphlets, etc.—the medium of sheet music typically is paper , although the access to musical notation in recent years includes also presentation on computer screens...
for dance songs like "After the Ball Is Over". The first few decades of the 20th century also saw the rise of popular, comic musical theater, such as the vaudeville
Vaudeville
Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...
tradition and composers and writers like Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Hammerstein II
Oscar Greeley Clendenning Hammerstein II was an American librettist, theatrical producer, and theatre director of musicals for almost forty years. Hammerstein won eight Tony Awards and was twice awarded an Academy Award for "Best Original Song". Many of his songs are standard repertoire for...
, Jerome Kern
Jerome Kern
Jerome David Kern was an American composer of musical theatre and popular music. One of the most important American theatre composers of the early 20th century, he wrote more than 700 songs, used in over 100 stage works, including such classics as "Ol' Man River", "Can't Help Lovin' Dat Man", "A...
and Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin
Ira Gershwin was an American lyricist who collaborated with his younger brother, composer George Gershwin, to create some of the most memorable songs of the 20th century....
. At the same time, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
and blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, two distinct but related genres, began flourishing in cities like Chicago and New Orleans and began to attract some mainstream audiences.
Blues and jazz were the foundation of what became American popular music. The ability to sell recorded music through phonograph
Phonograph
The phonograph record player, or gramophone is a device introduced in 1877 that has had continued common use for reproducing sound recordings, although when first developed, the phonograph was used to both record and reproduce sounds...
s changed the music industry into one that relied on the charisma of star performers rather than songwriters. There was increased pressure to record bigger hits, meaning that even minor trends and fads like Hawaiian steel guitar
Steel guitar
Steel guitar is a type of guitar or the method of playing the instrument. Developed in Hawaii in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, a steel guitar is usually positioned horizontally; strings are plucked with one hand, while the other hand changes the pitch of one or more strings with the use...
left a permanent influence (the steel guitar is still very common in country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
). Dominican
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
merengue
Merengue music
Merengue is a type of music and dance from the Dominican Republic. It is popular in the Dominican Republic and all over Latin America. Its name is Spanish, taken from the name of the meringue, a dessert made from whipped egg whites and sugar...
and Argentinian
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
tango
Tango music
Tango is a style of ballroom dance music in 2/4 or 4/4 time that originated among European immigrant populations of Argentina and Uruguay . It is traditionally played by a sextet, known as the orquesta típica, which includes two violins, piano, double bass, and two bandoneons...
also left their mark, especially on jazz, which has long been a part of the music scene in Latin America. During the 1920s, classic female blues
Classic female blues
Classic female blues was an early form of blues music, popular in the 1920s. An amalgam of traditional folk blues and urban theater music, the style is also known as vaudeville blues. Classic blues were performed by female vocalists accompanied by pianists or small jazz ensembles, and were the...
singers like Mamie Smith
Mamie Smith
-External links:* African American Registry* with photos* with .ram files of her early recordings* NPR special on the selection on "Crazy Blues" to the 2005...
became the first musical celebrities of national renown. Gospel
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
, blues and jazz were also diversifying during this period, with new subgenres evolving in different cities like New York, New Orleans and Chicago.
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
swing, a kind of dance music
Dance music
Dance music is music composed specifically to facilitate or accompany dancing. It can be either a whole musical piece or part of a larger musical arrangement...
from the early 1930s. Swing used large ensembles, and was not generally improvised, in contrast with the free-flowing form of other kinds of jazz. With swing spreading across the nation, other genres continued to evolve towards popular traditions. In Louisiana, Cajun and Creole music
Music of Louisiana
The music of Louisiana can be divided into four general regions. Southwest Louisiana, , Southern Louisiana, west of New Orleans the southeast, the region in and around Greater New Orleans has a unique musical heritage tied to Dixieland jazz, blues and Afro-Caribbean rhythms...
was adding influences from blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
and generating some regional hit records, while Appalachian folk music was spawning jug band
Jug band
A Jug band is a band employing a jug player and a mix of traditional and home-made instruments. These home-made instruments are ordinary objects adapted to or modified for making of sound, like the washtub bass, washboard, spoons, stovepipe and comb & tissue paper...
s, honky tonk
Honky tonk
A honky-tonk is a type of bar that provides musical entertainment to its patrons...
bars and close harmony duets, which were to evolve into the pop-folk of the 1940s, bluegrass and country.
1940s and 1950s
In the 1940s, blues became the basis for rock and rollRock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
, while jazz evolved into an ever more experimental bebop
Bebop
Bebop differed drastically from the straightforward compositions of the swing era, and was instead characterized by fast tempos, asymmetrical phrasing, intricate melodies, and rhythm sections that expanded on their role as tempo-keepers...
scene. Country and folk music further developed as well, gaining newfound popularity and acclaim for hard-edged folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
. Perhaps most importantly, the 1940s saw the rise of the youth culture. Teenagers from across the country began to identify with each other and launched numerous trends. The first teen stars
Teen idol
A teen idol is a celebrity who is widely idolized by teenagers; he or she is often young but not necessarily teenaged. Often teen idols are actors or pop singers, but some sports figures have an appeal to teenagers. Some teen idols began their careers as child actors...
arose, beginning with the bobby soxer
Bobby soxer
Bobby soxer is a 1940s sociologic coinage denoting the over zealous, usually teenage and young adult girls from about 12 to 25, fans of singer Frank Sinatra, the first singing teen idol. Fashionable adolescent girls wore poodle skirts and rolled down their socks to the ankle...
idol Frank Sinatra
Frank Sinatra
Francis Albert "Frank" Sinatra was an American singer and actor.Beginning his musical career in the swing era with Harry James and Tommy Dorsey, Sinatra became an unprecedentedly successful solo artist in the early to mid-1940s, after being signed to Columbia Records in 1943. Being the idol of the...
; this opened up new audiences for popular music, which had been primarily an adult phenomenon prior to the 40s.
Roots of country music
The early 1940s saw the first major commercial success for Appalachian folk. Singers like Pete SeegerPete Seeger
Peter "Pete" Seeger is an American folk singer and was an iconic figure in the mid-twentieth century American folk music revival. A fixture on nationwide radio in the 1940s, he also had a string of hit records during the early 1950s as a member of The Weavers, most notably their recording of Lead...
emerged, in groups like the Almanac Singers
Almanac Singers
The Almanac Singers were a group of folk musicians who, as their name indicates, specialized in topical songs, especially songs connected with the labor movement...
and The Weavers
The Weavers
The Weavers were an American folk music quartet based in the Greenwich Village area of New York City. They sang traditional folk songs from around the world, as well as blues, gospel music, children's songs, labor songs, and American ballads, and selling millions of records at the height of their...
. Lyrically, these performers drew on early singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
s like Woody Guthrie
Woody Guthrie
Woodrow Wilson "Woody" Guthrie is best known as an American singer-songwriter and folk musician, whose musical legacy includes hundreds of political, traditional and children's songs, ballads and improvised works. He frequently performed with the slogan This Machine Kills Fascists displayed on his...
, and the whole scene became gradually associated with the political left (Garofolo, 196). By the 1950s, the anti-Communism scare was in full swing, and some performers with a liberal or socialist
Socialism
Socialism is an economic system characterized by social ownership of the means of production and cooperative management of the economy; or a political philosophy advocating such a system. "Social ownership" may refer to any one of, or a combination of, the following: cooperative enterprises,...
bent were blacklisted from the music industry.
In the middle of the 40s, Western swing
Western swing
Western swing music is a subgenre of American country music that originated in the late 1920s in the West and South among the region's Western string bands...
reached its peak of popularity. It was a mixture of diverse influences, including swing, blues
Blues
Blues is the name given to both a musical form and a music genre that originated in African-American communities of primarily the "Deep South" of the United States at the end of the 19th century from spirituals, work songs, field hollers, shouts and chants, and rhymed simple narrative ballads...
, polka
Polka
The polka is a Central European dance and also a genre of dance music familiar throughout Europe and the Americas. It originated in the middle of the 19th century in Bohemia...
and popular cowboy
Cowboy
A cowboy is an animal herder who tends cattle on ranches in North America, traditionally on horseback, and often performs a multitude of other ranch-related tasks. The historic American cowboy of the late 19th century arose from the vaquero traditions of northern Mexico and became a figure of...
songs, and included early stars like Bob Wills
Bob Wills
James Robert Wills , better known as Bob Wills, was an American Western Swing musician, songwriter, and bandleader, considered by music authorities as the co-founder of Western Swing and universally known as the pioneering King of Western Swing.Bob Wills' name will forever be associated with...
