Rock and roll involve intricate styles, amplified sounds, and electric guitars. Rock and roll began with antiphonic textures, 12-bar forms and walking bass lines that were used in the blues music. Among the most influential features that led to the birth of rock and roll are blues. The blues has inspired several musicians like Jimi Hendrix, the Beatles as well as the Rolling Stones. There are several elements evident in rock and roll that provides the evidence of blues features. Rock and roll acquired its influence from elements such as purpose, instrumentation, and rhythm. Both blues and rock are composed of vocals, guitars, and drums. This essay will therefore identify, compare and contrast the musical elements in the musical tracks by Son House, "Walkin' Blues" and Elvis Presley, "Blue Moon of Kentucky" . This will expound further on the profound impact blues had on rock and roll.
Blues increasingly became popular during the 1950s with amplification of instruments and manipulation of notes being dominant. Songs by Son House, "Walkin' Blues" and Elvis Presley, "Blue Moon of Kentucky" were influenced by blues. For example, "Walkin' Blues" was first made into r & b before a pop version of the song was made using the original song’s country elements. Rock and roll in the early days followed similar rhythms like those of the blues. Throughout the stages, rock and roll also integrated intense rhythmic features, with the sole purpose being to design the rock and roll from the same perspective as that of blues.
Delegate your assignment to our experts and they will do the rest.
In Son House’s “Walkin’ Blues” the tone and music style used are masterfully unified into a classic statement that produces the delta blues. The persona of the song opens up with a formula that resembles that of the blues. For example, the regains consciousness in bewilderment and darkness (“got up this morning… feeling ‘round for my shoes”). From the lyric, a person is able to experience firsthand blues. The song is also coupled by rhythmic repetitions. For example the first line, “I woke up this morning, feeling round for my shoes” is repeated. Elvis Presley, "Blue Moon of Kentucky" was unified into a classic statement that produces the delta blues. In this song, Elvis does not convey any lyrical meaning. In fact, there is repetition in the song when he repeats “blue moon” at the beginning of the song, which he sings using a fast tempo disregarding the problems the listener would have in comprehending the lyrics. Elvis in this song only cares about the sound rather than making the song lyrically rich.
However, in Son House’s “Walkin’ Blues” plays the guitar with features such as fingerpicking on the guitars treble strings and the snapped guitar beat on the IV chord. Unlike in Elvis Presley, "Blue Moon of Kentucky" where the ascending bottleneck motif is used, Son only plays the ornamental pitch using the top string. Also compared to Son House’s “Walkin’ Blues”, Elvis Presley’s guitar sounds warmer and fuller. Elvis mixes delta growl with a conversational flavor which adds a well-placed falsetto. The main goal of these two songs is the creation of music which has raw emotion in it just like in the blues. This means that these two songs set the pace that inspired the patterns used in creating rock and roll through the emotion-driven blues style of music.
