Rock'n'Roll Era (Time-Life Music)
Encyclopedia
Rock'n'Roll Era was a 42-volume series issued by Time-Life
during the 1980s and early 1990s, spotlighting songs from the early years of rock and roll
era, primarily the pre-Beatles
era of 1954-1964. The first major and successful rock music-intensive subscription music series released by Time-Life, songs on the series included music heard on mainstream contemporary hit radio
stations of the late 1950s and early-to-mid 1960s.
The volumes in the "Rock'n'Roll Era" series covered a specific time period, including single years in some volumes and parts of a given decade in others. Each volume was issued on a 2-LP vinyl record set
, compact disc
or cassette. Individual volumes generally contained anywhere from 22 to 24 tracks each, and represented the highlighted time period's most popular and noteworthy tracks. Also included was a booklet, containing liner notes written by some of the most respected historians of the genre, photographs of the artists, and information on the songs (writers, performers and peak position on Billboard magazines Hot 100
chart (or other charts as appropriate)).
and/or conservative music tastes: classical
, jazz
, swing and orchestra
l music; and the music of opera
s and Broadway theatre
. Whenever popular music
was offered in a subscription series, the music was usually either from big band
-era and/or pre-1955 adult standard
-era performers, including Guy Lombardo
, Louis Armstrong
, Bing Crosby
, Perry Como
and Patti Page
. Although two country music
-intensive series were also issued during the early- and mid-1980s, nothing resembling rock music had been offered until "Rock'n'Roll Era."
"Rock 'n' Roll Era" was Time-Life's first foray into rock music and post-1955 music. First offered in the spring of 1986, the series was targeted to adults who—now in their late 30s and early 40s—grew up on music of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Each volume in "Rock'n'Roll Era" focused on a particular year (in this case, 1955 through 1964), a stylistic trend or particular artist influential in rock music; of the latter, seven such artists (Elvis Presley
, The Supremes
, The Beach Boys
, The Everly Brothers
, The Four Seasons, Roy Orbison
and Rick Nelson) had volumes of exclusively their material. The songs were said to be the original hit recording by the original artist (although this wasn't always true on early pressings of the early albums in the series), and the most important and popular songs from the period or subject featured.
"Rock'n'Roll Era" was advertised in television, magazine, newspaper and direct-mail advertisements
. The series was available by subscription (by calling a 1-800 number
); those who purchased the series in that fashion received a new volume roughly every other month (on the format of their choice), and had the option of keeping the volumes they wanted; compact discs were issued starting in 1987, and 2-LP record sets of new volumes were issued through 1990, after which only compact discs and cassettes were available.
Key selling points of "Rock'n'Roll Era" included:
The "Rock'n'Roll Era" series was a big success, and was still offered on a subscription basis at least as late as 2002. By the time the final volume was issued in 1996 (titled Rock'n'Roll Instrumentals), more than 40 different volumes (including two Christmas albums) had been released. Afterward, Time-Life released more pop music-intensive series, including "Classic Rock
," "Sounds of the Seventies," "Your Hit Parade" (a series featuring popular music of the 1940s through early 1960s) and "Super Hits
." (Similar series targeted towards country music fans—among them, "Country USA
" and "Contemporary Country
and "Classic Country" -- were also issued and was a major sales successes.) These later series used many of the same hallmarks as "Rock'n'Roll Era": liner notes, 22 songs per album, and so forth.
"Rock'n'Roll Era" was discontinued in the mid-2000s, and has since been replaced by various newer series.
Time-Life
Time–Life is a creator and direct marketer of books, music, video/DVD, and multimedia products. Its products are sold throughout North America, Europe, Australia, and Asia through television, print, retail, the Internet, telemarketing, and direct sales....
during the 1980s and early 1990s, spotlighting songs from the early years of rock and roll
Rock and roll
Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music...
era, primarily the pre-Beatles
The Beatles
The Beatles were an English rock band, active throughout the 1960s and one of the most commercially successful and critically acclaimed acts in the history of popular music. Formed in Liverpool, by 1962 the group consisted of John Lennon , Paul McCartney , George Harrison and Ringo Starr...
era of 1954-1964. The first major and successful rock music-intensive subscription music series released by Time-Life, songs on the series included music heard on mainstream contemporary hit radio
Contemporary hit radio
Contemporary hit radio is a radio format that is common in the United States, United Kingdom, Canada and Australia that focuses on playing current and recurrent popular music as determined by the Top 40 music charts...
stations of the late 1950s and early-to-mid 1960s.