, who became among the best known musicians of the era.
With a honky tonk root, modern country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
arose in the 1940s, mixing with R&B
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
and the blues to form rockabilly
Rockabilly
Rockabilly is one of the earliest styles of rock and roll music, dating to the early 1950s.The term rockabilly is a portmanteau of rock and hillbilly, the latter a reference to the country music that contributed strongly to the style's development...
. Rockabilly's earliest stars were Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
and Bill Haley
Bill Haley
Bill Haley was one of the first American rock and roll musicians. He is credited by many with first popularizing this form of music in the early 1950s with his group Bill Haley & His Comets and their hit song "Rock Around the Clock".-Early life and career:...
, who entertained to crowds of devoted teenage fans. At the time, black audiences were listening to R&B, doo wop and gospel, but these styles were not perceived as appropriate for white listeners. People like Haley and Presley were white, but sang in a black style. This caused a great deal of cheeze controversy from concerned parents who felt that "race music", as it was then known, would corrupt their children. Nevertheless, rockabilly's popularity continued to grow, paving the way for the earliest rock stars like Chuck Berry
Chuck Berry
Charles Edward Anderson "Chuck" Berry is an American guitarist, singer, and songwriter, and one of the pioneers of rock and roll music. With songs such as "Maybellene" , "Roll Over Beethoven" , "Rock and Roll Music" and "Johnny B...
, Bo Diddley
Bo Diddley
Ellas Otha Bates , known by his stage name Bo Diddley, was an American rhythm and blues vocalist, guitarist, songwriter , and inventor...
, Little Richard
Little Richard
Richard Wayne Penniman , known by the stage name Little Richard, is an American singer, songwriter, musician, recording artist, and actor, considered key in the transition from rhythm and blues to rock and roll in the 1950s. He was also the first artist to put the funk in the rock and roll beat and...
and Fats Domino
Fats Domino
Antoine Dominique "Fats" Domino, Jr. is an American R&B and rock and roll pianist and singer-songwriter. He was born and raised in New Orleans, Louisiana, and Creole was his first language....
.
Among country fans, rockabilly was not well-regarded. Instead, the pop sounds of singers like Hank Williams and Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline
Patsy Cline , born Virginia Patterson Hensley in Gore, Virginia, was an American country music singer who enjoyed pop music crossover success during the era of the Nashville sound in the early 1960s...
became popular. Williams had an unprecedented run of success, with more than ten chart-topping singles in two years (1950-1951), including well-remembered songs still performed today like "I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry
"I'm So Lonesome I Could Cry" is a song written and recorded by American country music singer-songwriter Hank Williams in 1949. The song about loneliness was largely inspired by his troubled relationship with wife Audrey Sheppard...
" and "Cold, Cold Heart
Cold, Cold Heart
"Cold, Cold Heart" is a country music and popular music song, written by Hank Williams. This blues ballad is both a classic of honky tonk and an entry in the Great American Songbook....
". It was performers like Williams that established the city of Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville, Tennessee
Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee and the county seat of Davidson County. It is located on the Cumberland River in Davidson County, in the north-central part of the state. The city is a center for the health care, publishing, banking and transportation industries, and is home...
as the center of the country music industry. There, country and pop were mixed, resulting in what was known as the Nashville Sound
Nashville sound
The Nashville sound originated during the late 1950s as a sub-genre of American country music, replacing the chart dominance of honky tonk music which was most popular in the 1940s and 1950s...
.
Gospel and doo wop
Main articles: GospelGospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
and doo wop
The 1950s also saw the widespread popularization of gospel music
Gospel music
Gospel music is music that is written to express either personal, spiritual or a communal belief regarding Christian life, as well as to give a Christian alternative to mainstream secular music....
, in the form of powerful singers like Mahalia Jackson
Mahalia Jackson
Mahalia Jackson – January 27, 1972) was an African-American gospel singer. Possessing a powerful contralto voice, she was referred to as "The Queen of Gospel"...
. Gospel first broke into international audiences in 1948, with the release of Jackson's "Move On Up a Little Higher", which was so popular it couldn't be shipped to record stores fast enough. As the music became more mainstream in the later part of the decade, performers began adding influences from R&B
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
to make a more palatable and dance-able sound. Early in the next decade, the lyrics were secularized, resulting in soul music
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
. Some of soul's biggest stars began performing in the 50s gospel scene, including Sam Cooke
Sam Cooke
Samuel Cook, , better known under the stage name Sam Cooke, was an American gospel, R&B, soul, and pop singer, songwriter, and entrepreneur. He is considered to be one of the pioneers and founders of soul music. He is commonly known as the King of Soul for his distinctive vocal abilities and...
, Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington
Dinah Washington, born Ruth Lee Jones , was an American blues, R&B and jazz singer. She has been cited as "the most popular black female recording artist of the '50s", and called "The Queen of the Blues"...
, Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick is an American singer, actress and TV show host, who became a United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a United States Ambassador of Health....
and Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...
.
Doo wop, a complex type of vocal music, also became popular during the 1950s, and left its mark on 1960s soul and R&B. The genre's exact origins are debatable, but it drew on groups like the Mills Brothers
Mills Brothers
The Mills Brothers, sometimes billed as The Four Mills Brothers, were an American jazz and pop vocal quartet of the 20th century who made more than 2,000 recordings that combined sold more than 50 million copies, and garnered at least three dozen gold records...
and The Ink Spots
The Ink Spots
The Ink Spots were a popular vocal group in the 1930s and 1940s that helped define the musical genre that led to rhythm and blues and rock and roll, and the subgenre doo-wop...
, who played a kind of R&B with smooth, alternating lead vocals. With the addition of gospel inflections, doo wop's polished sound and romantic ballads made it a major part of the 50s music scene, beginning in 1951. The first popular groups were The Five Keys
The Five Keys
The Five Keys is an American rhythm and blues vocal group that was instrumental in shaping this genre in the 1950s.It was formed with the original name of Sentimental Four in Newport News, Virginia, U.S., in the late 1940s, and initially consisted of two sets of brothers - Rudy West and Bernie...
("Glory Of Love") and The Flamingos
The Flamingos
The Flamingos were a doo wop group from the United States, most popular in the mid to late 1950s and best known for their 1959 cover version of "I Only Have Eyes for You".-Early quintet:...
("Golden Teardrops"). Doo wop diversified considerably later in the decade, with groups like The Crows
The Crows
The Crows were an American R & B singing group who achieved commercial success in the 1950s. The group's first single and only major hit, "Gee", released in June 1953, has been credited with being the first Rock n’ Roll hit by a rock and roll group...
("Gee"), creating a style of uptempo doo wop and the ballad style via The Penguins
The Penguins
The Penguins were an American doo-wop group of the 1950s and early 1960s, best remembered for their only Top 40 hit, "Earth Angel ", which was one of the first rhythm and blues hits to cross over to the pop charts...
("Earth Angel"), while singers like Frankie Lymon
Frankie Lymon
Franklin Joseph "Frankie" Lymon was an American rock and roll/rhythm and blues singer and songwriter, best known as the boy soprano lead singer of a New York City-based early rock and roll group, The Teenagers. The group was composed of five boys, all in their early to mid teens...
became sensations; Lymon became the first black teen idol in the country's history after the release of the Top 40 pop hit "Why Do Fools Fall in Love" (1956).
Latin music
Main articles: Latin music in the United StatesLatin music in the United States
Latin music has long influenced American popular music, jazz, rhythm and blues, and even country music. For an early example , the bridge to "St. Louis Blues"--"Saint Louie woman, with her diamond rings"--has a habanera beat, prompting Jelly Roll Morton to comment, "You've got to have that Spanish...
Latin music imported from Cuba
Cuba
The Republic of Cuba is an island nation in the Caribbean. The nation of Cuba consists of the main island of Cuba, the Isla de la Juventud, and several archipelagos. Havana is the largest city in Cuba and the country's capital. Santiago de Cuba is the second largest city...
