Exam 3, Doo Wop
Italian Americans picked up styles from...
AA.
Why did radios stop playing rock and roll?
Afraid of being investigated for payola
Most doo wop groups were...
African American (some were European American).
Who hired Leiber and Stoller as independent producers?
Atlantic Records
Tom Dooley by The Kingston Trio
Back-up singers give pop feel; no vocal tension, clear tone; low in singer's range; no nasality; crooning; smiley, pop tune; smiling when he sings
What were the arrangements of up-tempo songs?
Backing vocals sing punchy, rhythmic phrases to give the harmony; vocables which drive the time and give percussive and rhythmic interest; tongue, teeth, and lips are percussive sounds; lead singer sings melody
Sincerely by The Moonglows
Ballad; crossover
What are the two styles in doo wop?
Ballads and up-tempo songs
Who got the short intro or stop time break in the up-tempo songs?
Bass singer
Gibson guitars
Big instruments, made lots of sound, rich and full
All three of the Everly Brothers songs have what form?
C/V form (all start with the chorus)
What were distractions?
Calypso, early folk revival, teen idols; majors promoted heavily to distract people from rock and roll
What was the bass singer sometimes there for?
Comedy
What did doo wop require?
Creativity, skill, artistry
_____ craze is attached to the singer and was used to sell the music.
Dance
Who made up the Everly Brothers?
Don and Phil Everly
T or F: Doo wop groups had existing careers in gospel.
False
What are up-tempo songs?
Faster, elaborate
Why did ASCAP sue BMI?
For conspiring with radios to keep ASCAP songs off the radio (not true)
What was calypso?
Form of pop music influenced by folk; caribbean music; topical political themes; dealt with sexuality; complex, elaborate; extremely popular; majors made it more "pop" and took out political themes; first attempt to distract from rock and roll
What was the precursor to doo wop?
Gospel quartets (smooth harmony, wide range, quartet, arrangement, and vocal devices)
What was their production process?
Hire people to do specific roles
Leiber and Stoller wrote...
Hound Dog.
What was a big thing for teen idols?
Image (learned from Elvis)
_____ labels were taking a big part of the revenue.
Independent
Who were the two groups from the 30s and 40s who were precursors to doo wop?
Ink Spots and Mills Brothers (AA harmony singers and pop singers)
Wake Up, Little Suzie by Everly Brothers
Intro guitar hook playing fragmented melody; reverb and echo; sweet country vocal blend; teen theme
Doo wop groups were primarily AA, but a fair percentage were _____.
Italian Americans
The bias against _____ was pretty strong.
Italian Americans
Who were two essential figures in rock and roll?
Jerry Leiber and Mike Stoller
Who were some of the first white songwriters to write for AAs?
Leiber and Stoller
What are covers?
Major record label would record an R&B crossover tune in a pop style to reach their audience
What did the producer do?
Manager; hired musicians to play instruments; ran the whole process in the studio (wasn't thought of as creative)
Bye, Bye Love by Everly Brothers
Meant to be a rock and roll tune; sweet blend of harmony; connected to Buddy Holly with guitar playing; country nasality; begins with instrumental hook; small pause at the end of the vocal phrase; hammering out chords on the guitar; chords are played on all 6 six strings so 12 strings between the both of them; short, fragmented melody which is what sold the song; written by Nashville writers; combines elements of country and blues to create rock and roll
Who was to blame for one-hit wonders?
Music industry: kids just wanted to make money and signed a label really quickly and when they wanted more money, they got cut because there were other groups out there that could be signed
What is payola?
Musical bribery (pay to play); illegal; could be terrible for musicians
Who was physically attacked on stage during a concert by the White Citizens Council?
Nat King Cole
All I Have To Do Is Dream by Everly Brothers
No short melodic fragment played on guitar; ballad; written to make them look good after Wake Up, Little Suzie; steered them in a mainstream direction; electric guitar sound; utilized tremolo effects (makes the sound tremor - move in waves until the sound fades out); electric guitar played in the beginning of the track; shimmering sound; chords here and there to make it seem more dreamy and starry-eyed
Unforgettable by Nat King Cole
Nothing rock and roll about this; straight TPA; rich harmony
The Wreck of the John B (The Sloop of John B) by The Kingston Trio
Pop version of a calypso song; Trinidad English in the lyrics
Black Denim Trousers by The Cheers
Produced by Leiber and Stoller; C/V form; "kitschy" song; emphasis on the record, not just the song; narrative song; last line of the last verse leads you into the first line of the last chorus which makes you reinterpret the theme of the song; change a couple of the lines in the last chorus
What are Leiber and Stoller known for?
Producing rock and roll vocal groups
What were some reasons why the majors didn't record rock and roll?
Racism; just didn't get it; ASCAP was racist and didn't represent country or AAs
What did the engineer do?
Ran the dials and switches; thought of as technical and not creative; job was the capture the sound of recording session
What were the teen idol songs about?
