Rock music is a form of popular music with a prominent vocal melody accompanied by guitar, drums, and bass. Many styles of rock music also use keyboard instruments such as organ, piano, or synthesizers. Rock music usually has a strong back beat, and often revolves around guitar, either electric or acoustic.
Rock music has its roots in 1950s-era rock and roll and rockabilly. In the late 1960s, rock music was blended with folk music to create folk rock, blues to create blues rock and with jazz, to create jazz-rock fusion, and without a time signature to create psychedelic rock. In the 1970s, rock incorporated influences from soul, funk, and latin music. Also in the 1970s, rock developed a number of subgenres, such as soft rock, heavy metal, hard rock, progressive rock, and punk rock. Rock subgenres from the 1980s included synth-rock, hardcore punk and alternative rock. In the 1990s, rock subgenres included grunge-style rock, britpop, indie rock, piano rock, and nu metal.
Rock 'n' roll came from rhythm and blues (R'n'B), country, and in turn its influence fed back to these cultures, a process of borrowings, influences that continue to develop rock music. Rock 'n' roll had runaway success in the U.S. and brought R'n'B-influenced music to an international audience. Its success led to a dilution of the meaning of the term "rock and roll", as promoters were quick to attach the label to other commercial pop.
Rock 'n' roll started off in the early-to-mid 1950s in the United States. African-American artists such as Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Bo Diddley, and Fats Domino played predominantly to African American crowds. While these key early rockers were indisposed to racism, local authorities and dance halls were very much divided upon racial lines.
Mainstream acceptance of rock and roll came in the mid-1950s when what Bo Diddley describes as 'ofay dudes' (or whites) signed to major labels and started covering their material. Elvis Presley and Bill Haley & His Comets, Buddy Holly, The Big Bopper, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash often toured and played together in dance halls and clubs across the US and Britain.
Towards the end of the 1950s "chessboard" crowds (both black and white patrons) would emerge at rock and roll concerts, as fans discovered the original artists of the songs they knew from television and the radio, such as Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti". The genre ignited British enthusiasm for rhythm
In the United Kingdom the trad jazz movement brought visiting blues music artists to Britain. Lonnie Donegan's 1955 hit "Rock Island Line" was a major influence, and helped to develop the trend of skiffle music groups throughout the country, including John Lennon's the Quarry Men, the 1957 precursor to The Beatles. Britain developed a major rock and roll scene, without the race barriers which kept "race records" or rhythm and blues separate in the U.S.
Cliff Richard had the first British rock 'n' roll hit with "Move It", effectively ushering in the sound of British rock. At the start of the 1960s, his backing group The Shadows was one of a number of groups having success with surf music instrumentals. And while rock 'n' roll was fading into lightweight pop and schmaltzy ballads, at clubs and local dances British rock groups, heavily influenced by blues-rock pioneers like Alexis Korner, were starting to play with an intensity and drive seldom found in white American acts.
By the end of 1962, the British rock scene had started, with groups drawing on a wide range of American influences including soul music, rhythm and blues and surf music. Initially, they reinterpreted standard American tunes, playing for dancers doing the twist, for example. These groups eventually infused their original rock compositions with increasingly complex musical ideas.
The Beatles brought together an appealing mix of image, songwriting and personality, and achieved an unprecedented level of worldwide popularity. In mid-1962 The Rolling Stones started as one of a number of groups increasingly showing blues influence, along with The Animals and The Yardbirds. In late 1964, The Kinks, The Who and The Pretty Things represented the new Mod style. Towards the end of the decade, British rock groups began to explore psychedelic musical styles that made reference to the drug subculture and hallucinogenic experiences.
After their initial success in the UK, the Beatles launched a large-scale US tour to a frenzy of fan interest known as Beatlemania, which spread worldwide with the Beatles' first visit to the US in 1964 including their debut on the Ed Sullivan Show on 9 February 1964. In the wake of Beatlemania, other British bands headed to the US, notably the Rolling Stones, the Animals, and the Yardbirds.
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