(chachachá
Cha-cha-cha (music)
The Cha-cha-chá is a style of Cuban music. It is popular dance music which developed from the danzón in the early 1950s.- Origin :As a dance music genre, cha-cha-chá is unusual in that its creation can be attributed to a single composer, Enrique Jorrín, then violinist and songwriter with the...
, mambo, rumba
Cuban Rumba
In Cuban music, Rumba is a generic term covering a variety of musical rhythms and associated dances. The rumba has its influences in the music brought to Cuba by Africans brought to Cuba as slaves as well as Spanish colonizers...
) and Mexico (ranchera
Ranchera
Ranchera is a genre of the traditional music of Mexico originally sung by only one performer with a guitar. It dates to the years of the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century. It later became closely associated with the mariachi groups which evolved in Jalisco. Ranchera today is also played...
and mariachi
Mariachi
Mariachi is a genre of music that originated in the State of Jalisco, in Mexico. It is an integration of stringed instruments highly influenced by the cultural impacts of the historical development of Western Mexico. Throughout the history of mariachi, musicians have experimented with brass, wind,...
) had brief periods of popularity during the 50s. The earliest popular Latin music in the United States came with rumba in the early 1930s, and was followed by calypso
Calypso music
Calypso is a style of Afro-Caribbean music that originated in Trinidad and Tobago from African and European roots. The roots of the genre lay in the arrival of enslaved Africans, who, not being allowed to speak with each other, communicated through song...
in the mid-40s, mambo in the late 40s and early 50s, chachachá and charanga
Charanga
Charanga is a term given to traditional ensembles of Cuban dance music. They made Cuban dance music popular in the 1940s and their music consisted of heavily son-influenced material, performed on European instruments such as violin and flute by a Charanga orchestra....
in the mid-50s, bolero
Bolero
Bolero is a form of slow-tempo Latin music and its associated dance and song. There are Spanish and Cuban forms which are both significant and which have separate origins.The term is also used for some art music...
in the late 50s and finally boogaloo
Boogaloo
Boogaloo or bugalú is a genre of Latin music and dance that was popular in the United States in the 1960s. Boogaloo originated in New York City among teenage Cubans, Puerto Ricans and other groups. The style was a fusion of popular African American R&B and soul with mambo and son montuno...
in the mid-60s, while Latin music mixed with jazz during the same period, resulting in Latin jazz
Latin jazz
Latin jazz is the general term given to jazz with Latin American rhythms.The three main categories of Latin Jazz are Brazilian, Cuban and Puerto Rican:# Brazilian Latin Jazz includes bossa nova...
and the bossa nova
Bossa nova
Bossa nova is a style of Brazilian music. Bossa nova acquired a large following in the 1960s, initially consisting of young musicians and college students...
fusion cool jazz
Cool jazz
Cool is a style of modern jazz music that arose following the Second World War. It is characterized by its relaxed tempos and lighter tone, in contrast to the bebop style that preceded it...
.
The first Mexican-Texan pop star was Lydia Mendoza
Lydia Mendoza
Lydia Mendoza was an American guitarist and singer of Tejano music. She is known as La Alondra de la Frontera ....
, who began recording in 1934. It was not until the 40s, however, that musica norteña became popularized by female duets like Carmen y Laura and Las Hermanas Mendoza, who had a string of regional hits. The following decade saw the rise of Chelo Silva, known as the "Queen of the (Mexican) Bolero
Bolero
Bolero is a form of slow-tempo Latin music and its associated dance and song. There are Spanish and Cuban forms which are both significant and which have separate origins.The term is also used for some art music...
", who sang romantic pop songs.
The 50s saw further innovation in the Mexican-Texan community, as electric guitars, drums and elements of rock and jazz were added to conjunto
Conjunto
Conjunto literally translates as "group," and is regionally accepted in Texas as defining a genre of music that was born out of south Texas at the end of the 19th Century, after German settlers introduced the button accordion. The bajo sexto has come to accompany the button accordion and is...
. Valeria Longoria was the first major performer of conjunto, known for introducing Colombian cumbia
Cumbia
Cumbia is a music genre popular across Latin America. The cumbia originated in the Caribbean coast of Colombia, where it is associated with an eponymous dance and has since spread as far as Mexico and Argentina...
and Mexican ranchera
Ranchera
Ranchera is a genre of the traditional music of Mexico originally sung by only one performer with a guitar. It dates to the years of the Mexican Revolution in the early 20th century. It later became closely associated with the mariachi groups which evolved in Jalisco. Ranchera today is also played...
to conjunto bands. Later, Tony de la Rosa
Tony De La Rosa
Tony De La Rosa is a noted bass player and guitarist, who gained fame in the 1980s as a member of the rock band Renegade.As one of the members of the multi-million selling rocker quartet, Renegade, Tony De La Rosa's solid and prolific bass playing and songwriting skills helped propel the band into...
modernized the conjunto big bands by adding electric guitars, amplified bajo sexto
Bajo sexto
A bajo sexto is a musical instrument with 12 strings in 6 double courses, used in Mexican music. It is used primarily in norteño music of northern Mexico and across the border in the music of south Texas known as "Tex-Mex", "conjunto, or "música mexicana-tejana".A similar instrument with five...
and a drum kit and slowing down the frenetic dance rhythms of the style. In the mid-1950s, bandleader Isidro Lopez
Isidro Lopez
Isidro B. Lopez is an American tribal leader who has served as the Vice Chairman of the Tohono O'odham Nation of southern Arizona since 2007....
used accordion in his band, thus beginning the evolution of Tejano music
Tejano music
Tejano music or Tex-Mex music is the name given to various forms of folk and popular music originating among the Mexican-American populations of Central and Southern Texas...
. The rock-influenced Little Joe
Little Joe
Little Joe was an unmanned United States solid-fueled booster rocket used for eight launches from 1959–1960 from Wallops Island, Virginia to test the launch escape system and heat shield for Project Mercury capsules, as well as the name given to the test program using the booster...
was the first major star of this scene.
Cajun and Creole music
Louisiana's Cajun and Creole communities saw their local music become a brief mainstream fad during the 1950s. This was largely due to the work of Clifton ChenierClifton Chenier
Clifton Chenier , a Creole French-speaking native of Opelousas, Louisiana, was an eminent performer and recording artist of Zydeco, which arose from Cajun and Creole music, with R&B, jazz, and blues influences. He played the accordion and won a Grammy Award in 1983...
, who began recording for Speciality Records in 1955. He took authentic Cajun and Creole music and added more elements of rock and roll: a rollicking beat, frenetic vocals and a dance-able rhythm; the result was a style called zydeco
Zydeco
Zydeco is a form of uniquely American roots or folk music. It evolved in southwest Louisiana in the early 19th century from forms of "la la" Creole music...
. Chenier continued recording for more than thirty years, releasing over a hundred albums and paving the way for later stars like Boozoo Chavis
Boozoo Chavis
Wilson Anthony "Boozoo" Chavis was a zydeco musician - music created by French speaking Creoles of South-West Louisiana. He was active from 1954 until his death during which time he largely sang and played the accordion. Chavis was also a prolific writer of zydeco songs...
and Buckwheat Zydeco
Buckwheat Zydeco
Buckwheat Zydeco is the stage name of Stanley Dural, Jr. , an American accordionist and zydeco musician. He is one of the few zydeco artists to achieve mainstream success...
.
1960s and 70s
In the 1960s, music became heavily involved in the burgeoning youth counter cultureCounter Culture
Counter Culture is a 2005 compilation double album by English folk/rock singer-songwriter Roy Harper featuring 25 classic Roy Harper songs, cherry picked according to his mood in April 2005. This collection spans 35 years of song writing and is intended as an introduction for anyone who's not sure...
, as well as various social and political causes. The beginning of the decade saw the peak of doo wop's popularity, in about 1961, as well as the rise of surf
Surf music
Surf music is a genre of popular music associated with surf culture, particularly as found in Orange County and other areas of Southern California. It was particularly popular between 1961 and 1965, has subsequently been revived and was highly influential on subsequent rock music...
