Sounds of Silence, no rock and roll...

Mark E. said:
By contrast, music of the African slaves and ex-slaves remained disorganized until composer Scott Joplin (Sedalia, MO) put down ragtime circa 1900. You move to jazz in New Orleans (though the term originated in Chicago), blues in Memphis and then to St. Louis. Kansas City had a "jazz district" and a style that mixed blues elements back into jazz. So, in four decades you have a style that is "made for change."
I think geography plays a bigger part than most realize. KC, St Lou, N.O, & Chi, along with Nashville & Memphis, & L.A. (with all those fleeing the cold...:p), were meeting places: crossroads. Because of that, musucians of various styles were going to come in contact. When they did, musical styles were going to get mingled, even if, frex, Chuck Berry doesn't get big. Somebody else will hear it, & somebody will hear that...& a label will sign him (or her...).
Mark E. said:
Another thing to remember is that in 1955, the market was dominated by war veterans, not teenagers. The first Baby Boomers would not reach high school until the sixties.
I'm seeing the first Boomers (born 1945) hitting Grade 9 in 1958, which puts them in high school here. (I suspect in the U.S. that's top grade of middle school still, tho.)
Mark E. said:
Guitarist Buddy Holly will be confined to country and Latin
And who's to say he doesn't combine Latin & polka, or something, in the very same way Mexican musicians were? Or Latin & blues, & gain a European audience? Or Latin & jazz, for a *rockabilly variant? Or straighter Latin, to attract a Latin American audience, for all that?
Mark E. said:
Keep the guitars out of the emerging music (we mentioned the players) and mix different instruments into a blues-esque style and you can have a new form other than rock and roll.
That's the part of this I find most interesting.:cool:
 
Without Rock'n'Roll, the German "Schlager" will most certainly rule the world.

Just kidding.

I assume that British "Beat"-music still develops in a slightly less rocky way.
So, I'd still count for Lennon/McCartney (if they still meet) to bring up something original. In the absense of US-Rock'n'Roll, they (or whoever fills their place) might be even more of a sensation.

In the end, the world won't stand still, and a changing world will bring changing music to suit the generation of its inception. As in evolution, concepts which are ripe will come up from one source or another. The term "Rock'n'Roll" will however be lost.
 
I'm seeing the first Boomers (born 1945) hitting Grade 9 in 1958, which puts them in high school here. (I suspect in the U.S. that's top grade of middle school still, tho.)

Americans don't start the first grade until the year they turn 6 (and in Missouri today, the year they turn 6-1/2). The Baby Boom starts in 1946 in the U.S.

I think geography plays a bigger part than most realize. KC, St Lou, N.O, & Chi, along with Nashville & Memphis, & L.A. (with all those fleeing the cold...:p), were meeting places: crossroads. Because of that, musucians of various styles were going to come in contact. When they did, musical styles were going to get mingled, even if, frex, Chuck Berry doesn't get big. Somebody else will hear it, & somebody will hear that...& a label will sign him (or her...).

The crossroads concept is a good one, given the prominence of river and rail traffic. Jazz and blues were played in the streets, but these forms stressed trumpets, saxophones and other wind instruments. The guitar was the cowboy's instrument, and if you listen to the popular songs of 1954 and earlier, you do not hear guitars.

The OTL path starts when Bill Haley charts "Rock Around the Clock" at number 1 for 8 weeks in 1955, then Chuck Berry, Elvis, etc. It might seem the guitar invasion was triggered by an incredibly small number of contributors.
 
Mark E. said:
Americans don't start the first grade until the year they turn 6 (and in Missouri today, the year they turn 6-1/2). The Baby Boom starts in 1946 in the U.S.
Slightly different here: if you turn 6 before year's end. (I was just old enough, & youngest in my class, mostly.) I've also seen the Boom start year as 1945, so there's some debate on it. Not a big deal, tho, for our purposes.
Mark E. said:
The crossroads concept is a good one, given the prominence of river and rail traffic.
:) TY.
Mark E. said:
Jazz and blues were played in the streets, but these forms stressed trumpets, saxophones and other wind instruments. The guitar was the cowboy's instrument, and if you listen to the popular songs of 1954 and earlier, you do not hear guitars.
I did not know that. IDK about "cowboy", tho: lots of jazz guitar, & some pioneer work on electrics in jazz in the late '30s. (Les Paul comes to mind.) If we limit guitar at all, tho, I wonder if that doesn't encourage mariachi or tejano instruments, which would've included a 6-string "Mexican guitar". It also increases exposure to other non-traditional (in the U.S., anyhow) instruments.
Mark E. said:
The OTL path starts when Bill Haley charts "Rock Around the Clock" at number 1 for 8 weeks in 1955, then Chuck Berry, Elvis, etc. It might seem the guitar invasion was triggered by an incredibly small number of contributors.
Whew. So you can get a fairly huge impact just diverting those 3.:eek: Keep Elvis in gospel, for sure.:eek: Bill Haley was doing bluegrass or something, wasn't he? So, give him a slightly bigger hit record. (How, tho...:confused:) Berry, IDK...
 
