It's the decades-old debate: is that rock and roll? This debate was exacerbated by the opening of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Those who are most vociferous in the "that's not rock and roll" camp are often the same people in the camp of "a hall of fame is anathema to the mere existence of rock and roll."
The loudest voices are the white, mostly heterosexual, cis-men who have claimed rock music as theirs, having stolen it, as they have stolen everything, from African-American culture. On the one hand they dismiss the RRHOF and on the other hand they demand that rock and roll is a very narrowly-defined musical style that they get to define.
There is unanimity, even among the dull, that Little Richard and Chuck Berry, Fats Domino and Bo Diddley, were the pioneers of rock music. The country artists began to participate: Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Carl Perkins. Then the pop singers squeezed in: Buddy Holly, Bill Haley, and Gene Vincent.
As we moved into the sixties there were two revolutionary musical movements that are the base of today's pedestrian argument that "it isn't rock and roll"! First, the creation of Motown Records, the sound of Young America, the sound of Detroit. Second, the British Invasion.
All of the English bands who invaded rock music declared that their primary influences were American rhythm and blues. Note that this British music was a completely white genre that proudly uses the term "invasion" to described what they did to American rock music. Perhaps the greatest rock band of all time, The Rolling Stones, declare proudly and often that the music of black America is the music most important to them and their success. Without the backing of the American soul and R&B industries, the Stones would have been ignored. Forever. The first Beatles record is rife with homage to American R&B and American songwriters, including covers of R&B classics. American music, in particular the roots of American modern music, is the only reason any of those bands were popular. Rock and roll is the marriage of R&B, country, and pop music. It does not exist in a vacuum, independently of those foundational genres.
The two musical acts that owned the charts in the 1960s were The Supremes and The Beatles. Until the insertion of NYC folk music and California hippie music, there was English music and Soul music, For many of us, those genres lived together in our little cardboard carrying cases of 7" 45-RPM vinyl records. Every guy I knew who had no soul music in his collection had the worst taste in music and helped create the biggest, most boring corporate rock bands of the next decade.
I know you have raised your hand to insert the conversation of surf music. If you're calling surf music rock and roll, but not calling soul music rock and roll, you can just stop reading now and leave the conversation. Personally, I do not exclude surf music from the overall definition of rock music; but I don't think it is an important influence: give me the Fifth Dimension and The Mamas & The Papas for harmonies.
So . . . if the English music that was derived completely from American R&B was rock and roll, then the Motown music (and other soul music) which is also American R&B, is rock and roll music.
Also, the 1960s saw the insertion of folk music and California music into rock music: Bob Dylan, Joan Baez, Beach Boys, Doors, Jefferson Airplane, Grateful Dead; and experimental music: Velvet Underground, John Cage, Yoko Ono. These were all part of rock and roll, yet deviated dramatically from the roots of rock music.
One of the most popular and powerful woman' voices in rock and roll was Janis Joplin. The reality is that she sang blues, jazz standards, and country music. She is held-up as a saint in the church of rock and roll; but, did she even sing rock music? No. My mother played records like "Summertime" and "Little Girl Blue" and then Janis Joplin recorded those. Her first hit was "Piece of My Heart," which is more blues than rock; and her final hit was "Me and Bobby McGee," a country song! But, Janis is rock and roll. If she was a woman of color, would she be afforded the same entrance into the hallowed halls of rock heaven?
One need look no further than the soundtrack from the movie "Woodstock" to see that moving into the 1970s, rock and roll was a massive umbrella under which a multitude of sub-genres would flourish. Richie Havens, Sly & The Family Stone, and Jimi Hendrix delivered rock performances in that move that have gone down in rock and roll history. Havens delivered a folk performance, Sly a funk/dance performance, and Hendrix' best work that day was the "Star Spangled Banner," where he paid homage to the military he served, admired, and respected. All of that is considered rock and roll.
