Great Rock Musicians: Their Achievements and Effect on Rock and Roll
The blues are undeniably the roots of early rock and roll. Rock
today has mutated so much that the basic blues patterns have been all
but lost. The purpose of this paper is to illustrate the birth of, and
evolution of rock and roll by focusing on three of the arguably greatest
rock musicians of the sixties and seventies. The origin of the blues
can be traced to the emancipation of the slaves in the rural black areas of
the south, where most of the people worked on share-cropping farms.
Musically the blues are defined as a 12-bar chord progression,
harmonized with the corresponding scales and patterns. The chord
progression pattern is four measures of tonic chords followed by two
measures of sub-dominate chords, two more measures of tonic chords,
one measure of dominate chords, one measure of sub dominate chords,
and finally two measures of tonic chords. Blues performers would
travel around the south singing about their loss of love and family, and
the pains they were forced to endure. The music became popular
because nearly every one who heard it could identify with its message.
This type of Blues later became known as country blues because it was
rooted in rural areas. The Blues became more main stream and popular
in the 1920's because of the recording industry coming into existence.
More instruments were added such as pianos, organs, and wind
instruments. Big Band and Rhythm and Blues stemmed from City
Blues.Scutellaro 2Rock and Roll then stemmed from Rhythm and Blues,
in fact, many of the first recorded "Rock" songs where simply white
musicians re-recording Rhythm and Blues songs originally written by
black artists. It took Bob Dylan 23 years to realize that he wanted to
become a rock musician. Bob Dylan, whose birth name was Robert Allen
Zimmerman, had a relatively uneventful childhood in a Minnesota mining
town. He adopted his pseudonym when he went to the University of
Minnesota. "Dylan" came from the Welsh poet Dylan Thomas, with
whom Zimmerman was frequently compared in the University folk circles.

message and the overall sound. Despite the criticism, Dylan produced
many more incredibly successful songs for himself and others including:
Sonny and Cher's "I Got You Babe", the immortal "All Along the
Watchtower" performed by Jimi Hendrix, and the eerily infectious
"Knockin' on Heaven's Door" By Guns n' Roses. His first musical
stance was as a war protest folk singer. . During the Cuban missile crisis
he wrote "A Hard Rain's A-Gonna Fall." It was a warning and a portrait of
what a nuclear war would be. Dylan gained the title of spokesman for his
generation when he switched from folk to rock with Highway 61 Revisited.
In 1966 he [reportedly] broke his neck in a motorcycle accident.
Whether he did or didn't, he got a chance to escape from the spotlight
He did make several albums privately after that but many said that he had
lost his musical power, and the accident had broken his spirit as well as
his neck. If he had broken his neck in the accident he would have
achieved "mythical status."He made a musical comeback in 1975 with
Blood on the Tracks. Over the years, Dylan has retained his popularity.
He constantly surprises his audiences with Scutellaro 4impromptu
changes in musical style. Many critics say the only song writers that can
be compared to Dylan are the team of Paul McCartney and John Lennon.
John Lennon began his musical career in high school, with he
band called the Quarryman. In his sophomore year he met Paul
McCarntey. A short time later, McCartney introduced Lennon to his
friend, George Harrison, who was only 13 at the time. The band had a
number of names besides The Quarrymen before they finally decided on
the Beatles, intentionally misspelled so it would have the word "beat" in it.
Like Bob Dylan They gained the attention of a record company by
putting on an excellent show in a club. However, unlike Dylan, the
recognition they received wasn't direct. They had played as the backup
band on a Tony Sheridan record The two final songs on the record they
wrote and performed themselves. Word got around , and one record

pop charts, replacing each other in succession. The sixth single of the
album had the largest advanced orders in recording history. The
Beatles produced six more albums for a total of eight, all of which went to
number one. The Beatles where also the creators of several films
including The Yellow Submarine , which has become a musical cartoon
classic. By the time the Let It Be tapes came out in 1970, the "Fab
Four" where falling apart, Paul desperately tried to keep the band
together, but when he realized he was the only one who still cared about
it, he gave up as well. The group disbanded in 1971, through a law suit.
John 'Lennon had a fairly successful solo career with Yoko Ono after the
band's breakup, until he was assassinated in 1980. Paul continues to
have a successful musical career to this day. The number of Scutellaor
6number one Beatles' singles, 20 in the United States, "has never been
matched, nor is it likely to be"(Rock Giants). Jimi Hendrix was born and
raised in Seattle, Washington. His entire family was very musically
inclined. His father and aunt played together at the local Baptist Church.
His main influence was his father's immense collection of Blues and R &
B records. In 1959, he dropped out of high school and joined the
military. He was discharged when he hurt himself in a parachute drop
(Rock Giants). After he was discharged he joined a circle of big name
black performers, such as Little Richard and Wilson Pickett and others.
This is where he would learn some of his most impressive stage tricks like
playing over his head and behind his back. Hendrix didn't think that
he could ever become a big name in Rock and Roll star, because of his
unworthy voice. But when he heard Bob Dylan, he realized that the voice
wasn't important as he thought it was. In 1965 he formed Jimmy James
and the Blue Flames, and began touring Greenwich Village. While
playing at these clubs he started incorporating some of his trademark
techniques into his performances, such as feedback and fuzzboxes. Jimi
got his break while The Animals where touring in the United States. Chas