He [Chuck Berry] was the only guitar player. Yeah. And there was Jerry Lee [Lewis], his counterpart, and people like that. There must have been some elitist power that had to get rid of all these guys, to strike down rock ’n’ roll for what it was and what it represented — not least of all it being a black-and-white thing. Tied together and welded shut. If you separate the pieces, you’re killing it.
Q: Do you mean it’s musical race-mixing, and that’s what made it dangerous?
A: Well, racial prejudice has been around a while, so yeah. And that was extremely threatening for the city fathers, I would think. When they finally recognized what it was, they had to dismantle it, which they did, starting with payola scandals and things like that. The black element was turned into soul music and the white element was turned into English pop. They separated it. I think of rock ’n’ roll as a combination of country blues and swing band music, not Chicago blues, and modern pop. Real rock ’n’ roll hasn’t existed since when? 1961, 1962? Well, it was a part of my DNA, so it never disappeared from me. I just incorporated it into other aspects of what I was doing
~Bob Dylan (to Robert Love, AARP The Magazine, February/March 2015)
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Continue reading Classic concerts: Jerry Lee Lewis @ Granada TV Studios 1964 (videos)