I make special note here of Billy Preston, the African-American singer, writer, and keyboard player, who had major hit records and is the only musician to be a member of both The Beatles and The Rolling Stones. He has been completely ignored by those who claim ownership of rock music. He was recently elected to the RRHOF, and the white, mostly heterosexual, cis-men who claim rock music as their own, are probably going to lose their shit when they find out he was also gay, so please don't tell them.
In the 1970s, the rock music umbrella was treated to one of America's greatest musicians, Miles Davis, whose record "Bitches Brew" was embraced by the rock world as he was joined by young, electronic musicians like John McLaughlin, to whom he was introduced by his wife Betty Davis (who was much more rock and roll than Janis ever dreamed of being). Many others continued to infuse jazz influences into rock music: Traffic, Chick Corea, Carlos Santana. It's all rock and roll.
In passing, let's just say that had Betty Davis (nee Mabry) been white, she would have been catapulted to heights unknown by women in rock music. If you are a rock music fan and are not familiar with her three excellent early-1970s records, do yourself a favor and listen.
The era of protest was upon us. Rock music was filled with anti-war songs from every corner: Motown, California hippie bands, NYC folk, British rock, country rock, Philadelphia soul all had major hit records in this genre: "Ball of Confusion," "Ohio," "Masters of War," "I Feel Like I'm Fixin' To Die Rag," "Bring The Boys Home," "Give Peace A Chance," "Fortunate Son," "Universal Soldier," "War," and many others were all rock songs.
Philadelphia soul hit the scene big-time in the 1970s, with The O'Jays, The Three Degrees, Harold Melvin, and TSOP simultaneous to the next British invasion of glam rock with T.Rex, David Bowie, Elton John, and Roxy Music. Again, English acts whose music was deeply rooted in American R&B and soul are hailed as rock music giants as their Philadelphian peers with the same lineage are dismissed from the rock music tent.
As the 1970s progressed, soul and R&B spawned "disco" music, while record company executives promoted "rock" mediocrity celebrated by white, mostly heterosexual, cis-men at record labels. I might argue that both genres were beyond boring, but at least you could dance to disco music! People dancing to mid-70s rock music is embarrassing to witness. Eventually, the revered Englishmen brought dance beats to their rock records, and enjoyed both condemnation and accolades; but the overall result of David Bowie's "Young Americans" rock album and The Rolling Stones "Some Girls" rock album was that the all-powerful white, mostly heterosexual, cis-men who claim rock music as their own, dismissed these works as 'experiments' or 'sell-outs.'
Both of those genres (disco and corporate rock) spawned a backlash that were much more closely related than most rock music fans want to admit: punk rock and rap/hip-hop. At the time, the two movements bubbling-up in NYC were very closely aligned and shared quite a bit of cross-over audience. Afrika Bambaataa and Grandmaster Flash were as punk as The Dictators and The Ramones. They were both reactions to the dullness that rock music had spawned after the era of protest. DeeDee Ramone made a rap record, and Blondie dove deep into the dance/hip-hop arena. Future "punk" bands would embrace not just scratch and rap, but also reggae and ska. Those bands are considered solidly under the rock umbrella.
Let's add to this discussion the notion of technology. Both keyboards and record players are technological pieces of rock and roll. One is the basis for the synthesizer and the other for the turntable. In the 1970s, both devices became part of rock music. However, when The Clash added scratching to their records it was "innovative," and when non-white artists used scratch it was "not rock music."
The synthesizer brought us progressive rock (or prog rock) which is pop music infused with symphonic arrangements and instruments. Played by white men, primarily Englishmen, it was unequivocally considered rock music. Why? Then we got ambient music, a true innovation that was introduced by Brian Eno, who had once been in a rock band; and although ambient music has no aural relation to rock music, it was immediately folded into the rock music family, just as soul music and disco music were summarily dismissed. Why? There is nothing particularly rock and roll about prog rock, and nothing even remotely rock and roll about ambient music. Yet, here we are with both genres considered fundamental parts of the rock music scene while music of the same era by non-white musicians is "not rock music." Perhaps there is a common theme developing here.
