張默妍

Rock and roll has been described as a merger1 of country music and rhythm and blues， but， if it were that simple， it would have existed long before it burst into the national consciousness2. The seeds of the music had been in place for decades， but they flowered in the mid-1950s when nourished by a mix of black culture and white spending power. Black vocal groups such as the Dominoes and the Spaniels began combining gospel-style3 harmonies and call-and-response singing with earthy subject matter and more aggressive4 rhythm-and-blues rhythms.

搖滾樂被認(rèn)為是鄉(xiāng)村音樂、節(jié)奏布魯斯音樂的融合，但如果能夠這么簡單定義的話，它早就成為國民共識了。搖滾樂之種深埋數(shù)十年，但直到20世紀(jì)50年代中期，在黑人文化和白人消費力的混合滋養(yǎng)下，搖滾樂之花才孕育開放。像“多米諾骨牌”和“西班牙獵犬”這樣的黑人聲樂團(tuán)體開始結(jié)合福音音樂風(fēng)格的和聲與應(yīng)答輪唱，加以接地氣的主題、更積極的節(jié)奏布魯斯的節(jié)奏來歌唱。

In 1954， a sound totally amazed the whole world： that of a handsome white singer， Elvis Presley. Yet his early recordings with producer Sam Phillips， guitarist Scotty Moore， and bassist Bill Black for Sun Records in Memphis were less about any one style than about a feeling. Presley was clearly a catalyst5 in the merger of black and white culture into something far bigger and more complex than both.

1954年，來自英俊的白人歌手埃爾維斯·普雷斯利（貓王）的一把好嗓子讓整個世界為之顫動。然而，他早期與制作人山姆·菲利普斯、吉他手斯科蒂·摩爾、貝斯手比爾·布萊克合作的在孟菲斯太陽唱片公司的作品，與其說是一種風(fēng)格，倒不如說是一種感覺。貓王顯然是黑人和白人文化融合的催化劑，他的音樂比兩者都更宏大也更復(fù)雜。

In Presleys wake， the music of black singers such as Fats Domino， Little Richard， Chuck Berry， and Bo Diddley， who might have been considered rhythm-and-blues artists only years before， fit alongside the rockabilly-flavoured tunes of white performers such as Buddy Holly， Eddie Cochran， and Jerry Lee Lewis， in part because they were all now addressing the same audience： teenagers. For young white America， this new music was a soundtrack for rebellion6， however mild. When Bill Haley and His Comets kicked off the 1955 film Blackboard Jungle with “Rock Around the Clock”， teens in movie houses throughout the United States stomped7 on their seats. Movie stars such as Marlon Brando in The Wild One （1953） and James Dean in Rebel Without a Cause （1955） showed depressed， youthful defiance8 that was echoed by the music. This emerging rock-and-roll culture brought a wave of condemnations9 from religious leaders， government officials， and parents groups， who branded it the “devils music”.

在貓王這一浪潮的覺醒之后，黑人歌手如法茲·多米諾、小理查德，查克·貝瑞和波·迪德利這些被認(rèn)為之前在布魯斯音樂上小有建樹的藝術(shù)家們的音樂，與白人演唱者巴迪·霍利，艾迪·科克倫，杰瑞·李·劉易斯的鄉(xiāng)村搖滾風(fēng)味曲調(diào)相得益彰，部分原因在于他們有著相同的受眾：青少年。對于年輕的美國白人來說，無論這種新音樂再怎么溫和，對他們來說這就是象征叛逆的原聲帶。當(dāng)比爾·哈利與彗星樂隊在1955年的電影《黑板叢林》中熱唱《圍著時鐘搖擺》從而為電影揭開序幕時，整個美國在電影院里觀影的青少年們在座位上隨音樂跺腳。電影明星如馬龍·白蘭度在《飛車黨》（1953年）中和詹姆斯·迪恩在《無因的叛逆》（1955年）中呈現(xiàn)的陰沉和青春的蔑視，通過音樂得到了共鳴。這一新興的搖滾文化掀起了一波宗教領(lǐng)袖、政府官員和家長團(tuán)體的譴責(zé)浪潮，他們將其標(biāo)榜為“魔鬼之音”。

The music industrys response was to sanitize10 the product. By the end of the 1950s， Presley served the army， Holly had died in a plane crash. Rock and rolls golden era had ended， and the music entered a transitional phase with sophisticated11 features. By the mid-1960s， this sophistication allowed the music greater freedom than ever before， and it fragmented12 into numerous styles that became known simply as rock.

音樂產(chǎn)業(yè)的回應(yīng)就是對音樂作品進(jìn)行審查。到20世紀(jì)50年代末，貓王入伍，霍利在一次飛機(jī)失事中喪生。至此，搖滾樂的黃金時代宣告結(jié)束，音樂進(jìn)入到一個更為復(fù)雜的過渡階段。到20世紀(jì)60年代中期，這種復(fù)雜性使音樂比以往任何時候都更自由，它分裂成各種各樣的風(fēng)格，造就了現(xiàn)如今被世人稱為搖滾的那些音樂。

Notes：

1. mergern. 合并；并購；吸收

2. consciousness n. 意識

3. gospel-style 福音風(fēng)格

4. aggressive adj. 積極的；有侵略性的

5. catalyst n. 催化劑

6. rebellion n. 反抗

7. stomp v. 重踩

8. defiancen. 蔑視

9. condemnation n. 譴責(zé)

10. sanitize v. 審查；凈化

11. sophisticated adj. 復(fù)雜的

12. fragment v. 使分裂