The History of Rock & Roll
Encyclopedia
The History of Rock & Roll was a radio documentary on rock and roll
music, originally syndicated in 1969. One of the lengthiest documentaries of any medium (48 hours in the 1969 version, 52 hours each for the 1978 and 1981 versions), The History of Rock & Roll is a definitive history of the Rock and Roll genre, stretching from the early 1950s to its day. The "rockumentary," as producers Bill Drake
and Gene Chenault called it, featured hundreds of interviews and comments from numerous rock artists and people involved with rock and roll.
Notable features of this documentary include the "chart sweep," featuring a montage of #1 songs and notable hits from a given year or artist, a "time sweep" for each one-hour segment providing a montage of the major hits for each year or individual artist, and closing with a special climactic time sweep featuring a montage of every #1 hit from 1955 to the year of the latest version. The 1989 edition (made with different producers and otherwise unrelated in content to its predecessors) also included news headlines and clips for each year covered.
While the documentary focuses on Rock & Roll and its variants, some songs and artists from other genres, such as Johnny Cash
, Anne Murray
and Barry Manilow
, are also represented here, as they have made the Top 40, or even #1, on stations that primarily played Rock & Roll.
Los Angeles
, hosted by Robert W. Morgan
. It aired for 48 hours and was later syndicated. Later that year, with slight modifications to the script, another version was aired hosted by Humble Harve Miller. The program was then taken to national syndication in the fall of 1969 by parent company RKO General
. KHJ repeated this in 12 hour blocks. This version was syndicated throughout the early 1970s, and was sent to stations on large 10" reels of 1/4" tape, in full-track mono. Stations were required to return the tapes immediately after airing, though (surprisingly) several stations offered copies of the show as prizes. The original KHJ show also carried promos awarding copies of the show as prizes to a handful of listeners, presumably on cassette tape.
Writer Pete Johnson said that "I included nearly every record I ever rem[em]ber hearing".
" when it first aired on February 21, 1969. However, it had some competition for that title from the Pop Chronicles
which began airing on February 9, 1969 on rival Los Angeles AM station KRLA. But since The History of Rock and Roll completed its first broadcast that weekend, it was the first of these rockumentaries to be broadcast in full.
began the process of updating the documentary. Finding that the 1969 script contained too many inaccuracies and omissions, programmer/DJ/music historian Gary Theroux researched, rewrote and rebuilt the program entirely from scratch. The new version dramatically expanded the story with fresh interviews, insightful narration, far more music and a host of innovations—all in a modular format which allowed stations more programming flexibility. Drake knew that the rising popularity of stereo FM rock stations made it necessary to redo the show in stereo
. The revised show was also completely remixed and re-edited from scratch, using a homebuilt control room assembled together by engineer Mark Ford
at the company headquarters in Canoga Park, California, using a library of thousands of LPs and 45 singles. Using a systematic approach covering each year with a focused half-hour and then separate hours devoted to all the key artists or trends, the result was an enormously successful runaway ratings hit hosted by Bill Drake himself. Drake replaced previous host Humble Harve Miller, who was unavailable due to legal problems.
Among other things, Theroux had Drake-Chenault chief engineer Mark Ford
painstakingly assemble two kinds of annual montages: one of each chart-topping hit of a given year (in sequence) and the other of other key songs there was no time to play in full. Those #1 hit montages were reprised for the climactic final hour of the show—edited together back to back to create a fast-moving 45-minute medley of every chart-topping hit from 1955 to the present. The riveting nature of Theroux's much-bootlegged ending later inspired a whole series of medley hits by everyone from Elvis Presley and The Beatles to Stars on 45 and Jive Bunny & the Mixmasters. The 1978 edition of "The History of Rock & Roll" debuted as a marathon broadcast over more than 400 domestic stations and another 400 overseas and won Billboard magazine's "Top Special Program of the Year" award. That success sparked Theroux (who co-produced, along with Ford and Drake) to write "The Top Ten: 1956–Present," a book which revealed the sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes outrageous but always revealing stories behind the ten biggest hit records of each year in even more detail. Theroux eventually hosted his own version of "The History of Rock 'n' Roll" as a fast-moving syndicated daily 2 minute feature.
