Johnny Burnette
I guess it's probably been this way since music was first invented. The older generation doesn't understand the younger generation's music. I laugh at myself these days when I hear myself saying to my kids, "Why don't you turn that crap off and listen to some real music?" My parents said it to me and their parents said it to them. This is one respect in which rockabilly was similar to many musical genres before it. The difference was that rockabilly ignited that emotion in the parents and high-society types in a much stronger way than other types of music had before or have since.
Rockabilly was raw and sensual. It certainly didn't promote themes of respect for authority and it made parents exceptionally uncomfortable. It was not the type of music one could play in "polite" company! Probably even worse was that rockabilly belonged strictly to the young kids. It was their music and it put them in a new kind of control because they could choose to listen to it and nothing a parent, teacher, or community leader could say would stop them. Rockabilly was hell-bent and go-for-broke fun. The musicians played it that way and the kids heard it that way.
As the music quickly picked up momentum, the young crowds fed off of Elvis' suggestive hip movements and they went crazy for it--boys and girls alike. And the crazier the teens went over Elvis, the more other musicians picked up on such behaviors and attitudes in their own performances. And these offshoots grew out in many directions. The bad boys like Jack Scott, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Gene Vincent arose. The pretty boys like Ricky Nelson emerged. The rugged, handsome types like Eddie Cochran and Johnny Burnette took the stage. The country bumpkins turned rock stars like Johnny Cash and Carl Perkins stepped out of the fields and onto the stage. Even the nerdy-cool cats like Buddy Holly and Roy Orbison found a place in the new music. And everyone played and acted to the extremes while the fans ate up every minute and every note of it.
And the adults were incredulous. They called the new music "the devil's music" and "amplified heathen discord." They called it trash. They called it noise. Many went so far as to try and ban the music. Some music reviewers did their best to paint these new performers as depraved deviants without any musical talent. But the kids...the kids ate up every single bit they could get their hands on. They loved it and it was theirs. No high-society self-appointed musical judge was going to stop these kids from listening to their music.
It's funny; it all seems quite tame--at least in terms of sensuality--now after 60 years of entertainment boundaries being pushed through. Rock videos and the barely-dressed women that appear in them make Elvis look like a boy scout. But in those days, it was all pushing the very limits of what people could get away with on stage. But rockabilly music had and still has today a much more vibrant edge than much of today's music. Sure, Elvis made moves on stage that shocked the stodgy parents, but behind those moves was pure, raw, uncensored talent. And that's not something you can say about many of today's performers. In that respect, there's never been anything quite as untamed, cutting edge, and wild as rockabilly!
Buster Fayte is an author and rockabilly musician. Visit his Rockabilly Romp blog at http://rockabillyromp.info, download free rockabilly computer background artwork as Buster's way of welcoming you to the blog, and join the rockabilly discussion.
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