the birth of rock and roll (part 1)

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Part 1 of the 5 part series

Updated 03/13/2021
Created 11/16/2003
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whatever it was it wasnt from the city
and had nothing at all to do with europe
forming on the front porch of rural america
coming from friends and neighbors gathering
to play simple songs on simple instruments
so everybody can join in…it began at a time
when america was still licking her wounds
from the unspeakable war and writers
and painters and composers expressed
themselves in art unique to only us.

no this was no fancy city music here
nothing at all to do with then popular
mandolin orchestras and musical theater
this was folksy stuff like stephen foster
who gave us oh susannah old black joe
and of course my old kentucky home
simple music anyone could learn to play
but classic and timeless in their melodies
he our first martyr to the cause who died
a penniless alcoholic at the age of thirty-eight.

and it spread quickly like the railroad tracks
criss-crossing america and bringing customers
mail order guitars harmonicas and violins
cheaply to the deepest hollows of appalachia
and down the dusty roads of the south
and into the uneducated hands of the masses
who promptly learned to pluck the war tunes
and traditional melodies of their native lands
finally finding their secondhand ways into
the rough-hewn hands of the soulful negro.

the pianos revolted from the churches
and hallelujah as people began to play
even the white folk corked their faces
and mimicked the black mans music
weaning our pink middle class ears away
from all of those classical pretensions
so that when the genius of scott joplin
leapt forth from st louis cathouse slums
with syncopated rhythms of chromatic rag
we began to sing and dance and play along.

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