Mick Hartley

Rolling Stone celebrates 50 years of Rock’n’Roll (dating from Elvis’ recording of “That’s All Right”, if you’re wondering) with a list of the all-time top 50.

No surprises, but it’s mildly interesting if you like that sort of thing. The Beatles are No.1, followed by Dylan, Elvis and the Stones. The problem as always with Rock, Rock’n’Roll etc. is definitions, and particularly what to do with, ahem, the colored folks.

James Brown is in there at #7, Ray Charles at #10, Bob Marley at #11, Muddy Waters at #17, Marvin Gaye at #18…. These people aren’t Rock or Rock’n’Roll by any definition, but if you restrict it to what is commonly seen as Rock music, you’ll get an all-white list (apart from Jimi Hendrix). Mmm, looks bad….especially considering the crucial role that black music’s always played in the development of Rock. Only Dylan out of the top four didn’t start out by covering black artists.

The truth is that because all vital popular music has its roots in the US in the early/middle years of the last century, it reflects the racial divide in that country. Yes there are exceptions (Jimi Hendrix, Charley Pride, Eminem), but Blues and Soul and R’n’B and Rap are black, Country and Rock are white. That’s the way it is. So including these black artists is really not much better than tokenism.

Interestingly the one genre which could claim to be multi-racial is Rock’n’Roll. The Rock’n’Roll greats were mainly black (Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Fats Domino) but there were plenty of serious white Rock’n’Rollers like Bill Haley, Carl Perkins, Gene Vincent, and of course the King himself. As a first approximation, Rock’n’Roll was what happened when black R’n’B met white Country. Ace Records’ excellent “The Golden Age of American Rock’n’Roll” series covers everything from that late fifties/early sixties era, from doowop to white girl groups to novelty songs to straight R’n’B to Italian teen idols. It’s all Rock’n’Roll. The subtitle to the Ace series – “US hits before the British invasion” – is spot on. Rock’n’Roll died sometime round the early sixties, and Rock music was born, created in the first instance by the Beatles and Dylan. And Rock music, like it or not, has always been white music.

So Rolling Stone call their list “the greatest rock & roll artists of all time” in the hope of justifying their racial inclusiveness, and start with Elvis and “That’s All Right” as the point where black and white came together. But it doesn’t really work. Any list which compares Bob Dylan with James Brown is always going to be silly.