I stand somewhat corrected on the guitar, as it was popular in street and folk music. But it was absent from the songs on the "charts," those that made up the Top 100, as tabulated by Billboard Magazine. Over 80% of records went to juke boxes in those years. Live bands and records were two different domains of music and the surveys generally considered the latter.

Most songs before 1955 were done by singers who did not compose or play instruments. They were sung with sizable bands. If street music is to become popular, you need versatile instruments that are easy to carry, and the guitar fit the bill. If you used a saxophone or trumpet, you lost a singing voice. Alternatively, you have the accordion, concertina, zydeco, zither, kettle drum, and more.

Let's say Polka mixes with Chicago jazz and adds the accordion; after all parody singer Weird Al Yankovic used it in the eighties. You have an alternative to the guitar.

Imagine this band:

Paul McCartney - Bass Viol
John Lennon - Accordion
George Harrison - Violin alternating with saxophone
Ringo Starr - Drums/percussion as in OTL
 
This thread should be cross-referenced with the Suez one.

Just before the Beatles hit America, you'd had several years of Bobby Vee, Neil Sedaka etc. dominating things and it very much seemed as though rock music was going to be remembered as a passing fad - something like the Charleston, which was the comparison Elvis always used to invoke. Note also the wave of non-English-language US number ones in the last months pre-British Invasion ("Sukiyaki", "Dominique"). And note also that had Suez gone differently, the romantic appeal of America and its rebel musics - beginning with skiffle - simply wouldn't have been felt in the UK to anything like the same extent, which would have nipped in the bud the wave of British bands reinvigorating that music and rendering it well and truly unkillable in the US (and indeed most of the world).

A different Suez, and even if you do still have the initial (and fairly brief) rock'n'roll boom in America, you almost certainly have a far more culturally multipolar world. If the Franco-British Union happens, the mass-cultural near-monopoly of the Anglosphere would be effectively impossible, and neither the Murdochian nor New Leftist exile of mainland European influences would be tenable in anything like the same way they became in OTL.
 
This thread should be cross-referenced with the Suez one.

And note also that had Suez gone differently, the romantic appeal of America and its rebel musics - beginning with skiffle - simply wouldn't have been felt in the UK to anything like the same extent, which would have nipped in the bud the wave of British bands reinvigorating that music and rendering it well and truly unkillable in the US (and indeed most of the world).

That could have happened, possibly the only way to seriously poison the American image in those years. Keep in mind, north of the English Channel, D-Day in 1944 was one big sigh of relief, and possibly why the Baby Boom started a year earlier in the UK than in the US.

But I just watched a documentary about American folk singer Woodie Guthrie (1912-1967). It reinforced my opinion about the way singing guitarists were regarded in the forties and fifties. Guthrie grew up going from riches to rags before the Depression. He became an artist, author and guitarist, and a troubadour for victims of the Depression and Dust Bowl. He landed record contracts. He was a radio star, but he played the part of an Oklahoma hillbilly (that's where he was born). He cleverly combined a rural accent and poor grammar to create an image of "down home" America. He was successful. But by cultural standards, his demeanor and style was clearly "second rate." The public image was that folk and guitar was clearly inferior to big band and "establishment."

There were definitely barriers to the emergence of rock and roll and guitar-dominated music, not to mention racism.
 
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Mark E. said:
That could have happened, possibly the only way to seriously poison the American image in those years. Keep in mind, north of the English Channel, D-Day in 1944 was one big sigh of relief, and possibly why the Baby Boom started a year earlier in the UK than in the US.

But I just watched a documentary about American folk singer Woodie Guthrie (1912-1967). It reinforced my opinion about the way singing guitarists were regarded in the forties and fifties. Guthrie grew up going from riches to rags before the Depression. He became an artist, author and guitarist, and a troubadour for victims of the Depression and Dust Bowl. He landed record contracts. He was a radio star, but he played the part of an Oklahoma hillbilly (that's where he was born). He cleverly combined a rural accent and poor grammar to create an image of "down home" America. He was successful. But by cultural standards, his demeanor and style was clearly "second rate." The public image was that folk and guitar was clearly inferior to big band and "establishment."

There were definitely barriers to the emergence of rock and roll and guitar-dominated music, not to mention racism.
That's possible. A bit of WP reading says the influence of polka, waltz, & accordion led to creation of conjunto, norteño, & tejano. Eliminate Elvis & move Buddy Holly toward norteño... (You do still see a 6-string "Mexican guitar" basso sexto} tho, so he might end up playing that.)
 
The Gurps AE TL Dixie actually has a "German invasion" instead of the British one. Not sure whether it makes sense, since Germany is still imperial ITTL.
 
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