Entertainment

Oldies Artists and Musical Styles

The rock and roll artists of the Fifties, Sixties and Seventies worked in many different styles, some in many styles at once... genres which incorporated the existing sounds of postwar blues, pop music, "hillbilly" country, and even a little jazz. These resources will help you identify the major players in the first generation of rock and roll, and also what their musical contributions were.

Before Rock and Roll
The Fifties
Elvis

The Sixties
The Beatles
The Seventies

Before Rock and Roll

The period during and just after WWII produced many different popular styles of music that would eventually combine to form what is known as rock and roll, but the deep cultural divides that had been present in America since the beginning kept many of them from directly influencing the others. As technology brought more choices to the masses, however, that began to change.

The Fifties

Rock and roll as it's commonly thought of began sometime around 1955, but the various strains of American popular music which comprise it were already quite popular in the early half of the decade. What we call rock and roll is really a mix of a number of different styles... styles which no one ever thought would cross over into each other, much less blend.

Elvis

The King of Rock and Roll and the man who singlehandedly laid the path for every rock star since. Here you can find information on Elvis Presley's music, concerts, life, and death.

The Sixties

In the earliest part of the decade, Rock supposedly died -- the jailing of Chuck Berry, the scandalization of Jerry Lee Lewis, the "reformation" of Little Richard, and the triple deaths of Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper. But several important artists were still doing just fine... and exciting new strains of the genre were also starting to emerge. By the decade's end, rock would be all things to all people.

The Beatles

The "Fab Four" revolutionized what a rock and roll band could accomplish, both musically and socially. Look here for more information about their individual songs, albums, and amazing life stories.

The Seventies

After the tumultuous cultural upheaval of the Sixties, rock in the 1970's was spread out into so many areas it almost ceased to exist as a cultural barometer... we simply weren't tied together by one music any more. But the revolution it spawned was still expanding outward, and while the AM band got more mellow, the rock got harder.

Oldies Music