, girl group
Girl group
A girl group is a popular music act featuring several young female singers who generally harmonise together.Girl groups emerged in the late 1950s as groups of young singers teamed up with behind-the-scenes songwriters and music producers to create hit singles, often featuring glossy production...
s and the first soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
singers. Psychedelic
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock is a style of rock music that is inspired or influenced by psychedelic culture and attempts to replicate and enhance the mind-altering experiences of psychedelic drugs. It emerged during the mid 1960s among folk rock and blues rock bands in United States and the United Kingdom...
and progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
arose during this period, along with the roots of what would later become funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
, hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
, salsa
Salsa music
Salsa music is a genre of music, generally defined as a modern style of playing Cuban Son, Son Montuno, and Guaracha with touches from other genres of music...
, electronic music
Electronic music
Electronic music is music that employs electronic musical instruments and electronic music technology in its production. In general a distinction can be made between sound produced using electromechanical means and that produced using electronic technology. Examples of electromechanical sound...
, punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
and heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
. An American roots revival
Roots revival
A roots revival is a trend which includes young performers popularizing the traditional musical styles of their ancestors. Often, roots revivals include an addition of newly-composed songs with socially and politically aware lyrics, as well as a general modernization of the folk sound.After an...
occurred simultaneously as a period of sexual liberation and racial conflict, leading to growth in the lyrical maturity and complexity of popular music as songwriters wrote about the changes the country was going through.
Early 1960s
The first few years of the 1960s saw major innovation in popular musicPopular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
. Girl group
Girl group
A girl group is a popular music act featuring several young female singers who generally harmonise together.Girl groups emerged in the late 1950s as groups of young singers teamed up with behind-the-scenes songwriters and music producers to create hit singles, often featuring glossy production...
s, surf
Surf music
Surf music is a genre of popular music associated with surf culture, particularly as found in Orange County and other areas of Southern California. It was particularly popular between 1961 and 1965, has subsequently been revived and was highly influential on subsequent rock music...
and hot rod, and the Nashville Sound
Nashville sound
The Nashville sound originated during the late 1950s as a sub-genre of American country music, replacing the chart dominance of honky tonk music which was most popular in the 1940s and 1950s...
were popular, while an Appalachian folk and African American blues roots revival
Roots revival
A roots revival is a trend which includes young performers popularizing the traditional musical styles of their ancestors. Often, roots revivals include an addition of newly-composed songs with socially and politically aware lyrics, as well as a general modernization of the folk sound.After an...
became dominant among a smaller portion of the listening audience. An even larger population of young audiences in the United Kingdom listened to American blues. By the middle of the decade, British blues
British blues
British blues is a form of music derived from American blues that originated in the late 1950s and which reached its height of mainstream popularity in the 1960s, when it developed a distinctive and influential style dominated by electric guitar and made international stars of several proponents of...
and R&B
Rhythm and blues
Rhythm and blues, often abbreviated to R&B, is a genre of popular African American music that originated in the 1940s. The term was originally used by record companies to describe recordings marketed predominantly to urban African Americans, at a time when "urbane, rocking, jazz based music with a...
bands like The Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
and the Rolling Stones were topping the charts in what became known as the British Invasion
British Invasion
The British Invasion is a term used to describe the large number of rock and roll, beat, rock, and pop performers from the United Kingdom who became popular in the United States during the time period from 1964 through 1966.- Background :...
, alongside newly-secularized soul music
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
and the mainstreaming of the Bakersfield Sound
Bakersfield sound
The Bakersfield sound was a genre of country music developed in the mid- to late 1950s in and around Bakersfield, California. The many hit singles were largely produced by Capitol Records country music head, Ken Nelson. Bakersfield country was a reaction against the slickly produced, string...
. Folk-based singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
s like Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan
Bob Dylan is an American singer-songwriter, musician, poet, film director and painter. He has been a major and profoundly influential figure in popular music and culture for five decades. Much of his most celebrated work dates from the 1960s when he was an informal chronicler and a seemingly...
also added new innovations to popular music, expanding its possibilities, such as by making singles more than the standard three minutes in length.
Psychedelic rock
Psychedelic rock became the genre most closely intertwined with the youth culture. It arose from the British Invasion of blues in the middle of the decade, when bands like The BeatlesThe Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
, Rolling Stones and The Who
The Who
The Who are an English rock band formed in 1964 by Roger Daltrey , Pete Townshend , John Entwistle and Keith Moon . They became known for energetic live performances which often included instrument destruction...
dominated the charts and only a few American bands, such as The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...
and The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas
The Mamas & the Papas were a Canadian/American vocal group of the 1960s . The group recorded and performed from 1965 to 1968 with a short reunion in 1971, releasing five albums and 11 Top 40 hit singles...
, could compete. It became associated with hippie
Hippie
The hippie subculture was originally a youth movement that arose in the United States during the mid-1960s and spread to other countries around the world. The etymology of the term 'hippie' is from hipster, and was initially used to describe beatniks who had moved into San Francisco's...
s and the anti-war movement, civil rights, feminism and environmentalism, paralleling the similar rise of Afrocentric
Afrocentrism
Afrocentrism is cultural ideology mostly limited to the United States, dedicated to the history of Black people a response to global racist attitudes about African people and their historical contributions by revisiting this history with an African cultural and ideological center...
Black Power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
in soul
Soul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
and funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
. Events like Woodstock
Woodstock Festival
Woodstock Music & Art Fair was a music festival, billed as "An Aquarian Exposition: 3 Days of Peace & Music". It was held at Max Yasgur's 600-acre dairy farm in the Catskills near the hamlet of White Lake in the town of Bethel, New York, from August 15 to August 18, 1969...
became defining symbols for the generation known as the Baby Boomer
Baby boomer
A baby boomer is a person who was born during the demographic Post-World War II baby boom and who grew up during the period between 1946 and 1964. The term "baby boomer" is sometimes used in a cultural context. Therefore, it is impossible to achieve broad consensus of a precise definition, even...
s, who were born immediately following World War 2 and came of age in the mid to late 60s.
Later in the decade, psychedelic rock and the youth culture splintered. Punk rock
Punk rock
Punk rock is a rock music genre that developed between 1974 and 1976 in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Rooted in garage rock and other forms of what is now known as protopunk music, punk rock bands eschewed perceived excesses of mainstream 1970s rock...
, heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
, singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
and progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
appeared, and the connection between music and social activism largely disappeared from popular music.
Soul and funk
Main articles: SoulSoul music
Soul music is a music genre originating in the United States combining elements of gospel music and rhythm and blues. According to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, soul is "music that arose out of the black experience in America through the transmutation of gospel and rhythm & blues into a form of...
and funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
In the middle of the decade, female soul singers like Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick
Dionne Warwick is an American singer, actress and TV show host, who became a United Nations Global Ambassador for the Food and Agriculture Organization, and a United States Ambassador of Health....
, Aretha Franklin
Aretha Franklin
Aretha Louise Franklin is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. Although known for her soul recordings and referred to as The Queen of Soul, Franklin is also adept at jazz, blues, R&B, gospel music, and rock. Rolling Stone magazine ranked her atop its list of The Greatest Singers of All...
and Diana Ross
Diana Ross
Diana Ernestine Earle Ross is an American singer, record producer, and actress. Ross was lead singer of the Motown group The Supremes during the 1960s. After leaving the group in 1970, Ross began a solo career that included successful ventures into film and Broadway...
were popular, while innovative performers like James Brown invented a new style of soul called funk
Funk
Funk is a music genre that originated in the mid-late 1960s when African American musicians blended soul music, jazz and R&B into a rhythmic, danceable new form of music. Funk de-emphasizes melody and harmony and brings a strong rhythmic groove of electric bass and drums to the foreground...
. Influenced by psychedelic rock, which was dominating the charts at the time, funk was a very rhythmic, dance-able kind of soul. Later in the decade and into the 70s, funk too split into two strands. Sly & the Family Stone
Sly & the Family Stone
Sly and the Family Stone were an American rock, funk, and soul band from San Francisco, California. Active from 1966 to 1983, the band was pivotal in the development of soul, funk, and psychedelic music...
made pop-funk palatable for the masses, while George Clinton
George Clinton (funk musician)
George Clinton is an American singer, songwriter, bandleader, and music producer and the principal architect of P-Funk. He was the mastermind of the bands Parliament and Funkadelic during the 1970s and early 1980s, and launched a solo career in 1981. He has been cited as one of the foremost...
and his P Funk collective pioneered a new, psychedelia- and heavy metal-influenced form of avant-garde funk. Album-oriented soul also appeared very late in the decade and into the next, with artists like Marvin Gaye
Marvin Gaye
Marvin Pentz Gay, Jr. , better known by his stage name Marvin Gaye, was an American singer-songwriter and musician with a three-octave vocal range....
