Chapter 14: Rock and Roll Pt. 2
As rock and roll exploded into mainstream American culture in the mid-1950s, a distinctive subgenre emerged that bridged rhythm and blues with country and western: rockabilly. Popularized through the early recordings of Elvis Presley at Sun Records, rockabilly combined the driving rhythms of R&B with the twang of hillbilly music, the emotion of gospel, the storytelling of honky tonk, and the rhythmic bounce of boogie-woogie. The term itself—a fusion of “rock” and “hillbilly”—reflected the genre’s blended origins and regional flavor. Though Presley soon moved to RCA and rose to global superstardom, other performers continued to shape and refine the rockabilly sound. Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Eddie Cochran, and Buddy Holly each brought distinctive elements of Southern musical tradition to the rapidly evolving soundscape of American popular music.
Rockabilly artists were almost always white and predominantly from the American South, a region steeped in a mixture of sacred and secular musical traditions. For more conservative white listeners who found rhythm and blues too raw or provocative, rockabilly offered a more accessible, less confrontational version of rock and roll. It retained the excitement and youthful energy of the genre but softened the elements that some perceived as racially or sexually transgressive. Though some critics argued that rockabilly stripped away the emotional depth and cultural authenticity of Black R&B, its upbeat tempos, clean production, and distinctive twang helped it resonate widely with mainstream audiences and achieve significant commercial success.
Musically, rockabilly was characterized by clear vocal phrasing, stripped-down instrumentation, and its capability to add polish and commercial sensibilities to the raw energy of Rock and Roll. Bass players would attack their instruments in a way to create a percussive “thump,” often substituting acoustic bass for its electric counterpart for more clarity and punch on recordings. Although the music of Bill Haley and His Comets is generally considered one of the earliest versions of rockabilly, the rockabilly music of artists later in the 1950s had a decidedly different sound than that of Bill Haley. Unlike mainstream rock and roll, rockabilly ensembles rarely featured horns or vocal choruses. Instead, they emphasized electric guitar riffs, fast picking techniques called tremolo picking, and distinctive vocal mannerisms such as Presley’s famous “hiccups”—expressive syllables like “uh” or “ah” that added rhythmic character to the vocals. Though rooted in country and blues forms, the genre fused 12-bar blues structures with the 8- and 16-bar phrasing typical of pop and country music.
The epicenter of rockabilly’s development was Sam Phillips’s Sun Studio in Memphis. Presley’s success encouraged many other southern white musicians to make the trek to Memphis in the hope of finding success with the new rockabilly sound. From approximately 1955 to 1959, Sun released recordings by Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, and a host of other artists. Though some viewed rockabilly as a “cleaned-up” version of rock and roll, it was no less innovative.
In the following chapter, we will explore the music, careers, and contributions of rockabilly’s key figures, examining how they helped solidify the genre’s place in American popular culture and how their influence extended into the 1960s and beyond. We will also consider how rockabilly’s commercial success was shaped by the music industry’s evolving priorities—and how some of the darker elements of 1950s rock and roll began to surface.