Rock and Roll摇滚乐

2018-08-04张默妍

中学生英语·中考指导版 2018年7期

张默妍

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.

摇滚乐被认为是乡村音乐、节奏布鲁斯音乐的融合，但如果能够这么简单定义的话，它早就成为国民共识了。摇滚乐之种深埋数十年，但直到20世纪50年代中期，在黑人文化和白人消费力的混合滋养下，摇滚乐之花才孕育开放。像“多米诺骨牌”和“西班牙猎犬”这样的黑人声乐团体开始结合福音音乐风格的和声与应答轮唱，加以接地气的主题、更积极的节奏布鲁斯的节奏来歌唱。

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，来自英俊的白人歌手埃尔维斯·普雷斯利（猫王）的一把好嗓子让整个世界为之颤动。然而，他早期与制作人山姆·菲利普斯、吉他手斯科蒂·摩尔、贝斯手比尔·布莱克合作的在孟菲斯太阳唱片公司的作品，与其说是一种风格，倒不如说是一种感觉。猫王显然是黑人和白人文化融合的催化剂，他的音乐比两者都更宏大也更复杂。

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”.

在猫王这一浪潮的觉醒之后，黑人歌手如法兹·多米诺、小理查德，查克·贝瑞和波·迪德利这些被认为之前在布鲁斯音乐上小有建树的艺术家们的音乐，与白人演唱者巴迪·霍利，艾迪·科克伦，杰瑞·李·刘易斯的乡村摇滚风味曲调相得益彰，部分原因在于他们有着相同的受众：青少年。对于年轻的美国白人来说，无论这种新音乐再怎么温和，对他们来说这就是象征叛逆的原声带。当比尔·哈利与彗星乐队在1955年的电影《黑板丛林》中热唱《围着时钟摇摆》从而为电影揭开序幕时，整个美国在电影院里观影的青少年们在座位上随音乐跺脚。电影明星如马龙·白兰度在《飞车党》（1953年）中和詹姆斯·迪恩在《无因的叛逆》（1955年）中呈现的阴沉和青春的蔑视，通过音乐得到了共鸣。这一新兴的摇滚文化掀起了一波宗教领袖、政府官员和家长团体的谴责浪潮，他们将其标榜为“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.

音乐产业的回应就是对音乐作品进行审查。到20世纪50年代末，猫王入伍，霍利在一次飞机失事中丧生。至此，摇滚乐的黄金时代宣告结束，音乐进入到一个更为复杂的过渡阶段。到20世纪60年代中期，这种复杂性使音乐比以往任何时候都更自由，它分裂成各种各样的风格，造就了现如今被世人称为摇滚的那些音乐。