Following the success of the 1978 release, Drake-Chenault created a shorter, edited version, marketed as "The History of Rock & Roll: The Early Years." It only spotlit the years through 1971 and was targeted to oldies stations.
remained relatively unchanged from this portion. The Chart Sweeps covering 1956–1963 (formerly a half hour each in the 1978 edition) were combined into a single half hour, while the new Chart Sweeps for 1978, 1979 and 1980 were expanded to one hour each. The final hour, the "time sweep", brought the number one song montage up to date through Eddie Rabbitt
's "I Love a Rainy Night", the song that was number one at the time this version was prepared.
ed. As a result, there are various items on the market that bear this name that had no connection to the radio program. These included various oldies compilations (such as a set of LP album
s from Pickwick Records
), books (such as a History of Rock and Roll college textbook, written by Tom Larson) and videos and DVDs (like a Time Life History of Rock and Roll DVD set). In addition, Rolling Stone
magazine not only released a book with this phrase (The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll), but also had an early-1980s weekly radio series along the same scope as the special (Rolling Stone's Continuous History of Rock & Roll).
The "time sweep" is a 53-minute collage of number one hits from the Rock & Roll era, through 1981's "I Love a Rainy Night" (Eddie Rabbitt). The entire broadcast closed with The Beatles
' version of "Rock and Roll Music".
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...
music, originally syndicated in 1969. One of the lengthiest documentaries of any medium (48 hours in the 1969 version, 52 hours each for the 1978 and 1981 versions), The History of Rock & Roll is a definitive history of the Rock and Roll genre, stretching from the early 1950s to its day. The "rockumentary," as producers Bill Drake
Bill Drake
Bill Drake , born Philip Yarbrough, was an American radio programmer who co-developed the Boss Radio format with Gene Chenault via their company Drake-Chenault.-Early career:...
and Gene Chenault called it, featured hundreds of interviews and comments from numerous rock artists and people involved with rock and roll.
Notable features of this documentary include the "chart sweep," featuring a montage of #1 songs and notable hits from a given year or artist, a "time sweep" for each one-hour segment providing a montage of the major hits for each year or individual artist, and closing with a special climactic time sweep featuring a montage of every #1 hit from 1955 to the year of the latest version. The 1989 edition (made with different producers and otherwise unrelated in content to its predecessors) also included news headlines and clips for each year covered.
While the documentary focuses on Rock & Roll and its variants, some songs and artists from other genres, such as Johnny Cash
Johnny Cash
John R. "Johnny" Cash was an American singer-songwriter, actor, and author, who has been called one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century...
, Anne Murray
Anne Murray
Morna Anne Murray CC, ONS is a Canadian singer in pop, country and adult contemporary styles whose albums have sold over 54 million copies....
and Barry Manilow
Barry Manilow
Barry Manilow is an American singer-songwriter, musician, arranger, producer, conductor, and performer, best known for such recordings as "Could It Be Magic", "Mandy", "Can't Smile Without You", and "Copacabana ."...
, are also represented here, as they have made the Top 40, or even #1, on stations that primarily played Rock & Roll.
1969
The History of Rock & Roll first aired on the weekend of February 21–23, 1969 on 93 KHJKHJ (AM)
KHJ Radio in Los Angeles, California broadcasts Spanish-language entertainment programming as La Ranchera. It was also one of America's most formidable Top 40 radio stations in the 1960s and 1970s as 93 KHJ before changing its format in 1980....
Los Angeles
Los Ángeles
Los Ángeles is the capital of the province of Biobío, in the commune of the same name, in Region VIII , in the center-south of Chile. It is located between the Laja and Biobío rivers. The population is 123,445 inhabitants...
, hosted by Robert W. Morgan
Robert W. Morgan
Robert Wilbur Morgan was an award-winning morning radio personality best known for his work at several stations in Los Angeles, California, in particular KHJ-AM....
