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It all started back in the mid-fifties. A strange new synergy of rhythm & blues, soul, jazz, harmony, black & white gospel, and country & western music took hold of the younger North American generation. This music snared their senses with a rhythm, back beat, energy and tribal passion they had never before encountered. It's initial appeal was to middle class white teenagers who soon came to feel it was their own. Perhaps it was -- their parents …

…the whole Rock 'n' Roll bit was just a fad and proceeded to engineer new "sanitized" acts in the hope of sustaining the windfall. By the end of the fifties many schlocky, sentimental songs designed in record company board-rooms were being marketed as "rock 'n' roll". Dissatisfied with this, many serious fans started paying attention to other music forms (such as folk) and soon found themselves quite detached from the era's rock 'n' roll mainstream.