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Tyler Reese
Professor J. McKeever
English 1020
27 July 2014
Word Count: 1,960
All Shook Up: A Review on the History of Rock n Roll in the 1950s
Its the 1950s, and America is All Shook Up. An unprecedented musical revolution is
sweeping across the country. Its rhythms and themes are spreading like an epidemic among
teenagers. Soon it will forever change the political, social, and economic landscape of the
nation. This new affliction became known as Rock n Roll. From the 1950s on, Rock music
has greatly influenced society, as well as, shaped the modern human identity of the late 20
th
and
early 21
st
century. During the 1950s, a period some historians call Rocks Golden Age, the
R&B, Rockabilly, and Doo-Wop inspired sounds began to create lasting generational conflicts.
Within one decade, the seeds of discontent were sown through music. Rock n Roll music and
its growing audience would begin questioning race and gender relations, sexuality, and the clash
between pop culture and the new Rock scene. In Glenn C. Altschulers non-fiction book, All
Shook Up: How Rock N Roll Changed America (2003), he discusses all of these conflicts. He
employs both an analysis of primary sources and narrative format to make a strong argument for
how Rock n Roll music affected and ultimately changed America in the 1950s and beyond.
Dr. Altschuler, a Cornell University professor of American History, approaches his non-
fiction history of Rock by examining Rock n Rolls social evolution and impact on American
society during the mid to late 1950s. Altschuler fills his text with primary sources including
numerous newspaper articles, photos, interviews, and magazine advertisements of the time.
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Shocking headlines by the New York Times, photos of Elvis and Chuck Berry performing, and
concert posters from the first Rock concerts, like the 1952 Moondog Coronation Ball, fill Dr.
Alschulers book. These first-hand accounts allow the reader to view through a 1950s lens just
how exciting, terrifying, and impactful Rock music was during this era. To help organize
Altchulers main arguments he divides the book into topics, which along with his narrative style
allows the reader to navigate easily through the various theories he presents to explain how Rock
n Roll changed American society during the post-war period to 1960. Altchuler starts with a
section on how pop music affected American culture from 1945 to 1955. From here, he devotes
three sections that focus on the late 1950s and how Rock n Roll kindled race, sexuality, and
generational conflicts, by changing the attitudes of Americas youth. The three final sections of
the book address the death of first generation Rock music, Rocks revival with second generation
Rock in the form of the British Invasion and the folk music scene, and concludes with an
epilogue on the continuing social and cultural power of Rock n Roll.
Altchuler immediately grabs the readers attention by presenting some of the negative
backlash Rock music faced at its inception. The New York Times called Rock music a,
communicable disease that was infecting Americas youth (qtd. in Altchuler 5). Altchuler
quotes Frank Sinatra, during a U.S. Senate committee hearing on Rock music, as he declared
Rock n Roll, the most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of expression it has been my
misfortune to hear (qtd. in Altchuler 6). When asked about his thoughts on Elvis music,
Sinatra condemned it as being, sung, played and written for the most part by cretinous goons;
and to be the martial music of every sideburned delinquent on the face of the Earth (qtd. in
Altchuler 6). Parents and community leaders could not understand why the youth of America
enjoyed this black music (8). In their ignorance they even started to ban Rock shows from
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coming to their towns in order to prevent the chaos that often arose before, during, and after the
shows (4). However, no matter how much parents and community leaders protested, Rock n
Roll would take hold of Americas youth and usher in a new era of change.
The next two sections of the book discuss Rock n Roll and its impact on race and
sexuality in America. In the 1950s, segregation was a deeply entrenched aspect of American
culture. Overt racism was common in many regions of the country. Nonetheless, early 1950s
signs of the 1960s Civil Rights Movement began to emerge with historical events such as the
Brown v. Board of Education ruling, Rosa Parks and the Montgomery bus boycotts and the
integration of nine black students into Little Rock Central High School (36). All these events
paved the way toward a more fully developed anti-segregation struggle (37). Altschuler does a
great job helping the reader appreciate how Rock n Roll with it early Blues influence helped
introduce white middle America to African American culture and the issues that gave rise to the
Civil Rights Movement. He also explained how some African-American artists of the time,
including Nat King Cole and Fats Domino, challenged the racial status quo by openly refusing to
perform at segregated venues (40). Although racism and segregation would persist long after the
1950s, early Rock n Roll brought race relations and African American culture to the white
mainstream listener and started the push towards equality.
All Shook Up also discusses Rock musics influence on a growing openness associated
with human sexuality. Early Rock music was heavily influenced by the Blues use of double
entendre and rhythm sections to create a danceable beat. In Rock n Roll, the lyrical content
often became very controversial with highly sexual songs, such as Jerry Lee Lewiss Whole
Lotta Shakin Goin On and Little Richards Long Tall Salley. These artists crazed
performances only made the sexually charged songs more dangerous in the eyes of parents and
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community leaders (52). Rock performers, such as Elvis with his hip gyrations and Little
Richard, whose omnisexual persona and piano banging antics, together would set off a new era
of dance crazes and fandom that would sweep the country. Although many record labels
dismissed Rock n Roll music as mere novelty songs, many teenagers began to gravitate more
and more toward the music genre (54). Many youths also began embracing a more open
sexuality and racial awareness, if not equality, introduced in these Rock n Roll lyrics and
performances. The musics effect was to introduce a generalized idea of rebellion among the
youth of America.