, Al Green
Al Green
Albert Greene , better known as Al Green, is an American gospel and soul music singer. He reached the peak of his popularity in the 1970s, with hit singles such as "You Oughta Be With Me", "I'm Still In Love With You", "Love and Happiness", and "Let's Stay Together"...
and Curtis Mayfield
Curtis Mayfield
Curtis Lee Mayfield was an American soul, R&B, and funk singer, songwriter, and record producer.He is best known for his anthemic music with The Impressions during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1960's and for composing the soundtrack to the blaxploitation film Super Fly, Mayfield is highly...
taking soul beyond the realm of the single into cohesive album-length artistic statements with a complex social conscience.
It was in this context, of album-oriented soul and funk, influenced by Black Power
Black Power
Black Power is a political slogan and a name for various associated ideologies. It is used in the movement among people of Black African descent throughout the world, though primarily by African Americans in the United States...
and the civil rights movement, that African Americans in Harlem invented hip hop music
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
.
Country and folk
Main articles: CountryCountry music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
and folk music
Folk music
Folk music is an English term encompassing both traditional folk music and contemporary folk music. The term originated in the 19th century. Traditional folk music has been defined in several ways: as music transmitted by mouth, as music of the lower classes, and as music with unknown composers....
Merle Haggard
Merle Haggard
Merle Ronald Haggard is an American country music singer, guitarist, fiddler, instrumentalist, and songwriter. Along with Buck Owens, Haggard and his band The Strangers helped create the Bakersfield sound, which is characterized by the unique twang of Fender Telecaster guitars, vocal harmonies,...
led the rise of the Bakersfield Sound
Bakersfield sound
The Bakersfield sound was a genre of country music developed in the mid- to late 1950s in and around Bakersfield, California. The many hit singles were largely produced by Capitol Records country music head, Ken Nelson. Bakersfield country was a reaction against the slickly produced, string...
in the 60s, when the perceived superficiality of the Nashville Sound led to a national wave that almost entirely switched country music's capital and sound within the space of a few years. At the same time, bluegrass became a major influence on jam band
Jam band
-Ambiguity:By the late 1990s use of the term jam band also became ambiguous. An editorial at jamband.com suggested that any band of which a primary band such as Phish has done a cover of be included as jam band. The example was including New York post-punk band Talking Heads after Phish performed...
s like Grateful Dead
Grateful Dead
The Grateful Dead was an American rock band formed in 1965 in the San Francisco Bay Area. The band was known for its unique and eclectic style, which fused elements of rock, folk, bluegrass, blues, reggae, country, improvisational jazz, psychedelia, and space rock, and for live performances of long...
and also evolved into new, progressive genres like newgrass
Progressive bluegrass
Progressive bluegrass is one of two major subgenres of bluegrass music. It is also known as newgrass, a term attributed to New Grass Revival member Ebo Walker. Musicians and bands John Hartford, New Grass Revival, J.D. Crowe and the New South, The Dillards, Boone Creek, Country Gazette, and the...
. As part of the nationwide roots revival
Roots revival
A roots revival is a trend which includes young performers popularizing the traditional musical styles of their ancestors. Often, roots revivals include an addition of newly-composed songs with socially and politically aware lyrics, as well as a general modernization of the folk sound.After an...
, Hawaiian slack-key guitar
Slack-key guitar
Slack-key guitar is a fingerstyle genre of guitar music that originated in Hawaii. Its name refers to its characteristic open tunings: the English term is a translation of the Hawaiian kī hōalu, which means "loosen the [tuning] key"...
and Cajun
Cajun
Cajuns are an ethnic group mainly living in the U.S. state of Louisiana, consisting of the descendants of Acadian exiles...
swamp pop
Swamp pop
Swamp rock is a musical genre indigenous to the Acadiana region of south Louisiana and an adjoining section of southeast Texas. Created in the 1950s and early 1960s by teenaged Cajuns and black Creoles, it combines New Orleans-style rhythm and blues, country and western, and traditional French...
also saw mainstream success.
Tejano
With the widespread success of Tony de la RosaTony De La Rosa
Tony De La Rosa is a noted bass player and guitarist, who gained fame in the 1980s as a member of the rock band Renegade.As one of the members of the multi-million selling rocker quartet, Renegade, Tony De La Rosa's solid and prolific bass playing and songwriting skills helped propel the band into...
's big band conjunto
Conjunto
Conjunto literally translates as "group," and is regionally accepted in Texas as defining a genre of music that was born out of south Texas at the end of the 19th Century, after German settlers introduced the button accordion. The bajo sexto has come to accompany the button accordion and is...
in the late 1950s, the style became more influenced by rock and pop. Esteban Jordan
Esteban Jordan
Esteban "Steve" Jordan was a jazz, rock, blues, conjunto and Tejano musician from the United States. He was also known as "El Parche", "The Jimi Hendrix of the accordion", and "the accordion wizard"...
's wild, improvised style of accordion became popular, paving the way for the further success of El Conjunto Bernal. The Bernal brothers' band sold thousands of albums and used faster rhythms than before.
1970s
The early 1970s saw popular music being dominated by folk-based singer-songwriterSinger-songwriter
Singer-songwriters are musicians who write, compose and sing their own musical material including lyrics and melodies. As opposed to contemporary popular music singers who write their own songs, the term singer-songwriter describes a distinct form of artistry, closely associated with the...
s like John Denver
John Denver
Henry John Deutschendorf, Jr. , known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer/songwriter, activist, and humanitarian. After growing up in numerous locations with his military family, Denver began his music career in folk music groups in the late 1960s. His greatest commercial success...
, Carole King
Carole King
Carole King is an American singer, songwriter, and pianist. King and her former husband Gerry Goffin wrote more than two dozen chart hits for numerous artists during the 1960s, many of which have become standards. As a singer, King had an album, Tapestry, top the U.S...
and James Taylor
James Taylor
James Vernon Taylor is an American singer-songwriter and guitarist. A five-time Grammy Award winner, Taylor was inducted into the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame in 2000....
, followed by the rise of heavy metal
Heavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
subgenres, glam
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...
, country rock
Country rock
Country rock is sub-genre of popular music, formed from the fusion of rock with country. The term is generally used to refer to the wave of rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s, beginning with Bob Dylan and The Byrds; reaching its greatest...
and later, disco. Philly soul and pop-funk was also popular, while world music
World music
World music is a term with widely varying definitions, often encompassing music which is primarily identified as another genre. This is evidenced by world music definitions such as "all of the music in the world" or "somebody else's local music"...
fusions became more commonplace and a major klezmer
Klezmer
Klezmer is a musical tradition of the Ashkenazic Jews of Eastern Europe. Played by professional musicians called klezmorim, the genre originally consisted largely of dance tunes and instrumental display pieces for weddings and other celebrations...
revival occurred among the Jewish community. Beginning in the early 70s, hip hop
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
arose in New York City, drawing on diverse influences from both white and black folk music, Jamaican toasting and the performance poetry of Gil Scott-Heron
Gil Scott-Heron
Gilbert "Gil" Scott-Heron was an American soul and jazz poet, musician, and author known primarily for his work as a spoken word performer in the 1970s and '80s...
.
Heavy metal
Heavy metalHeavy metal music
Heavy metal is a genre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s, largely in the Midlands of the United Kingdom and the United States...
's early pioneers included the British bands Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin
Led Zeppelin were an English rock band, active in the late 1960s and throughout the 1970s. Formed in 1968, they consisted of guitarist Jimmy Page, singer Robert Plant, bassist/keyboardist John Paul Jones, and drummer John Bonham...
and Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath
Black Sabbath are an English heavy metal band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1969 by Ozzy Osbourne , Tony Iommi , Geezer Butler , and Bill Ward . The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of 22...