. It aired for 48 hours and was later syndicated. Later that year, with slight modifications to the script, another version was aired hosted by Humble Harve Miller. The program was then taken to national syndication in the fall of 1969 by parent company RKO General
RKO General
RKO General was the main holding company through 1991 for the noncore businesses of the General Tire and Rubber Company and, after General Tire's reorganization in the 1980s, GenCorp. The business was based around the consolidation of its parent company's broadcasting interests, dating to 1943, and...
. KHJ repeated this in 12 hour blocks. This version was syndicated throughout the early 1970s, and was sent to stations on large 10" reels of 1/4" tape, in full-track mono. Stations were required to return the tapes immediately after airing, though (surprisingly) several stations offered copies of the show as prizes. The original KHJ show also carried promos awarding copies of the show as prizes to a handful of listeners, presumably on cassette tape.
Writer Pete Johnson said that "I included nearly every record I ever rem[em]ber hearing".
First Rockumentary?
The History of Rock and Roll billed itself as "modern music's first rockumentaryRockumentary
The term rockumentary is a neologism denoting a documentary about rock music or its musicians. The term was used by Bill Drake in the 1969 History of Rock & Roll radio broadcast, and by Rob Reiner in the 1984 mockumentary film This Is Spinal Tap....
" when it first aired on February 21, 1969. However, it had some competition for that title from the Pop Chronicles
Pop Chronicles
The Pop Chronicles are two radio documentary series which together "may constitute the most complete audio history of 1940s-60s popular music." Both were produced by John Gilliland.-The Pop Chronicles of the 50s and 60s:...
which began airing on February 9, 1969 on rival Los Angeles AM station KRLA. But since The History of Rock and Roll completed its first broadcast that weekend, it was the first of these rockumentaries to be broadcast in full.
1978
In 1975, Drake-ChenaultDrake-Chenault
Drake-Chenault Enterprises was a radio syndication company that specialized in automation on FM radio stations. The company was founded in the late-1960s by radio programmer and deejay Bill Drake , and his business partner, Lester Eugene Chenault...
began the process of updating the documentary. Finding that the 1969 script contained too many inaccuracies and omissions, programmer/DJ/music historian Gary Theroux researched, rewrote and rebuilt the program entirely from scratch. The new version dramatically expanded the story with fresh interviews, insightful narration, far more music and a host of innovations—all in a modular format which allowed stations more programming flexibility. Drake knew that the rising popularity of stereo FM rock stations made it necessary to redo the show in stereo
STEREO
STEREO is a solar observation mission. Two nearly identical spacecraft were launched into orbits that cause them to respectively pull farther ahead of and fall gradually behind the Earth...
. The revised show was also completely remixed and re-edited from scratch, using a homebuilt control room assembled together by engineer Mark Ford
Mark Ford
-Life:He went to school in London, and attended Oxford University and, as a Kennedy Scholar, Harvard University. He studied for his doctorate at Oxford University on the poetry of John Ashbery, and has published widely on nineteenth- and twentieth-century American writing, including on Raymond...
at the company headquarters in Canoga Park, California, using a library of thousands of LPs and 45 singles. Using a systematic approach covering each year with a focused half-hour and then separate hours devoted to all the key artists or trends, the result was an enormously successful runaway ratings hit hosted by Bill Drake himself. Drake replaced previous host Humble Harve Miller, who was unavailable due to legal problems.
Among other things, Theroux had Drake-Chenault chief engineer Mark Ford
Mark Ford
-Life:He went to school in London, and attended Oxford University and, as a Kennedy Scholar, Harvard University. He studied for his doctorate at Oxford University on the poetry of John Ashbery, and has published widely on nineteenth- and twentieth-century American writing, including on Raymond...
painstakingly assemble two kinds of annual montages: one of each chart-topping hit of a given year (in sequence) and the other of other key songs there was no time to play in full. Those #1 hit montages were reprised for the climactic final hour of the show—edited together back to back to create a fast-moving 45-minute medley of every chart-topping hit from 1955 to the present. The riveting nature of Theroux's much-bootlegged ending later inspired a whole series of medley hits by everyone from Elvis Presley and The Beatles to Stars on 45 and Jive Bunny & the Mixmasters. The 1978 edition of "The History of Rock & Roll" debuted as a marathon broadcast over more than 400 domestic stations and another 400 overseas and won Billboard magazine's "Top Special Program of the Year" award. That success sparked Theroux (who co-produced, along with Ford and Drake) to write "The Top Ten: 1956–Present," a book which revealed the sometimes funny, sometimes sad, sometimes outrageous but always revealing stories behind the ten biggest hit records of each year in even more detail. Theroux eventually hosted his own version of "The History of Rock 'n' Roll" as a fast-moving syndicated daily 2 minute feature.