Romance, teen experience
What were the ballads like?
Sentimental love songs; lead singer would step forward; more ornamentation of the vocals
What are ballads?
Slow, romantic; lead singer would step out a little more
What started doo wop?
Small groups of teen friends getting together putting songs together and having R&B singers back them up
Politics of Wake Up, Little Suzie by Everly Brothers
Song was about going to the drive-in, fell asleep, woke up past curfew, afraid people were going to think they were being promiscuous; NOT ABOUT TEENS HAVING SEX; about teens who were afraid it would look like they had; caused lots of controversy; banned from airplay in Boston; Everly Brothers were horrified because they wanted to be seen as good people
What did the songwriter do?
Songwriting was sometimes divided into one who wrote music and one who write lyrics
What record label did Leiber and Stoller create and what was their production process?
Spark Records; they did everything from A&R to engineer
What was the early folk music revival?
There were large numbers of people in cities who were interested in rural music; sometimes politicized; started to become more popular
Why did the pop style covers have more prestige than the rock and roll version?
They were from big labels and appeared on big TV channels
What musical element was popular for doo wop groups?
Triplets
T or F: At small independent labels, you might not have the money to hire all these roles.
True
T or F: Doo wop came out of almost every city in the U.S.
True
T or F: Teen idols were produced through the production process.
True
Gee by The Crows
Up-tempo; 3 backing vocals singing the chords and driving time; lead singer singing melody; backing vocals start to hold out the chords to give variation; bass player extends his part and the other two cut theirs short
Blue Moon by The Marcels
Up-tempo; emphasizes the bass singer; played for comedy; stop time break at the end; TPA hit that was rearranged in doo wop time; almost every singer is singing different tempo and rhythm; almost like the lead singer is singing one melody and the others are singing different melodies (polyphony); straightforward melody by lead, background has more elaborate counter-melody; layering between the parts; bridge gives even more variation: bass sings two notes and then others sing two notes and they go back and forth; chords move toward giant crescendo
I Wonder Why by Dion and the Belmonts
Up-tempo; melody on top, punchy chords underneath; independence between bass singer and other two backing singers; backing vocals sing a little melodic tune when lead singer isn't singing; during the bridge, different rhythms are sung; shows off creativity
What made up doo wop groups?
Usually 4 singers, backed by piano, bass, drums, and guitar
What was the focus in doo wop?
Vocals
Sh-Boom by The Chords
Vocals support lead singer; original version; street corner harmony; working class teenage friends; urban; looking for something to do with time after school; one-hit wonder
Sh-Boom by The Crew Cuts
Way more pop than the original version; got rid of the backbeat; stiffer background vocals; clarinet/reed section in the bridge
What did the arranger do?
Went from chords and melody to a full-fledged arrangement of a song
What did the A&R man do?
Went out and found new artists and connected them with repertoire
Both Everly Brothers played...
acoustic Gibson guitars.
People said NAACP created rock and roll to...
corrupt the minds of white youth.
The Everly Brothers wrote for the _____ market.
country
The Everly Brothers thought of themselves as...
country artists.
In 1954, doo wop groups came forward with _____ songs.
crossover
Mostly, the marketing of the covers...
crushed the original.
Covers tended to remove...
features that had AA elements.
All of the teen idols were...
good looking, proper, prim teens; boy or girl next door.
Almost 2/3 of the records were sold from...
independent labels.
Leiber and Stoller defined the role of...
independent producers.
In these one-hit wonders, the lead singer was...
less of a front person (4 singers all together was who they were, not just one face).
The majority of doo wop groups were...
male.
There were formal attacks on rock and roll by...
media critics.
Many of Leiber and Stoller songs were...
narrative songs (play-lets for the kids).
People started to enlist _____ to attack rock and roll.
politicians
Nat King Cole was a _____ sing, not _____.
pop; rock and roll
Teen idols were heavily...
publicized.
The rise of rock and roll deeply angered...
racist groups.
Leiber and Stoller didn't see themselves as writing songs but writing...
records.
A number of _____ groups in the south were very against rock and roll.
religious
Rock and roll was a significant amount of...
revenue.
The major labels recorded very few _____ artists besides RCA and one other.
rock and roll
Some of the first crossovers were...
rock and roll vocal groups.
Teen idols had elements of _____ and _____.
rock and roll; pop
Major and independent labels agreed to...
self-censor.
A number of groups came out against the _____ lyrics of rock and roll.
sexual
Leiber and Stoller started as...
songwriters.
Payola had been around since the beginning of the music industry but people used it to...
take away rock and roll.
Doo wop was really focused on _____ themes.
teen
Teen idols sang songs that spoke to the ______ experience but were very...
teen; G-rated.
The majors realized that _____ were a big audience.
teens
Rock and roll was economically essential for...
the music business.
Sometimes, covers helped...
the record sales of the original.
Doo wop was an _____ phenomenon.
urban
