Dance? At your service! Since you mentioned Elvis, I'm going to stick with the 50's. I lived with a teenager during that era who taught me to dance to her music by watching American Bandstand after school through part of the 50's.doubtingthomas wrote: ↑Wed Jul 20, 2022 12:37 amJersey Girl, I would like to know your opinionJersey Girl wrote: ↑Mon Jul 18, 2022 3:03 amDT you wanted to know how early rock influenced American culture. That's a difficult question to answer. Elvis, for example, paved the way for many a Black artist's already conceived music. He took the music already penned by Little Richard and jettisoned it into mainstream music.
How did rock and roll influence dance and how much of the appeal of rock music to youth was the expression of sexual energy on the dance floors? And if this genuinely changed peoples attitudes towards sex? Or if parents may have been overreacting to it who just forgot what it meant to be young? Was the generation who listened to Elvis more willing to drop sexual inhibitions? Less class conscious since rock arose out of the influence of so many different musical forms?
Thank you in advance.
1. a. How did rock and roll influence dance
Back in those times, schools held dances in the gymnasiums of the building. The kids had to remove their shoes to dance on the gym floor...and sock hops were born. Prior to that, I don't know if there were any similar dances except for the dance halls in the 40's I heard about.
New dances were birthed from all over the country and modified in different parts of the country when the dances emerged. The dances were created to match the music, though the reverse could be possible as well.
Couples dancing was still a thing, a carry over from the 40's I think. What was in the 40's the Jitterbug or Lindy, came to be called the Jive and a modified version called The Bop. Every bit of couples dancing (The Jive, Bop, Stroll*, Cha Cha, trying to think of more...) involved TOUCHING. Touching driven by the powerful beat of Rock n' Roll. It was still acceptable and common for girls and boys, and girls and girls to dance with each other in the 50's.
*The Stroll is a line dance. Typically couples would go down the line together but it wasn't entirely unheard of for one person to Stroll down the line alone--and show off!
Note on the 60's: Couples dancing still existed (ex: slow dancing mostly) but fast dances such as The Twist, Hully Gully, Watusi, The Slop, The Chickenback, The Fly, The Swim, Mashed Potatoes, etc. were done individuals in couples form or single dancers, but no touching really involved. Latin influences also entered the dance scene in the 60's. I think you named the Bossa nova in one of your earlier posts? And Motown flew in from Detroit and added it's own influences to dance. The California Sound of the Beach Boys and others emerged in this decade. The Beatles and other UK bands invaded as well. The protest and folk songs of the era required no dance really at all, for the purpose of that music was to send messages or continue American heritage songs.
It's interesting to note, I think, that each decade bridged the next decade. So that the singles dancing may have began in the latter part of one decade, then emerged as prominent in the next.
1. b. and how much of the appeal of rock music to youth was the expression of sexual energy on the dance floors?
Based on my observations...ALL of the appeal was sexual. Every single little last bit of it. Probably because the music was marketed to hormonal teens as it was in previous eras.
1. c. And if this genuinely changed peoples attitudes towards sex?
I don't really know since I wasn't a teen then but I know what I saw going on around me. I do know that car sex was a thing, condoms were the birth control method of choice if used at all, and when teen girls got pregnant they dropped out of school because there was shame attached to teen sex in those days as there was shame attached to even divorce.
A note on the 60's: I would say that the latter 60's is when attitudes towards sex changed in terms of people adopting freer lifestyles (think Hippies) , First Wave Feminism, and I don't know for a fact, but I think The Pill may have been developed in the latter 60's making sex thought of as less risky?
2. Or if parents may have been overreacting to it who just forgot what it meant to be young?
I think that parents always overreacted .
I think the thing is, is that each decade of teens and popular music pushed yet another boundary, thus making the music of each period seem strange and vulgar to the generation before it. 3. Was the generation who listened to Elvis more willing to drop sexual inhibitions?
I think that within the context of their generation of peers, they were just as willing to drop sexual inhibitions as the teens of every generation before them.
4. Less class conscious since rock arose out of the influence of so many different musical forms?
NO!
with regard to to race as a class, segregation was still a thing in the 50's and straight through to at least the latter part of the 60's, and even after segregation was dropped...it still existed in subversive forms. Caucasian and Black couples who lived openly were nearly unheard of in the 50's and 60's. This social bias is why say, Elvis', recordings got more air play than the original recordings of Blacks. In the 50's the races didn't 'mix', at least not publicly.
with regard to to social class, there were still lines drawn in schools so far as I could tell, cliques between students, based on perceived social statuses. I'm not sure if that's what you were asking, though.
I'm sure I'll think of more and other things I should have included here. I'm doing this off the top of my head in real time. I didn't prepare the reply in advance or anything. I just sort of turned on the music, got on the floor, and danced.
DT if any part of you is interested in viewing dance styles on youtube, make sure that you are looking at old folks doing them or clips directly from those eras. That's really the only way you're going to observe the authentic dances.
