Early recording was greatly affected by class, racial, religious and gender factors. At the beginning of radio and television broadcasting, the whites were greatly privileged and given the center stages. As for minority, the blacks were kept off the screen and given low-quality radio time slots, which were segregated. Class and race determined the quality and quantity of resources one received, as the whiter and richer one was the better chances he had for being heard. Women were discriminated as well as the racial minorities along with certain religious groups which were shunned, such as the Baptists for their hymns and choir traditions.
African Americans were rarely the beneficiaries of early radio and film development because they were not given the opportunities and resources as the upper class whites. Even, though, many blacks worked diligently for the improvement of radio and film, they were not acknowledged until the late 1940s and even then, were given the back light. The white elite artists who could afford fancy publicists and sponsor radio stations were chosen to be ahead of the lines and of course, strong racism and segregation kept the black community at a great distance from success.
Personally, I prefer radio over film as it is the original media which brought together families, friends and communities. Radio still has the power to bring together groups of people without fake illusions of images through films. It displays true talent and artists as the audience must be able to imagine everything being told by a single voice, which is to be very powerful and convincing, able to disguise many forms and attack people’s emotions merely by words.
The positive influence of the church and religion on secular music was that it provided artists with a unique style of voice techniques (such as Gospel music) with which they attracted many religious people as the new listeners. Even artists like Elvis were greatly inspired by Gospel music, which was combined to make rhythm and blues more effective. The negative influence included the stereotyping of secular artists who used church music, as it confined them to one type of singing and commitment to stay with the religious context even if they wanted to drift towards secular subject matter. These artists were often pressured to compose prophetic, preaching music once under the church label.
1960s music affected political situations and social events considerably, as people became more vocal about personal opinions, using music to protest. For instance, artists swerved public opinion about America’s involvement in the Vietnam War, feminists gained support through music aimed at enhancing the women’s movement, and black artists came together for Civil Rights Movement which resulted in public integration. Some of the most influential prophetic musicians were Cat Stevens, John Baez, and John Lennon.
Wanda Jackson is the appropriate Queen of rock and roll opposite Elvis Presley. In fact, she was his contemporary and his female counterpart as she even had hit songs such as “Let’s Have a Party” which Elvis had rejected. Even though, her expertise was country music, she won many awards for the best rock and roll titles, giving country music another twist and more attention from audiences.
There were many core aspects of rock and roll which included meaningless background lyrics, guitar lead and mixing conventional blues and rhythm with completely opposing genres such as metallic or country. Because of these parameters, future musical styles were invented such as country rock and heavy metal.