[00:00.00] Rock and Roll

[00:03.58]It is difficult to say exactly

[00:08.33]how the music we call'rock"or"rockand roll"and began.

[00:14.39]Its roots go back to many different countries

[00:19.96]and many different kinds of music and musicians.

[00:25.10]Rock music developed mainly from the interaction

[00:31.56]of black African and while European music.

[00:37.02]The Europeans and the African slaves who came to Americal

[00:43.86]during the seventeenth centry each had their own different kinds of music.

[00:51.62]Black Africans used heavy drumbeats,a rough singing voice,

[00:58.46]and the calling of a melody and answer of a chorus.

[01:04.03]The white Europeans,mostly English and Scots,

[01:09.88]used a stronger melody,a less heavy beat,

[01:15.52]and instruments such as guitars,horns,and fiddles.

[01:21.97]The history of rock and roll

[01:26.23]is the history of how rock evolved from these two traditions.

[01:32.79]From the seventeenth to the twentieth century,

[01:38.22]musicians in the southern United States

[01:43.16]developed two new froms of music:

[01:48.02]the blues,usually played by blacks,

[01:53.48]and country music,played by whites.

[01:58.31]Black musicians sang the blues accompanied by a guitar.

[02:05.18]This music was similar to work songs:

[02:09.93]stories of troubles and pain,with lines that were repeated several times.

[02:17.27]The words"rock and roll"probably came from the black churches in the South,

[02:24.72]where people sang spiritual music and danced to the strong rhythms,

[02:31.35]which they called"rocking and reeling".

[02:35.40]At the same time,whites were playing country music,

[02:40.97]which was mostly traditional dancing music

[02:45.90]and slow songs that told and stories.

[02:50.66]The singers were accompanied

[02:54.42]by string instruments such as fiddles and guitars.

[03:00.27]During this time blues and country musicians

[03:05.84]had some influence on each other,

[03:10.28]but the influence grew stronger after phonograph records

[03:16.34]became popular in the late nineteenth century.

[03:21.48]The birth of the electric guitar

[03:25.84]changed country and blues music in the 1940's.

[03:31.59]The sound of the electric guittar

[03:36.45]would become the sound of rock and roll.

[03:40.89]No one thinks fo early rock and roll without thinking of Elvis Presley,

[03:47.84]the"King of Rock and Roll".

[03:51.71]Elvis was an ordinary boy.

[03:55.86]He grew up poor,learned to sing in church,

[04:01.21]and became a truck driver when he graduated from high school.

[04:06.54]No one thought that this young man

[04:10.88]with the guitar would change popular culture.

[04:16.24]But after he recorded two blues songs in Memphis,

[04:22.40]everything changed.He sang throughout the South,

[04:28.33]and teenagers went crazy over his amazing voice

[04:34.16]and his attractive performances.

[04:38.20]His music was an exciting mixture of white country and black blues.

[04:44.84]With his long hair and tight pants,he became a teengage idol.

[04:51.19]In two years,he was a national phenomenon.

[04:56.62]Elvis's career then went downhill.

[05:01.58]He went into the army,

[05:05.53]then stopped performing and made a series of bad movies.

[05:11.38]He continued to record,

[05:15.14]but his music rarely had the life of on his early songs.

[05:20.68]He remained the symbol of rock and roll,

[05:24.91]however,not only in the United States but also around the world.

[05:31.76]He died in 1977,at the age of 42,but his music did not be with him.

[05:39.98]Rock music continues to develop and change,

[05:45.13]but the heart and soul of rock

[05:49.18]is the same heart and soul that Elvis expressed.