When David Bowie embarked on what became known as his "Berlin Trilogy," produced by the inimitable Tony Visconti and heavily-influenced by Eno's ambient ideals, it was declared a seminal change in the entire rock genre. It is. Make no mistake, those records influenced most rock music that followed. But, listening to the "Low" record is hardly a rock experience. I would argue that Run-DMC made harder rock records during that era than Bowie's masterpiece. Yet, Bowie's work is considered rock music and Run-DMC is "not rock music."
Enter the next British influence: new wave. Unlike American new wave, the English version included a lot of racial and cultural cross-over. Tu-Tone records with its re-introduction of ska music, (Boy) George O'Dowd declaring that he didn't need to think-up anything new because there was all that great Motown music, Elvis Costello and Nick Lowe using all that 60s-style organ to make the soul record "Get Happy," Paul Weller leaving The Jam to attempt a new wave of blue-eyed soul, Rock Against Racism, and more. It seemed that the English didn't have the same hard and fast lines between "rock music" and music made by non-white musicians.
Let's not get too pro-English here. There is plenty of white English mediocrity in the post-punk era; bands who got big not because of the size of their talent but the color of their skin. Bands like The Police and U2 were catapulted into international superstardom by their record labels with material and performances that are most generously referred to as the creations of a "one-trick pony."
As New Wave fizzled into total mediocrity and the record labels were purchased by huge conglomerates that know nothing about music, the white, mostly heterosexual, cis-men who claim "rock music" as their own, doubled-down on their right to define rock music as narrowly as they want. It was at this time that the music industry created the RRHOF, and the battlefield was defined.
Over the past three-plus decades, the bitterly embattled white, mostly heterosexual, cis-men who claim ownership of rock music take each RRHOF election as their opportunity to narrow the definition of rock music, which basically comes down to a group of white guys, maybe with one white woman, who play guitars and drums (maybe a keyboard), and sing bluesy songs about their difficult lives, trials and tribulations. There is no room in this narrow definition for people of color to sing about their difficult lives, trial and tribulations using any other configuration, because that's "not rock music."
The people who have claimed rock music as their own are making it as irrelevant as they themselves have become. They will continue to remind us how they've been wronged and that their rock music is only what they say it is. They will continue to dismiss rap and hip-hop and explain very patiently to you that "don't think it's singing" and "it's not very creative" and "they are not bands" and "they just don't like it" and all other kinds of absurd bullshit that highlights not only their ignorance of non-white culture, but their complete ignorance of how the music is created and performed. This does not mean that those artists are "not rock music." Basically, they have a position based completely in racism.
In an approximately 50-year span that I will define from seeing The Grateful Dead perform at Boston Garden to seeing Wu-Tang Clan perform at Coney Island Amphitheater, I can confirm that Wu-Tang Clan rocked a helluva lot harder than the Dead (and many many other "rock" bands I've seen in that half-century). So, if rocking the house is part of rock music, we need to stop saying that some groups are not rock music if they are out-rocking everybody else. Saying a band like Wu-Tang Clan is "not rock music" betrays a level of racism that is almost as insidious as the blatant efforts of American conservatives to destroy people of color.
To know that rock music has morphed and changed over the decades and then decide that one branch is "rock music" and another branch is "not rock music" exposes a small-mindedness I imagine most of us do not embrace.
Post-script: There are many angles not covered here: singing groups versus bands, songwriters versus performers, Latinx influence, producers, market manipulation by labels, heavy metal, Michael Jackson, radio versus live performance, the internet, MTV, and more. I believe that any path you walk down while exploring the history of rock music will show you that racism has consistently pushed people of color aside with arguments that have no basis in actual fact or historical reference. Let's stop pretending that we get to define rock music in the narrowest of terms. I don't have to like U2 and you don't have to like Kendrick Lamar, but let's stop pretending they are not current incarnations of the very VERY broad category of rock music.