The volumes in the "Rock'n'Roll Era" series covered a specific time period, including single years in some volumes and parts of a given decade in others. Each volume was issued on a 2-LP vinyl record set
Gramophone record
A gramophone record, commonly known as a phonograph record , vinyl record , or colloquially, a record, is an analog sound storage medium consisting of a flat disc with an inscribed, modulated spiral groove...
, compact disc
Compact Disc
The Compact Disc is an optical disc used to store digital data. It was originally developed to store and playback sound recordings exclusively, but later expanded to encompass data storage , write-once audio and data storage , rewritable media , Video Compact Discs , Super Video Compact Discs ,...
or cassette. Individual volumes generally contained anywhere from 22 to 24 tracks each, and represented the highlighted time period's most popular and noteworthy tracks. Also included was a booklet, containing liner notes written by some of the most respected historians of the genre, photographs of the artists, and information on the songs (writers, performers and peak position on Billboard magazines Hot 100
Billboard Hot 100
The Billboard Hot 100 is the United States music industry standard singles popularity chart issued weekly by Billboard magazine. Chart rankings are based on radio play and sales; the tracking-week for sales begins on Monday and ends on Sunday, while the radio play tracking-week runs from Wednesday...
chart (or other charts as appropriate)).
History
Time-Life began, which had been offering books as part of its subscription media offerings since 1961, began offering music the next year. Virtually all of the series issued for the first 20 years catered to adults with high-cultureHigh culture
High culture is a term, now used in a number of different ways in academic discourse, whose most common meaning is the set of cultural products, mainly in the arts, held in the highest esteem by a culture...
and/or conservative music tastes: classical
Classical music
Classical music is the art music produced in, or rooted in, the traditions of Western liturgical and secular music, encompassing a broad period from roughly the 11th century to present times...
, jazz
Jazz
Jazz is a musical style that originated at the beginning of the 20th century in African American communities in the Southern United States. It was born out of a mix of African and European music traditions. From its early development until the present, jazz has incorporated music from 19th and 20th...
, swing and orchestra
Orchestra
An orchestra is a sizable instrumental ensemble that contains sections of string, brass, woodwind, and percussion instruments. The term orchestra derives from the Greek ορχήστρα, the name for the area in front of an ancient Greek stage reserved for the Greek chorus...
l music; and the music of opera
Opera
Opera is an art form in which singers and musicians perform a dramatic work combining text and musical score, usually in a theatrical setting. Opera incorporates many of the elements of spoken theatre, such as acting, scenery, and costumes and sometimes includes dance...
s and Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre
Broadway theatre, commonly called simply Broadway, refers to theatrical performances presented in one of the 40 professional theatres with 500 or more seats located in the Theatre District centered along Broadway, and in Lincoln Center, in Manhattan in New York City...
. Whenever popular music
Popular music
Popular music belongs to any of a number of musical genres "having wide appeal" and is typically distributed to large audiences through the music industry. It stands in contrast to both art music and traditional music, which are typically disseminated academically or orally to smaller, local...
was offered in a subscription series, the music was usually either from big band
Big band
A big band is a type of musical ensemble associated with jazz and the Swing Era typically consisting of rhythm, brass, and woodwind instruments totaling approximately twelve to twenty-five musicians...
-era and/or pre-1955 adult standard
Adult standards
Adult standards is a North American radio format heard primarily on AM or class A FM stations.Adult standards is aimed at "mature" adults, meaning mainly those persons over 50 years of age, but it is mostly targeted for senior citizens...
-era performers, including Guy Lombardo
Guy Lombardo
Gaetano Alberto "Guy" Lombardo was a Canadian-American bandleader and violinist.Forming "The Royal Canadians" in 1924 with his brothers Carmen, Lebert, and Victor and other musicians from his hometown, Lombardo led the group to international success, billing themselves as creating "The Sweetest...
, Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong
Louis Armstrong , nicknamed Satchmo or Pops, was an American jazz trumpeter and singer from New Orleans, Louisiana....
