In my doctoral research, I wrote about the evolution of the speaking voice, in particular as it regards the delivery of Shakespearean text on the English stage. One thing struck me in the organization of that research into a coherent narrative for the dissertation: somewhere around 1948 through the mid-1950s, a sharp and distinct change occurred.
In the larger scheme of things, I wish to expand outwards from the initial focus on Shakespearean text (although, when you discuss the performative culture of the human voice, it always looms large) and analyze the voice in culture in many performative milieus. But I have a few thoughts about one pivotal moment in particular: the advent of rock 'n' roll.
What was the huge uproar over the rock 'n' roll scene emerging in 1954? Historians will tell you that it was teenage rebellion, the integration of black artists into popular music, and changes in lifestyle brought about by the technological boom of television and other delivery devices for music and the human voice.
Underneath it all, I have another thought, and it ties into the traditional depiction of theatre as a rival of religion for the attentions of the masses and the instruction of morality. Theatre (and later entertainment) has always been seen as an evil twin, a house of ill repute in order to offset the church as the "good house", the place where you go to receive forgiveness and guidance from "the good book" as opposed to the supposed "bad" book of the theatrical script. This was certainly true in Shakespeare's time. Some of our best evidence for theatrical conditions comes from preachers such as Stephen Gosson, who derided theatre at length.
Think of it: the actor and the preacher. Both use their voice to emotional effect in order to manipulate their audience into sympathy with their words. In fact, the most successful politician is the perfect synthesis of the actor and the preacher. Popular presidents have been effective public communicators.
Turn to rock 'n' roll in 1954: here is an emerging musical genre that takes the vocalizations of gospel music and sets it to more intense rhythms than ever before. Elvis Presley is the perfect embodiment of that amalgamation. He learned to sing from gospel music (and won his only Grammys for his gospel singing). He would often sneak out of the white church in Memphis with his girlfriend to go and listen to black singers in a neighboring church; could there be a more perfect image of rock 'n' roll rebellion, taking your girlfriend to a "forbidden" place to listen to voices that move you more than your parents' voices?
The protests from howling parents can be set in contrast with the diversionary sounds of gospel music placed within a swinging beat, played on electronic instruments in a time when advancing technology (think atomic bomb as its apotheosis) was equally as angst-ridden and bewildering. There is a connection with politics - the anti-Communist scare of the 1950s was most often labeling communism as a "godless" cause. Communism was not only the opposite of freedom, it was the opposite of religion. Here was popular entertainment that used religious music and religious fervor and religious
voices to engage your son or daughter into acts of physical spontaneity and freedom, whether on the dance floor or in the back seat. It must have been a frightening prospect in a frightening time.
It reminds me of Stephen Gosson, the preacher who so hated the London theatre of Shakespeare's time. Why? Because the voices that could be heard in Shakespeare's theatre were more successfully attracting the attention of the young generation than were the churches of the time, making them disdain the responsibility expected of them by the generation of their parents. Like rock 'n' roll, these voices made their audience react with a fervor unmatched in any other setting, and power such as that is frightening. In the case of theatre and of rock 'n' roll, the vocalist is more effective in communicating the empowerment of rebellion and rejection of "traditional morality", all the while using the techniques of religious fervor to subvert the institution of religion itself. Both theatre and rock 'n' roll use cryptic language to articulate such liberties, which is another subversion of the church (which itself also uses obtuse language in order to articulate morality).
Rock 'n' roll was the
new religion, preached by vocalists of different races and practiced by teenagers on the weekly schedule of
American Bandstand, while their parents were still trying to make the world safe from godless Communism. And in 1954/55/56, the parents reacted so strongly because they knew they were fighting a war on two fronts, and the war at home was already lost. What those parents wanted was to be heard, and the power of rock 'n' roll was altogether different from what was being promulgated from other quarters: the threat of nuclear holocaust, enemies all over the world marching, the hatred of racial segregation. Rock 'n' roll voices preached the gospel of the physical power of love. The new religion was not about fear, but about possibility, and the rejection of the destructive power of war. And when the Vietnam front emerged a decade later, music evolved again, with new voices leading the charge for a new creed in place of hate and destruction, that of love and creation. When the enslaved demand freedom, the master tries to lock the chains even tighter.
