While the media is all ga ga over Michael Jackson, let me bring a couple of guys to your attention that deserve this sort of attention.
Little Richard perhaps rightfully claims to have invented rock 'n roll. He still appears in commercials today as a matter of fact.
INterestingly as I looked this up the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is divided on Little Richard and
Chuck Berry. As one anthology remarked, by the end of the 1950s only Chuck and Little Richard remained true to their roots. The others had morphed into something that would appeal to the larger masses without the hard driving six beats to the bar of Good Golly Miss Molly or Maybelline. it was this same born in the south, yes black rock and roll that inspired Jerry Lee Lewis, Whole Lotta Shakin Goin On.
Before all this true class acts like Nat King Cole, who had his own television show in the early 1050s, Count Bassie, Duke Ellington, and Louis Armstrong delighted audiences for decades….
Which led to Bill Cosby, Richard Pryor, well we will save that for another time.
A high school counselor in Dallas asked me if we offered a music major, nope I replied, too bad he said, that might actually interest the students.
Well I cannot construct a music hall but we could have a course on Music and the American Culture, now there's history course for you, something for everyone, a carnival tonite, what do you think? Take a look at the links above, no better yet, go to iTunes and listen to the first few bars of Good Golly Miss Molly and Maybelline…..everyone wants to come to America, no one wants to immigrate to the Mid East, every hear their version of a pop tune? America has exported its culture the world over, it is on display in the streets of Tehran as I write, yearning to be free…..an Iranian Woodstock, dream on.
No wonder rock ' roll was branded as dangerous when introduced to America, it is, gets toes to tapping and finger popping, hmm, it is all about an alternate method of expression, after you listen to the tunes I mentioned, try what it replaced on the charts, Shrimp Boats are a Comin, hear the difference?
Professor Elam 
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