, though American cult bands Blue Cheer
Blue Cheer
Blue Cheer was an American psychedelic blues-rock band that initially performed and recorded in the late 1960s and early 1970s and was sporadically active until 2009...
and The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground
The Velvet Underground was an American rock band formed in New York City. First active from 1964 to 1973, their best-known members were Lou Reed and John Cale, who both went on to find success as solo artists. Although experiencing little commercial success while together, the band is often cited...
also played a major role. Their music was hard-edged and bluesy, with an often menacing tone that became more pronounced in later subgenres. In the beginning of the 70s, heavy metal-influenced glam rock
Glam rock
Glam rock is a style of rock and pop music that developed in the UK in the early 1970s, which was performed by singers and musicians who wore outrageous clothes, makeup and hairstyles, particularly platform-soled boots and glitter...
arose, and musicians like David Bowie
David Bowie
David Bowie is an English musician, actor, record producer and arranger. A major figure for over four decades in the world of popular music, Bowie is widely regarded as an innovator, particularly for his work in the 1970s...
became famous for gender-bending costumes and themes. Glam was followed by mainstream bombastic arena rock
Arena rock
Arena rock is a term used to describe rock music that utilised large arena venues, particularly sports venues, for concerts or series of concerts linked in tours...
and light progressive rock
Progressive rock
Progressive rock is a subgenre of rock music that developed in the late 1960s and early 1970s as part of a "mostly British attempt to elevate rock music to new levels of artistic credibility." John Covach, in Contemporary Music Review, says that many thought it would not just "succeed the pop of...
bands becoming mainstream, with bands like Styx
Styx (band)
Styx is an American rock band that became famous for its albums from the late 1970s and early 1980s. The Chicago band is known for melding the style of prog-rock with the power of hard rock guitar, strong ballads, and elements of American musical theater....
and Chicago
Chicago (band)
Chicago is an American rock band formed in 1967 in Chicago, Illinois. The self-described "rock and roll band with horns" began as a politically charged, sometimes experimental, rock band and later moved to a predominantly softer sound, becoming famous for producing a number of hit ballads. They had...
launching popular careers that lasted most of the decade. Glam metal
Glam metal
Glam metal is a subgenre of hard rock and heavy metal that arose in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the United States, particularly on the Los Angeles Sunset Strip music scene...
, a glitzy form of Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
metal, also found a niche audience but limited mainstream success.
Outlaw country
With the Bakersfield Sound the dominant influence, outlaw country singers like Willie NelsonWillie Nelson
Willie Hugh Nelson is an American country music singer-songwriter, as well as an author, poet, actor, and activist. The critical success of the album Shotgun Willie , combined with the critical and commercial success of Red Headed Stranger and Stardust , made Nelson one of the most recognized...
and Waylon Jennings
Waylon Jennings
Waylon Arnold Jennings was an American country music singer, songwriter, and musician. Jennings began playing at eight. He began performing at twelve, on KVOW radio. Jennings formed a band The Texas Longhorns. Jennings worked as a D.J on KVOW, KDAV and KLLL...
were the biggest country stars of the 70s, alongside country rock
Country rock
Country rock is sub-genre of popular music, formed from the fusion of rock with country. The term is generally used to refer to the wave of rock musicians who began to record country-flavored records in the late 1960s and early 1970s, beginning with Bob Dylan and The Byrds; reaching its greatest...
bands like Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd
Lynyrd Skynyrd is an American rock band prominent in spreading Southern Rock during the 1970s.Originally formed as the "Noble Five" in Jacksonville, Florida, in 1964, the band rose to worldwide recognition on the basis of its driving live performances and signature tune, Freebird...
and Allman Brothers Band who were more oriented towards crossover audiences. Later in the decade and into the next, these both mixed with other genres in the form of heartland rock
Heartland rock
Heartland rock is a genre of rock music that developed in the 1970s and reached its commercial peak in the 1980s, when it became one of the best-selling genres in the United States. It was characterized by a straightforward musical style, a concern with the average, blue collar American life, and a...
ers like Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Springsteen
Bruce Frederick Joseph Springsteen , nicknamed "The Boss," is an American singer-songwriter who records and tours with the E Street Band...
, while a honky tonk
Honky tonk
A honky-tonk is a type of bar that provides musical entertainment to its patrons...
revival hit the country charts, led by Dwight Yoakam
Dwight Yoakam
Dwight David Yoakam is an American singer-songwriter, actor and film director, most famous for his pioneering country music...
.
Hip hop
Hip hop was a cultural movement that began in Harlem in the early 1970s, consisting of four elements. Two of them, rappingRapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
and DJing, make up hip hop music
Hip hop music
Hip hop music, also called hip-hop, rap music or hip-hop music, is a musical genre consisting of a stylized rhythmic music that commonly accompanies rapping, a rhythmic and rhyming speech that is chanted...
. These two elements were imported from Jamaica by DJ Kool Herc
DJ Kool Herc
Clive Campbell , also known as Kool Herc, DJ Kool Herc and Kool DJ Herc, is a Jamaican-born DJ who is credited with originating hip hop music, in The Bronx, New York City...
. At neighborhood block parties
Block party
A block party is a large public party in which many members of a single neighbourhood congregate, either to observe an event of some importance or simply for mutual enjoyment. The name comes from the form of the party, which often involves closing an entire city block to vehicle traffic...
, DJs would spin popular records while the audience danced. Soon, an MC
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
arose to lead the proceedings, as the DJ began isolating and repeating the percussion breaks (the most popular, dance-able part). MCs' introductions became more and more complex, drawing on numerous African-derived vocal traditions, and became the foundation of rapping
Rapping
Rapping refers to "spoken or chanted rhyming lyrics". The art form can be broken down into different components, as in the book How to Rap where it is separated into “content”, “flow” , and “delivery”...
. By the end of the decade, hip hop had spread across the country, especially in Los Angeles
Los Angeles, California
Los Angeles , with a population at the 2010 United States Census of 3,792,621, is the most populous city in California, USA and the second most populous in the United States, after New York City. It has an area of , and is located in Southern California...
and Chicago.
Salsa
Cuban and Puerto Ricans in New York invented salsa in the early 1970s, using multiple sources from Latin America in the pan-Latin melting pot of the city. Puerto Rican plenaPlena
Plena is a folkloric genre native to Puerto Rico. Its creation was influenced by African and Spanish music.-History:The music is generally folkloric. The music's beat and rhythm are usually played using hand drums called panderetas, but also known as panderos or pleneras. The music is accompanied...
and bomba
Bomba
Bomba is one of the traditional musical styles of Puerto Rico. it is a largely African-derived music. The rhythm and beat are played by a set of floor drums, cuá and a maraca. Dance is an integral part of the music: the dancers move their bodies to every beat of the drum, making bomba a very...
and Cuban chachacha
Cha-cha-cha (music)
The Cha-cha-chá is a style of Cuban music. It is popular dance music which developed from the danzón in the early 1950s.- Origin :As a dance music genre, cha-cha-chá is unusual in that its creation can be attributed to a single composer, Enrique Jorrín, then violinist and songwriter with the...
, son montuno
Son montuno
The son montuno is a style of the Cuban son, but exactly what it means is not an easy question to answer. The son itself is the most important genre of Cuban popular music. In addition, it is perhaps the most flexible of all forms of Latin-American music...
and mambo were the biggest influences, alongside Jamaica
Jamaica
Jamaica is an island nation of the Greater Antilles, in length, up to in width and 10,990 square kilometres in area. It is situated in the Caribbean Sea, about south of Cuba, and west of Hispaniola, the island harbouring the nation-states Haiti and the Dominican Republic...
n, Mexican, Dominican
Dominican Republic
The Dominican Republic is a nation on the island of La Hispaniola, part of the Greater Antilles archipelago in the Caribbean region. The western third of the island is occupied by the nation of Haiti, making Hispaniola one of two Caribbean islands that are shared by two countries...
, Trinidad
Trinidad
Trinidad is the larger and more populous of the two major islands and numerous landforms which make up the island nation of Trinidad and Tobago. It is the southernmost island in the Caribbean and lies just off the northeastern coast of Venezuela. With an area of it is also the fifth largest in...
ian, Argentinian
Argentina
Argentina , officially the Argentine Republic , is the second largest country in South America by land area, after Brazil. It is constituted as a federation of 23 provinces and an autonomous city, Buenos Aires...
