Mainstream Musical Culture, Famous Blues

How do your brands fare? How prevalent are they in the snapshots that define your customers’ lives and fit their consumption patterns? Your brand helps establish a relationship-an emotional connection-with consumers and society for your product or organization.

One of the valuable lessons rock and roll offers people involved in marketing and branding is how it evolved from its ethnic roots to become part of mainstream America, spotlighting what it takes for innovations, products, and brands to become accepted by an entire culture. Analyzing this process in the most successful legendary bands discloses that to achieve cultural adoption, a band (or brand) should have relevance to people in a culture, represent a culture, and have influence on a culture.

It’s Only Rock and Roll But I Like It If you think rock and roll burst onto the scene with the introduction of Bill Haley and the Comets, you are a few decades late and a few shades too white. Rock and roll evolved from what was known during the 1940s and 1950s as rhythm and blues (R&B). It had roots up and down the Mississippi River, starting from New Orleans and Memphis, traveling north to Chicago, and fanning out in both directions to clubs in cities such as Kansas City and Detroit. R&B was ingrained in the African American culture, with songs reflecting the lifestyles and blues culture of that community.

What was often described as “race music” by the predominantly white, mainstream musical culture of the 1950s eventually became rock and roll, a well understood slang term in the black culture for making love or simply having sex. Although Trixie Smith, a famous blues singer, had recorded the song “My Man Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll)” years earlier, the meaning of rock and roll remained relatively unknown in the majority culture, except among a few progressive white disc jockeys (DJs) and music fans. In an era when radio stations still received albums from record companies with such tracks as “Makin’ Whoopee” marked “Not for air play,” it was probably better to keep the sexual meaning of the name from traditionalists- namely parents, advertisers, and station managers.