The next section in Altschulers book discusses the generational conflict influenced by
the rebellious tone of some Rock n Roll music. The post-WWII financial and baby boom
experienced by many Americans led to a dramatic increase in disposable income, especially
among youth (77). The teenager was conceived as a marketing category. Record labels and
advertisers spent incredible amounts of time and money studying and shaping their branding
strategies for this new demographic. The decreasing prices of vinyl records and rising popularity
of Top 40 FM radio programming made Rock music even more accessible to the new
American teenager than ever before. Altschuler explains in this section the growing generational
gap between parents and elders with Americas youth. The older generation simply could not
understand why teenagers would want to listen to such aggressive, vulgar, and threatening music.
Parents believed that, Rock n Roll reinforced the most worrisome aspects of youth culture:
antagonism to adult authority and expectations; conformity to peer-group norms; and an
ephemeral, erratic emotional intensity (99). Altschuler does a good job of presenting both sides
of the argument. First, he outlines the theory that Rock music encouraged teenagers to defy their
parents and authority figures. He then balances it with an argument that teenagers were the same
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the decade before, just without Rock music, and that rebellion was simply a phase to go through
on the way to adulthood (102). Ultimately, however, Rock music created such a generational
conflict that it would explode in new forms during the 1960s era of rebellion.
The next two sections in All Shook Up, discuss the pop culture wars with Rock n Roll
that created a lull in the entertainment industry. Before Rock vaudeville inspired comedy, magic,
and acting dominant youth culture; however, with the emergence of Rock music all other forms
of entertainment fell from popular culture (115). Teenagers were buying vast amounts of records
and from 1954 to 1959, records sales tripled from $214 million to $613 million (116). Altschuler
discusses how this angered members of the American Federation of Musicians because they
were not allowed to appear on radio programs or allow disc jockeys to use tapes or transcriptions
of them without compensation. Even some of the major record companies saw their market
shares start to drop because entertainers were going to the smaller, more independent companies.
These challenges along with the FBI investigation of famous disc jockeys such as Alan Freed in
the payola scandal caused major record labels like Sun and Atlantic Record to falter and loose
the confidence of young artists and listeners (118). By the end of the decade, many radio
stations had switched from Rock n Roll to other styles of music, including pop, folk music,
crooner ballads, and mellower music promoted by disc jockeys like Dick Clark on his American
Bandstand (120). Although by 1959, it appeared as if Rock n Roll music was truly just a short
fad, it would reemerge in the 1960s with an even greater emphasis on rebellion and mass chaos.
Altschuler concludes his book by discussing the death of 1950s first generation Rock n
Roll with the rise of crooner pop, surf music, and Phil Spectors girl group pop. In addition, key
performers, such as Little Richard, Elvis, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, and Buddy Holly, were
all fading from the spotlight due to either death, imprisonment, scandal, or a decision to retreat to
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safer genres of music. The damage done to Rocks reputation at the end of the 1950s threatened
the genres very existence (133). Altshuler, however, shows how the 1960s rebirth of Rock
music in the form of the Beatles, the British Invasion and folk artists like Bob Dylan helped
revive 1950s Rock music by paying homage to many of the 1950 Rock n Roll legends in their
shows, interviews, and studios sessions.
Upon reading Dr. Altshulers book, I am equally entertained and educated by his easy to
understand narrative, as well as provocative primary source selections. I agree with several of
Altshulers interpretations of how Rock music affected American society during the 1950s. Its
influence on societys views about race, sexuality, and generational conflict help explain the
many cultural and social changes that have taken place since the 1950s. Yet, I believe that one
part of Rock n Roll history that Altshuler failed to discuss was its emergence and convergence,
as a result, of several genres coming together to create Rock music. Overall, however, I greatly
enjoyed the text and consider it an important read for anyone interested in the study of Rock
history.
In conclusion, Dr. Glenn C. Altschulers book, All Shook Up: How Rock N Roll
Changed America, discusses how Rock music influenced societys views on race, sexuality, pop
culture and generational conflicts. His book analyzes primary sources in an easy to read narrative
format and makes a strong argument for how Rock n Roll music has influenced American
society in the 1950s and thereafter. Altschulers book does a great job of dividing the first
generation of Rock n Roll into topics that were critical and had long lasting political, social and
economic impacts. All Shook Up is extremely readable and understandable with many examples
of recognizable big name musicians of the era. The pictures and newspaper articles in the book
were very helpful in illustrating some of the main points of the book. All Shook Up would be a
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great choice for a reader that is interested in how Rock n Roll got started, the turmoil that its
emergence created, and how it continues to influence the music today.





















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Work Cited:
Altschuler, Glenn C. All Shook Up: How 'n' Roll Changed America. Oxford: Oxford UP,
2003. Print.