The Apocalyptic Rock Fight, Part 2: How Did The Whole Thing Start?

Having written about my first clash with the anti-rock forces in the Christian church (and by this, I mean all the denominations represented in my town), I now proceed to how the war between the two began.  And guess what?  It all started with...racism.

You see, rock was derived from the blues and jazz, which were primarily black musical forms.  (When white people appropriated jazz, it turned into Big Band music.  Whether that was better or not depends on whether you prefer Glenn Miller or Count Basie.)  There was some "cowboy music" (country) mixed in, as well as gospel...but for the most part, the establishment considered it "race music," and it worried them.

(The irony here is that their parents worried about the music young people listened to when it was just jazz, country, and blues...and I bet the Stephen Foster generation worried about ragtime!  Honestly...nothing new under the sun here!)

The main worry, as far as I have been able to tell, is that the first real rock and roll was performed by black musicians, and the white kids were listening to it and enjoying it.  But if black kids also liked it, why, there might be one of these performances attended by both races!  And they might get all het up and start dancing!  Together!  And before you know it, you'd have the races getting mixed up--hanging out together, dating, even marrying!  The God-given idea of white supremacy would be destroyed!  Alas and alack, civilization would be doomed!!!

All right, perhaps not all the adults had that attitude.  But many did, and those people went out of their way to throw as much mud on this new form of music as possible.  Race music, they called it.  Jungle rhythms, demon beat, savage, uncouth, uncivilized...anything to discredit it.  Failing that, white artists were brought in to re-record some of those first rock records, to at least keep the races apart...but what that did was make young people ask questions.  Like, why is it bad for black and white people to hang out together?  Why is this music so bad, if all it's saying is have fun, dance, and love your girlfriend or boyfriend?  Oh, and by the way, why are we fighting in these far-away places with strange-sounding names?  The lack of satisfactory answers brought us the hippie movement, and music that was even more rebellious than the original songs.  And that brought on some truly weird backlash...

But that's another chapter.