A few days ago my mom
told me about a book she was reading called Who is this man?, which
explores the sociological impact of western culture and civilization left by
the life of Jesus Christ.
It sounded like an
interesting book but as so often happens when one is born with a healthy dose
of ADD, as my mother explained how the rights women and children enjoy in most
of the developed world can be directly attributed to a carpenter from a small
town in Galilee, my mind wondered off in a much more trivial line of thought
and I made an amazing connection... Mohammed invented Rock n' Roll!
Yes this is how my
mind works.
Yes I know it’s a
problem. But...
Would I change it?
Hell no! I have way
too much fun in my own head to fix it with meds or therapy.
Anyway back on topic.
My mother's comments
about Jesus' impact not only on the religion but on even the most basic
interactions in our culture got me wondering how the other dynamic religious
figure of the A.D. era affects our daily lives in ways we don't even realize.
No not you David
Koresh, you crazy gun toting bastard.
Mohammad.
I mean he's in the
title so it’s kind of obvious?
By the time of his
death or ascension in 632 A.D. Mohammed had converted or conquered almost all
of the Middle East and much of northern Africa .
In 711 A.D. the
Moors, African Muslims, set out to conquer Europe ,
or at least part of it. I don't really know how far they wanted to get, because
I'm not going to research this any farther than the first page of Google
entries, but they succeeded in taking and holding basically all of Spain
In addition to
bringing famine, disease and the convert or die attitude typically associated
with holy war, the moors also brought with them the oud a stringed instrument
the Europeans promptly added frets too and started calling Lute, because, well,
oud sounds funny.
According to the
internet, which as we all know is infallible, over the next few hundred years
the lute and other stringed instruments like it contributed to the design of
the guitar.
Do you see where I'm
going with this now?
By the early
Renaissance the guitar had become a popular tool to encourage young damsels
into the back of your daddy's carriage and generally piss off the old timers
still listening to that out-dated oud crap.
Fast forward to 1920s
U.S.A.
The guitar has become
the mainstay of country, folk, and even that new-fangled jazz nonsense. But the
instrument also call to the soul of the disenfranchised sons of freed slaves,
those who couldn't get behind the positivity of gospel or the wild, joyous
abandon of jazz. For the next 30 years or so, the instrument underwent some
vast changes thanks to guys like Les Paul, pioneer of the electric guitar.
Bluesmen like Muddy Waters took Les'
innovations to a dark place, feeding their frustrations and sexual desires
through pickups and amplifiers.
Meanwhile Hank Williams and the country
crowd, staying more or less acoustic were grabbing white peoples attention with
catchy tunes about cowboys and heartbreak.
Finally we get to the fun stuff, as
most of you probably know the 1950s brought us a marriage of these two
approaches to music in the form of these guys:
The point of this particular entry
isn't to start arguments about who invented rock n' roll, so I'm going to keep
it simple. Chuck Berry and Elvis Presley blended anger and passion of black
bluesmen with the quick tempo and… crackerness of country to create Rock n'
Roll. Almost overnight it became the music of youth culture and stayed that way
for the entire second half of the 20th century.
In western culture that is. In the
middle east, Rock n' Roll has been banned in many countries and is called a
tool of western imperialism by many political and religious leaders in the
region. The Clash even wrote a song about it…
you know the one I referenced in the title…
That silly Sharif he should have known
Rock n' Roll has nothing to do with western expansionism. In fact, I bet
Mohammed himself would get down to some Zeppelin.