, Colombia
Colombia
Colombia, officially the Republic of Colombia , is a unitary constitutional republic comprising thirty-two departments. The country is located in northwestern South America, bordered to the east by Venezuela and Brazil; to the south by Ecuador and Peru; to the north by the Caribbean Sea; to the...
n and Brazil
Brazil
Brazil , officially the Federative Republic of Brazil , is the largest country in South America. It is the world's fifth largest country, both by geographical area and by population with over 192 million people...
ian sources. Many of the earliest salsa musicians, like Tito Puente
Tito Puente
Tito Puente, , born Ernesto Antonio Puente, was a Latin jazz and Salsa musician. The son of native Puerto Ricans Ernest and Ercilia Puente, of Spanish Harlem in New York City, Puente is often credited as "El Rey de los Timbales" and "The King of Latin Music"...
, had had a long career in various styles of Latin music. Salsa grew very popular in the 70s and into the next two decades, spreading south to Venezuela, Colombia, Puerto Rico, Mexico, Peru and especially Cuba.
Punk rock
Punk rock arose as a reaction against what had come before. Early punks believed that hollow greed had destroyed American music, and hated the perceived bombasity and arrogance of the biggest bands of the 1970s. It arose in London and New York, with numerous regional centers by the end of the decade when acts like RamonesRamones
The Ramones were an American rock band that formed in the New York City neighborhood of Forest Hills, Queens, in 1974. They are often cited as the first punk rock group...
and Patti Smith
Patti Smith
Patricia Lee "Patti" Smith is an American singer-songwriter, poet and visual artist, who became a highly influential component of the New York City punk rock movement with her 1975 debut album Horses....
saw unprecedented success for their defiantly anti-mainstream genre. It was the British band The Clash
The Clash
The Clash were an English punk rock band that formed in 1976 as part of the original wave of British punk. Along with punk, their music incorporated elements of reggae, ska, dub, funk, rap, dance, and rockabilly...
, however, that became wildly popular, more so in the UK than the U.S., and set the stage for adoption of elements of punk in popular music in the 80s.
1980s and 90s
The 1980s began with New WaveNew Wave music
New Wave is a subgenre of :rock music that emerged in the mid to late 1970s alongside punk rock. The term at first generally was synonymous with punk rock before being considered a genre in its own right that incorporated aspects of electronic and experimental music, mod subculture, disco and 1960s...
dominating the charts, and continued through a new form of silky smooth soul, and ended with a popular glam metal
Glam metal
Glam metal is a subgenre of hard rock and heavy metal that arose in the late 1970s and early 1980s in the United States, particularly on the Los Angeles Sunset Strip music scene...
trend dominating mainstream America. Meanwhile, the first glimmer of punk rock's popularity began, and new alternative rock
Alternative rock
Alternative rock is a genre of rock music and a term used to describe a diverse musical movement that emerged from the independent music underground of the 1980s and became widely popular by the 1990s...
and hardcore
Hardcore punk
Hardcore punk is an underground music genre that originated in the late 1970s, following the mainstream success of punk rock. Hardcore is generally faster, thicker, and heavier than earlier punk rock. The origin of the term "hardcore punk" is uncertain. The Vancouver-based band D.O.A...
found niche markets. Hip hop diversified as a few artists gained mainstream success, finally breaking through in the last few months of the decade.
Hip hop
In the 1980s, hip hop saw its first taste of mainstream success with LL Cool JLL Cool J
James Todd Smith , better known as LL Cool J , is an American rapper, entrepreneur, and actor...
and Kurtis Blow
Kurtis Blow
Kurt Walker , better known by his stage name Kurtis Blow, is an American rapper and record producer. He is one of the first commercially successful rappers and the first to sign with a major record label...
. Meanwhile, hip hop was continuing its spread from the East Coast to most major urban areas across the country, and abroad. At the end of the decade, two albums broke the genre into the mainstream. Public Enemy's It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back
It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back is the second studio album by American hip hop group Public Enemy, released April 14, 1988, on Def Jam Recordings. Recording sessions for the album took place at Chung King Studios, Greene Street Recording, and Sabella Studios in New York City...
and N.W.A.
N.W.A.
N.W.A was an American hip hop group from Compton, California, widely considered one of the seminal acts of the gangsta rap sub-genre....
's Straight Outta Compton
Straight Outta Compton
The lyrics on the album were mainly written by Ice Cube and MC Ren. Critics of the album expressed their view that the record glamorized Black-on-Black crime, but the emcees stated that the group was simply showing the reality of living in the areas of Compton, California, and South Central Los...
broke through with highly controversial and sometimes violent lyrics. N.W.A. proved especially important, launching the career of Dr. Dre
Dr. Dre
Andre Romelle Young , primarily known by his stage name Dr. Dre, is an American record producer, rapper, record executive, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is the founder and current CEO of Aftermath Entertainment and a former co-owner and artist of Death Row Records...
and the dominant West Coast rap sound of the next decade. That same year (1989), De La Soul
De La Soul
De La Soul is an American hip hop trio formed in 1987 on Long Island, New York. The band is best known for their eclectic sampling, quirky lyrics, and their contributions to the evolution of the jazz rap and alternative hip hop subgenres...
's 3 Feet High and Rising
3 Feet High and Rising
3 Feet High and Rising is the debut album from American hip hop trio De La Soul, released in 1989.The album marked the first of three full-length collaborations with producer Prince Paul, which would become the critical and commercial peak of both parties. It is consistently placed on 'greatest...
became the earliest release of alternative hip hop
Alternative hip hop
Alternative hip hop is a sub-genre of hip hop music. Allmusic defines it as follows: -Origin:...
, and numerous regional styles of hip hop saw their first legitimatization, including Chicago hip house
Hip house
Hip house, also known as house rap, is a musical genre that mixes elements of house music and hip-hop. The style rose to prominence during the 1980s in New York and Chicago...
, Los Angeles electroclash
Electroclash
Electroclash is a style of music that fuses New Wave and electronic dance music. It emerged in New York and Detroit in the later 1990s, pioneered by acts including I-F and those associated with Gerald Donald, and is associated with acts including Peaches, Adult, and Fischerspooner...
, Miami's bass
Miami bass
Miami bass , is a type of hip hop music, that became popular in the 1980s and 1990s. Its roots are directly linked to the Electro-funk sound of the early 1980s, pioneered by Afrika Bambataa & The Soulsonic Force and later on by UK-based musician Paul Hardcastle...
, Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C.
Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly referred to as Washington, "the District", or simply D.C., is the capital of the United States. On July 16, 1790, the United States Congress approved the creation of a permanent national capital as permitted by the U.S. Constitution....
's go-go and Detroit's ghettotech
Ghettotech
Ghettotech or Detroit club music is a form of electronic dance music originating from Detroit. It combines elements of Chicago's ghetto house with electro, hip hop, techno, and grafts the perceived raunch of Miami Bass as the vocal stamp of the music. It is usually faster than most other dance...
. Drawing inspiration from the rebellious attitudes of the Civil Rights Movement and groups like Public Enemy, many intelligent and politically-minded rappers began what is known as underground hip-hop with artists like Boots Riley from The Coup leading the way.
1990s
As the 90s began, hair metal was dominating the charts, especially formulaic bands like ExtremeExtreme (band)
Extreme is an American rock band, headed by frontmen Gary Cherone and Nuno Bettencourt, that reached the height of their popularity in the late 1980s and early 1990s.Among some of Extreme's musical influences are Queen and Van Halen...
. In reaction to that, the first few years saw a sea change in American popular music. Nirvana
Nirvana (band)
Nirvana was an American rock band that was formed by singer/guitarist Kurt Cobain and bassist Krist Novoselic in Aberdeen, Washington in 1987...
's Nevermind
Nevermind
Nevermind is the second studio album by the American rock band Nirvana, released on September 24, 1991. Produced by Butch Vig, Nevermind was the group's first release on DGC Records...
along with Alice in Chains, Pearl Jam, and Soundgarden launched the defiantly anti-mainstream grunge
Grunge
Grunge is a subgenre of alternative rock that emerged during the mid-1980s in the American state of Washington, particularly in the Seattle area. Inspired by hardcore punk, heavy metal, and indie rock, grunge is generally characterized by heavily distorted electric guitars, contrasting song...
movement among mainstream audiences, while Dr. Dre
Dr. Dre
Andre Romelle Young , primarily known by his stage name Dr. Dre, is an American record producer, rapper, record executive, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is the founder and current CEO of Aftermath Entertainment and a former co-owner and artist of Death Row Records...
