The Beatles Influence in Changing Rock and Roll into Rock Music

The Beatles took a number of aspects of pop & rock n'roll music that had previously only been heard separately and fused them together to make "Rock",a music distinctly different from 1950's "Rock N'Roll"

The Beatles were influenced by Buddy Holly & The Crickets' concept of a self-contained group,where everybody played an instrument and wrote songs, what differed they were leaderless and album orientated,fused that with The Everly Brothers vocal harmonies(but adding a third voice for added richness),threw in some Carl Perkins rockabilly guitar,some rock n'roll wildness(courtesy of Little Richard),and added in the craftsmanship of the Brill Building songwriting teams,and replaced 1950's upright bass with bass guitar,and recorded this new music on recording equipment more advanced than what 1950's rockers had,and utilized some of the overdubbing & altered tape speed techniques pioneered by Les Paul,(but using these techniques in a rock context) to turn the studio itself into an instrument and part of the creative process. Fused that with skiffle which was folk influenced which made them also folksy.

And this fresh,innovative new music was brought onto a very dull music scene dominated by non-rock teen idols,a music scene from which out and out rockers had been banished from the airwaves 5 years previously.This is not to say that nothing significant was happening during the post-Elvis,pre-Beatles period.Early surf music,the beginnings of Motown & the textured,heavily produced girl group sound happened during this period,but these were(excepting The Beach Boys) artists that didn't write,and were largely puppets for powerful producers & song publishers.

The Beatles brought creative autonomy to rock n'roll,and,in the aftermath of The Beatles' arrival,it became a badge of creative authenticity for groups that followed to write at least some of their own material.This music,unlike any which had preceded it,was a direct expression of the artists' own emotions,in their own music & lyrics.It was expressed(as The Beatles once put it),"From Me to You".