Following the success of the 1978 release, Drake-Chenault created a shorter, edited version, marketed as "The History of Rock & Roll: The Early Years." It only spotlit the years through 1971 and was targeted to oldies stations.
1981
The final Drake-Chenault version was released in the spring of 1981, named the Silver Anniversary Edition of the History of Rock & Roll, so-called as it was about 25 years since the birth of Rock & Roll. Not wishing to increase the size of the program, and with an attempt to place greater emphasis on the current musical trends, the controversial decision was made to severely cut back the sections devoted to the 1950s and early 1960s (prior to the advent of the Beatles). Only the two-hour section on Elvis PresleyElvis 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"....
remained relatively unchanged from this portion. The Chart Sweeps covering 1956–1963 (formerly a half hour each in the 1978 edition) were combined into a single half hour, while the new Chart Sweeps for 1978, 1979 and 1980 were expanded to one hour each. The final hour, the "time sweep", brought the number one song montage up to date through Eddie Rabbitt
Eddie Rabbitt
Edward Thomas "Eddie" Rabbitt was an American singer-songwriter and musician. His career began as a songwriter in the late 1960s, springboarding to a recording career after composing hits such as "Kentucky Rain" for Elvis Presley in 1970 and "Pure Love" for Ronnie Milsap in 1974...
's "I Love a Rainy Night", the song that was number one at the time this version was prepared.
1989
With Drake-Chenault having been sold in 1986, it was the ABC Rock Radio Network which followed up with what it called "The Official History of Rock & Roll." Hosted by a team of disc jockeys including Tony Pigg, Meg Griffin, Jimmy Fink and Mike Harrison, it bore little resemblance to the Drake-Chenault versions.Name
Despite the program's popularity, the name "History of Rock & Roll" was never trademarkTrademark
A trademark, trade mark, or trade-mark is a distinctive sign or indicator used by an individual, business organization, or other legal entity to identify that the products or services to consumers with which the trademark appears originate from a unique source, and to distinguish its products or...
ed. As a result, there are various items on the market that bear this name that had no connection to the radio program. These included various oldies compilations (such as a set of LP album
LP album
The LP, or long-playing microgroove record, is a format for phonograph records, an analog sound storage medium. Introduced by Columbia Records in 1948, it was soon adopted as a new standard by the entire record industry...
s from Pickwick Records
Pickwick Records
Pickwick Records was an American record label and distributor known for its budget album releases of sound-alike recordings, bargain bin reissues and repackagings under the brands Design, Bravo , Hurrah, Grand Prix, and children's records on the Cricket and Happy Time labels.The label is also...
), books (such as a History of Rock and Roll college textbook, written by Tom Larson) and videos and DVDs (like a Time Life History of Rock and Roll DVD set). In addition, Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone
Rolling Stone is a US-based magazine devoted to music, liberal politics, and popular culture that is published every two weeks. Rolling Stone was founded in San Francisco in 1967 by Jann Wenner and music critic Ralph J...
magazine not only released a book with this phrase (The Rolling Stone Illustrated History of Rock & Roll), but also had an early-1980s weekly radio series along the same scope as the special (Rolling Stone's Continuous History of Rock & Roll).
Contents
The 1981 version of the show opened with a quick reverse "Time Sweep", featuring clips from selected songs from the 1980s backwards to the 1950s. It covered the 1950s, 1960s, and 1970s, and closed with a "A Top Ten of Rock & Roll" followed by the "Ending Time Sweep":The "time sweep" is a 53-minute collage of number one hits from the Rock & Roll era, through 1981's "I Love a Rainy Night" (Eddie Rabbitt). The entire broadcast closed with 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...
' version of "Rock and Roll Music".