's The Chronic
The Chronic
The Chronic is the solo debut album of American hip hop artist Dr. Dre, released December 15, 1992, on his own record label Death Row Records, and distributed by Priority Records. Recording sessions for the album took place in June 1992 at Death Row Studios in Los Angeles and at Bernie Grundman...
brought his West Coast G Funk sound to widespread success.
Both these trends died out quickly, however, grunge done in by Kurt Cobain
Kurt Cobain
Kurt Donald Cobain was an American singer-songwriter, musician and artist, best known as the lead singer and guitarist of the grunge band Nirvana...
's death and disillusionisment with grunge, a form of alternative rock, becoming mainstream. G Funk lasted a few years, displacing East Coast rap as the dominant sound of hip hop. A rivalry began, fed by the music news, focusing on West Coast's Tupac Shakur
Tupac Shakur
Tupac Amaru Shakur , known by his stage names 2Pac and Makaveli, was an American rapper and actor. Shakur has sold over 75 million albums worldwide as of 2007, making him one of the best-selling music artists in the world...
and the East Coast's Notorious B.I.G.. By the middle of the decade, Tupac and Biggie were shot dead, and Dr Dre's Death Row Records
Death Row Records
Death Row Records is a record label founded in 1991 by Marion "Suge" Knight Jr., Andre Young , Tracy Lynn Curry and Michael Harris . It is known to have been home to many popular West Coast hip hop artists such as Dr...
had fallen apart. East Coast rappers like Puff Daddy and Busta Rhymes
Busta Rhymes
Trevor Tahiem Smith, Jr., better known by his stage name Busta Rhymes ,Smith is an American rapper, producer and actor. Chuck D of Public Enemy gave him the alias Busta Rhymes after NFL wide receiver George "Buster" Rhymes...
re-established the East Coast, while Atlanta's OutKast
OutKast
Outkast is an American hip hop duo based in East Point, Georgia, consisting of Atlanta native André "André 3000" Benjamin and Savannah, Georgia-born Antwan "Big Boi" Patton. They were originally known as Two Shades Deep but later changed the group's name to OutKast...
and other performers found a mainstream audience.
Alanis Morissette
Alanis Morissette
Alanis Nadine Morissette is a Canadian-American singer-songwriter, guitarist, record producer, and actress. She has won 16 Juno Awards and seven Grammy Awards, was nominated for two Golden Globe Awards and also shortlisted for an Academy Award nomination...
, one of the top-selling artist of the 90s, injected renewed popularity to singer-songwriters such as Tori Amos
Tori Amos
Tori Amos is an American pianist, singer-songwriter and composer. She was at the forefront of a number of female singer-songwriters in the early 1990s and was noteworthy early in her career as one of the few alternative rock performers to use a piano as her primary instrument...
, Jewel
Jewel (singer)
Jewel Kilcher , professionally known as Jewel, is an American singer-songwriter, guitarist, producer, actress and poet...
, and Sarah MacLachlan. In the wake of grunge and gangsta rap came a fusion of soul and hip hop, called nu soul, some popularity for British Britpop
Britpop
Britpop is a subgenre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom. Britpop emerged from the British independent music scene of the early 1990s and was characterised by bands influenced by British guitar pop music of the 1960s and 1970s...
and the rise of bands like Sublime
Sublime (band)
Sublime was an American ska punk band from Long Beach, California, formed in 1988. The band's line-up, unchanged until their breakup, consisted of Bradley Nowell , Eric Wilson and Bud Gaugh . Michael "Miguel" Happoldt also contributed on a few Sublime songs, such as "New Thrash." Lou Dog, Nowell's...
and No Doubt
No Doubt
No Doubt is an American rock band from Anaheim, California that formed in 1986. The ska-pop sound of their first album No Doubt , failed to make an impact...
, playing a form of pop punk influenced by Jamaican ska
Ska
Ska |Jamaican]] ) is a music genre that originated in Jamaica in the late 1950s, and was the precursor to rocksteady and reggae. Ska combined elements of Caribbean mento and calypso with American jazz and rhythm and blues...
and British two tone ska/punk fusionists from the early 80s. Techno also became popular, though nowhere's near as much so as in most of the rest of the world.
At the turn of the millennium, bubblegum pop
Bubblegum pop
Bubblegum pop is a genre of pop music with an upbeat sound contrived and marketed to appeal to pre-teens and teenagers, produced in an assembly-line process, driven by producers, often using unknown singers.Bubblegum's classic period ran from 1967 to 1972...
groups like Backstreet Boys
Backstreet Boys
The Backstreet Boys are an American vocal group, formed in Orlando, Florida in 1993. The band originally consisted of A. J. McLean, Howie Dorough, Brian Littrell, Nick Carter and Kevin Richardson. They rose to fame with their debut international album, Backstreet Boys...
and Britney Spears
Britney Spears
Britney Jean Spears is an American recording artist and entertainer. Born in McComb, Mississippi, and raised in Kentwood, Louisiana, Spears began performing as a child, landing acting roles in stage productions and television shows. She signed with Jive Records in 1997 and released her debut album...
were dominating the charts, many of them with a Latin beat (Shakira
Shakira
Shakira Isabel Mebarak Ripoll , known professionally as Shakira , is a Colombian singer who emerged in the music scene of Colombia and Latin America in the early 1990s...
, Ricky Martin
Ricky Martin
Enrique "Ricky" Martín Morales , better known as Ricky Martin, is a Puerto Rican and Spanish pop singer and actor who achieved prominence, first as a member of the Latin boy band Menudo, then as a solo artist since 1991.During his career he has sold more than 60 million album copies worldwide...
), and rappers like Jay-Z
Jay-Z
Shawn Corey Carter , better known by his stage name Jay-Z, is an American rapper, record producer, entrepreneur, and occasional actor. He is one of the most financially successful hip hop artists and entrepreneurs in America, having a net worth of over $450 million as of 2010...
and Eminem
Eminem
Marshall Bruce Mathers III , better known by his stage name Eminem or his alter ego Slim Shady, is an American rapper, record producer, songwriter and actor. Eminem's popularity brought his group project, D12, to mainstream recognition...
were huge stars. Some garage rock
Garage rock
Garage rock is a raw form of rock and roll that was first popular in the United States and Canada from about 1963 to 1967. During the 1960s, it was not recognized as a separate music genre and had no specific name...
revivalists like The White Stripes
The White Stripes
The White Stripes was an American rock band, formed in 1997 in Detroit, Michigan. The group consisted of the songwriter Jack White and drummer Meg White . Jack and Meg White were previously married to each other, but are now divorced...
and The Hives
The Hives
The Hives are a Swedish garage rock band that first garnered attention in the early 2000s as a prominent group of the garage rock revival. Their mainstream success came with the release of the "greatest hits" album Your New Favourite Band, featuring their most well-known song "Hate to Say I Told...
became highly-hyped bands in the indie rock
Indie rock
Indie rock is a genre of alternative rock that originated in the United Kingdom and the United States in the 1980s. Indie rock is extremely diverse, with sub-genres that include lo-fi, post-rock, math rock, indie pop, dream pop, noise rock, space rock, sadcore, riot grrrl and emo, among others...
field, and achieved substantial mainstream success. The first few years of the 2000s saw the further rise of pop-hip hop, fed by the breakthrough success of Eminem. Indeed, hip hop became an essential element of nearly all popular music during this period, resulting in new fusions like nu metal
Nu metal
Nu metal is a subgenre of heavy metal. It is a fusion genre which combines elements of heavy metal with other genres, including grunge and hip hop...
. Pop thug rappers like Ja Rule
Ja Rule
Jeffrey Atkins , better known by his stage name Ja Rule, is an American rapper, singer, and actor.Born in Hollis, Queens, he began his career in the group Cash Money Click and debuted in 1999 with Venni Vetti Vecci and its single "Holla Holla"...
were nationally renowned, though hard-edged hip made a return within a few years with the rise of 50 Cent
50 Cent
Curtis James Jackson III , better known by his stage name 50 Cent, is an American rapper, entrepreneur, investor, record producer, and actor. He rose to fame with the release of his albums Get Rich or Die Tryin and The Massacre . Get Rich or Die Tryin has been certified eight times platinum by...
. Politically-minded hip hop in the tradition of Public Enemy and Boogie Down Productions has also diversified since the early 90's with groups like The Coup, Sweatshop Union, Mr. Lif, Paris, Immortal Technique and many others.