, Bing Crosby
Bing Crosby
Harry Lillis "Bing" Crosby was an American singer and actor. Crosby's trademark bass-baritone voice made him one of the best-selling recording artists of the 20th century, with over half a billion records in circulation....
, Perry Como
Perry Como
Pierino Ronald "Perry" Como was an American singer and television personality. During a career spanning more than half a century he recorded exclusively for the RCA Victor label after signing with them in 1943. "Mr...
and Patti Page
Patti Page
Clara Ann Fowler , known by her professional name Patti Page, is an American singer, one of the best-known female artists in traditional pop music. She was the best-selling female artist of the 1950s, and has sold over 100 million records...
. Although two country music
Country music
Country music is a popular American musical style that began in the rural Southern United States in the 1920s. It takes its roots from Western cowboy and folk music...
-intensive series were also issued during the early- and mid-1980s, nothing resembling rock music had been offered until "Rock'n'Roll Era."
"Rock 'n' Roll Era" was Time-Life's first foray into rock music and post-1955 music. First offered in the spring of 1986, the series was targeted to adults who—now in their late 30s and early 40s—grew up on music of the late 1950s and early 1960s.
Each volume in "Rock'n'Roll Era" focused on a particular year (in this case, 1955 through 1964), a stylistic trend or particular artist influential in rock music; of the latter, seven such artists (Elvis Presley
Elvis Presley
Elvis Aaron Presley was one of the most popular American singers of the 20th century. A cultural icon, he is widely known by the single name Elvis. He is often referred to as the "King of Rock and Roll" or simply "the King"....
, The Supremes
The Supremes
The Supremes, an American female singing group, were the premier act of Motown Records during the 1960s.Originally founded as The Primettes in Detroit, Michigan, in 1959, The Supremes' repertoire included doo-wop, pop, soul, Broadway show tunes, psychedelic soul, and disco...
, The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys
The Beach Boys are an American rock band, formed in 1961 in Hawthorne, California. The group was initially composed of brothers Brian, Dennis and Carl Wilson, their cousin Mike Love, and friend Al Jardine. Managed by the Wilsons' father Murry, The Beach Boys signed to Capitol Records in 1962...
, The Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers
The Everly Brothers are country-influenced rock and roll performers, known for steel-string guitar playing and close harmony singing...
, The Four Seasons, Roy Orbison
Roy Orbison
Roy Kelton Orbison was an American singer-songwriter, well known for his distinctive, powerful voice, complex compositions, and dark emotional ballads. Orbison grew up in Texas and began singing in a rockabilly/country & western band in high school until he was signed by Sun Records in Memphis...
and Rick Nelson) had volumes of exclusively their material. The songs were said to be the original hit recording by the original artist (although this wasn't always true on early pressings of the early albums in the series), and the most important and popular songs from the period or subject featured.
"Rock'n'Roll Era" was advertised in television, magazine, newspaper and direct-mail advertisements
Advertising
Advertising is a form of communication used to persuade an audience to take some action with respect to products, ideas, or services. Most commonly, the desired result is to drive consumer behavior with respect to a commercial offering, although political and ideological advertising is also common...
. The series was available by subscription (by calling a 1-800 number
Toll-free telephone number
A toll-free, Freecall, Freephone, 800, 0800 or 1-800 number is a special telephone number which is free to the calling party, and instead the telephone carrier charges the called party the cost of the call...
); those who purchased the series in that fashion received a new volume roughly every other month (on the format of their choice), and had the option of keeping the volumes they wanted; compact discs were issued starting in 1987, and 2-LP record sets of new volumes were issued through 1990, after which only compact discs and cassettes were available.
Key selling points of "Rock'n'Roll Era" included:
- Each track being the original hit recording by the original artist as opposed to being "re-recordings" (usually, new or latter-day stereo recordings of songs when licensing or the original master of a desired song was unavailable).
- The songs were digitally remastered and transferred to the desired format.
- The most popular and desired songs that customers were looking for could be found in a single collection at a far lesser price. The ads pointed out that customers would spend far more money to purchase albums that contained only a few desired tracks, thereby leaving the customer with many more lesser-quality and less-desired, lower-charting and less-enduring songs.
