When Did Rock'n'Roll Become "Authentic"?

In our book, Faking It, we posit that early rock’n’roll was a reaction against authenticity, and that authenticity only crept into the genre at the inception of folk rock, since folk music was all about authenticity.

My friend Elijah Wald has dug up some quotations that appear to contravene this theory. Most convincingly, in my opinion, is a comment from Billboard in 1963: “Surfing music has to sound untrained with a certain rough flavor to appeal to the teenagers. As in the case of true c.&w., when the music gets too good, and too polished, it isn’t considered the real thing.”

And Columbia producer Mitch Miller, back in 1958, told Dwight MacDonald for a New Yorker piece, “The kids don’t want recognized stars doing their music. They don’t want real professionals. They want faceless young people doing it in order to retain the feeling that it’s their own.”

The requirement that music be unpolished and be performed by the salt of the earth can be traced back to the aesthetics of folk and country music, and was part and parcel of these music’s appeal as far back as the 1920s. But it was also part of the appeal of R&B and rock’n’roll as well. In this sense, authenticity was always important to rock’n’roll, and we were, in some respects, wrong.

Yet at the same time, rock’n’roll moved away from the pure authenticity of country and folk musics: it introduced a strong element of ridiculousness, it emphasized sex and fashion, and its vocal style was far more mannered and perverse than the plain, unadorned singing of folk and country. Rock’n’roll set out to be wild and undisciplined, and as such had to break free from the God’s-honest-truth aesthetic of country and folk. In this sense, rock’n’roll was deliberately inauthentic music.

Why was this remnant of authenticity so important to a group of young men and women who sought complete freedom from the outmoded tastes of their parents, and whose resistance to Hollywood-style marketing was essentially nil?

Because rock’n’roll was rebelling not only against the aesthetics of country music, but against pop music’s aesthetics too--both represented authority. Rebelling against country meant adherence to the ephemeral, the emphasis of desire over faith, the elevation of youth over wisdom, the employment of mannerism rather than sincerity. Rebelling against pop meant stripping the instrumentation down to the bare essentials, playing in a rudimentary style, and retaining all the rough, manly edges that pop had tried to smooth away.

Of course, that didn’t last very long. The biggest rock’n’roll stars were adding strings to their records by 1958, and by 1960, the need for an authentically “dirty” sound in rock’n’roll had been relegated to subgenres like rockabilly and surf music. The large majority of rock’n’roll hits of the pre-folk-rock era were completely divorced from the rough-edged aesthetic.

In our book, we carefully differentiate between personal authenticity (sincerity) and cultural authenticity (being true to tradition). Rock’n’roll roundly rejected personal authenticity. But it retained in some measure the aesthetic of cultural authenticity that was so important to its forebears, the aesthetic of primitivism: “when the music gets too good, and too polished, it isn’t considered the real thing.”

- Yuval

Comments

[Yuval Taylor]

Elijah Wald wrote me, "Having just read a lot of teen magazines, I'm surprised by the claim that 'Rock’n’roll roundly rejected personal authenticity.' It was very important to teen-mag readers that Paul Anka was really in love with the older woman for whom he wrote 'Diana,' and there was a constant attempt to show that songs really reflected the singers' own experiences."

I replied, "Is Paul Anka 'rock'n'roll'? Was there a similar attempt to find out whom 'Hound Dog' was about? Was Paul Anka the least bit concerned about singing songs that reflected his own experiences? I think there's a big contrast between the modus operandum here and that of country music. For country singers, it was very important that their material reflected their own lives and beliefs. Ditto for folk singers. Of course you find some concern for personal authenticity among fans of pop music throughout the ages. But rock'n'roll was much more about fantasy and less about reality than country or r&b."

[Yuval Taylor]

Elijah responded:

Paul Anka was certainly rock 'n' roll to his audience, to American Bandstand, and to everyone writing at that time.
As for who "Hound Dog" was about, has there ever been a time and style where every song could pass that test?

On country music, that is what Elvis was considered to be playing--I gave you the quotation where Alan Freed defined him as hillbilly rather than real rock 'n' roll, and he was voted most promising country performer by both Billboard and Cash Box, and portrayed as a country singer in his first three movies. In 1955, he had more hits on the country charts than on the pop charts--so if he was inauthentic, then his success argues against that being important for country fans.

I think if you do some research on this in contemporary publications, you'll find that R&B and country were no more about reality than rock 'n' roll was, for their audience--though R&B's authenticity became more of an issue when "covers" became controversial in 1954. But even then, the "authenticity" of Tweedle-Dee (the main song being fought over, since LaVern Baker was leading the fight) had nothing to do with it being a genuine expression of her personal feelings, or her culture. The argument was that her record was being copied note for note.

It is true that for some "country singers, it was very important that their material reflected their own lives and beliefs." But most? The most popular? I'm glancing at the top 25 country hits of the 1950s: Did anyone care whether Webb Pierce was really "In the Jailhouse," Pee Wee King was really a "Slow Poke" (or anything but a polka musician from Milwaukee), Hank Williams was really a Cajun, Tennessee Ernie Ford had ever been chased with a shotgun, Ray Price had ever really been out of work in the big city......
You can find artists who fit your argument in the country field, and who don't fit it in rock 'n' roll, but is it broadly accurate if you don't cherry-pick? I think you'll find that being a real teenager meant more to rock 'n' roll fans than being a real hillbilly meant to country listeners.

[Yuval Taylor]

Elijah -

Well, you've corrected me on a few points.

Now let's take it as a given that in all genres at all times in 20th century popular music there were some fans, artists, and songs concerned with issues of authenticity and others that weren't. Let's also take it as a given that rock'n'roll made a departure in some fashion from its antecedents. The question I've been trying to answer is whether that departure involved a different attitude towards issues of authenticity.

If you've read Richard Peterson's Creating Country Music: Fabricating Authenticity, you'll see how the issue of authenticity is at the heart of country music's identity. Obviously, there were artists for whom that identification was stronger (Hank Williams, Loretta Lynn, Dolly Parton) than others (Ray Price, Tennessee Ernie Ford, Roger Miller). But the further removed you get from pop crossover, the more true Peterson’s point becomes.

The opposite can be said for rock’n’roll. At the heart of its identity--what separated it from country on the one hand, r&b on the other, and Sinatra-ish pop on the third--was its rebellious spirit, which involved a very different relationship to authenticity than did country. The fact that Elvis was on the country charts or that Alan Freed defined him as “hillbilly” even though Elvis viewed himself as rock’n’roll, not country, shouldn’t change that. There are always going to be blurrings of genre, especially when a genre is new. The fact that Paul Anka was called “rock’n’roll” even though he didn’t share that rebellious spirit shouldn’t change the fact that he was far more closely allied with mainstream pop--in terms of his music’s production and lyrics--than were other rock’n’rollers.

Perhaps I’m “cherry-picking” to prove my point. Perhaps generalizing about genres isn’t, in your opinion, a valid approach to studying popular music. I think it’s the only way to get at the evolution of an attitude.

Lastly, regarding your point “that being a real teenager meant more to rock 'n' roll fans than being a real hillbilly meant to country listeners,” I’d be curious to hear about rock’n’roll fans objecting to Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Buddy Holly, Gene Vincent, Elvis Presley, Bill Haley, Fats Domino, Bo Diddley, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Pat Boone. None of them were teenagers at the time of their hit records.