The "Rock'n'Roll Era" series was a big success, and was still offered on a subscription basis at least as late as 2002. By the time the final volume was issued in 1996 (titled Rock'n'Roll Instrumentals), more than 40 different volumes (including two Christmas albums) had been released. Afterward, Time-Life released more pop music-intensive series, including "Classic Rock
Classic Rock (Time-Life Music)
Classic Rock was a 31-volume series issued by Time-Life during the late 1980s and early 1990s. Unlike what the name may imply, the series spotlighted popular music played on Top 40 radio stations of the mid- to late-1960s....
," "Sounds of the Seventies," "Your Hit Parade" (a series featuring popular music of the 1940s through early 1960s) and "Super Hits
AM Gold (Time-Life Music)
Super Hits -- later retitled AM Gold -- was a 35-volume series issued by Time-Life during the 1990s, spotlighting popular music -- primarily, soft rock and non-disco Top 40 music—played on Top 40 radio stations during the 1960s and 1970s....
." (Similar series targeted towards country music fans—among them, "Country USA
Country USA (Time-Life Music)
Country USA was a 23-volume series issued by Time-Life Music during the late 1980s and early 1990s, spotlighting country music of the 1950s through early 1970s....
" and "Contemporary Country
Contemporary Country (Time-Life Music)
Contemporary Country was a 22-volume series issued by Time-Life during the early 1990s, spotlighting country music of the 1970s through early 1990s....
and "Classic Country" -- were also issued and was a major sales successes.) These later series used many of the same hallmarks as "Rock'n'Roll Era": liner notes, 22 songs per album, and so forth.
"Rock'n'Roll Era" was discontinued in the mid-2000s, and has since been replaced by various newer series.
The series
As with many of Time-Life Records' multi-volume releases, the volumes were not issued in a logical, sequential order by date or era of the subject; that is, issuing volumes covering years in the 1950s before progressing into the 1960s. In the track information section, the volumes will be listed sequentially by era; the following list is the order in which the volumes were released.1986
- Rock'n'Roll Era: 1957
- Rock'n'Roll Era: 1962
- Rock'n'Roll Era: The Beach Boys: 1962-1967
- Rock'n'Roll Era: 1961
- Rock'n'Roll Era: 1958
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Elvis Presley: 1954-1961
- Rock'n'Roll Era: 1963
1987
- Rock'n'Roll Era: 1954-1955
- Rock'n'Roll Era: The Everly Brothers: 1957-1962
- Rock'n'Roll Era: 1964
- Rock'n'Roll Era: 1960
- Rock'n'Roll Era: The Supremes: 1963-1969
- Rock'n'Roll Era: 1959
- Rock'n'Roll Era: 1956
- Rock'n'Roll Era: The Four Seasons: 1962-1967
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Still Rockin' 1962
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Jingle Bell Rock
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Dick Clark's Rock'n'Roll Christmas
1988
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Still Rockin' 1957
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Still Rockin' 1961
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Still Rockin' 1963
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Still Rockin' 1959
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Still Rockin' 1958
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Still Rockin' 1960
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Still Rockin' 1962
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Still Rockin' 1956
- Rock'n'Roll Era: The '50s Keep on Rockin
- Rock'n'Roll Era: The '60s Keep on Rockin
1989
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Elvis The King 1954-1965
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Teen Idols
- Rock'n'Roll Era: The '50s Rave On
- Rock'n'Roll Era: The '60s Rave On
- Rock'n'Roll Era: The '50s Keep on Rockin
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Roots of Rock 1945-1956
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Ricky Nelson 1957-1972
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Red Hot Rockabilly
- Rock'n'Roll Era: The '50s Last Dance
1990
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Roy Orbison 1960-1965
- Rock'n'Roll Era: The '60s Last Dance
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Axes and Saxes: The Great Instrumentals
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Wierd, Wild and Wacky
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Rock Classics: The Originals
- Rock'n'Roll Era: The New Orleans Sound
- Rock'n'Roll Era: The '60s Teen Time
1992
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Roots of Rock II
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Lost Treasures
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Street Corner Serenade
- Rock'n'Roll Era: The '60s Jukebox Memories
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Rock Classics: The Originals
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Teen Idols II
- Rock'n'Roll Era: R&B Gems II
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Lost Treasures II
- Rock'n'Roll Era: Street Corner Serenade II