If we look at the genera of music, we can see that within pop music there is also the music style Rock. Within Rock, we can also make a division into different music genres, namely: Rock 'n Roll, hard rock, alternative rock, art & experimental rock, metal, punk and indie. Today i want to talk about Rockabilly, a wellknown music style which became popular in the 50’s. After the Second World War, a period began in which young people became familiar with the rise of the rockabilly hype in the 1950s, this style of music appealed to young people enormously.

There was dancing, partying, drinking and subculture like Greaser culture was born in which young people broke away from the conservative thinking of their parents and became rebellious and pushed the boundaries. This led to concerns among parents about alcohol, drug use and sex in the backseat of the car, as well as violence and speeding cars. Cars, hot rod cars were an important part of the rockabilly period, especially cars with a V-8 engine, like Ford Mustang and Cadillac. Cars were also a source of inspiration for music and films. Elvis Presley turned Rockabilly on its head with his own musical style and created many hits and also played in films. But there were more Rockabilly icons at that time. Let me take you back to this time and explain the history of Rockabilly.

Rockabilly is a style of music that fits within rock 'n roll music. It is a mixture of hillbilly (country music) and rock and roll. It's a style of country western with rhythm and blues. Rockabilly is often played on a jazz guitar, but also on a western guitar, steel guitar also called Hawaiian guitar.

You have different steel guitars, namely lap steel, resonator, pedal steel. Rockabilly music composition usually consisted of guitar and double bass. Later that expanded with drums piano and wind instruments.

Rockabilly music can be recognized by the fingerpicking guitar playing and the double slap on the double bass. Slap can be compared to a drum and you often heard that in the early years when rockabilly was just emerging, so they used the double beat on the double bass to indicate the rhythm.

Double slap was done on the double bass with the index finger on the string or with the edge of the hand. You can also pick up the string a little harder with the index finger and let it bounce back or you can use several fingers for sound effects. The thumb was used on the bass guitar. Or one alternates it with plucking the strings and letting go, the so-called pizzicato effect. The double slap can be done on both the acoustic and electric guitar. When I thought of weak technique and what that sounds like nowadays, I immediately thought of Mark King from Level 42, who often uses this technique in their music. The basic structure of a rockabilly song consists mainly of a 12 bar blues scheme. A fixed number of bars with usually three chords. To get the Rockabilly sound, the use of tape echo is unique.

To be able to play rockabilly on a guitar, a semi-acoustic guitar is usually chosen, which is equipped with P-90 pickups. The P-90 pickups provide a somewhat rougher sound. A Gibson guitar is therefore more hum sensitive than a Fender guitar. So you have to be able to play quite a bit to be able to play on a Gibson to be able to control that hum. Notable artists who also played semi-acoustic guitars with P-90 pickups included John Lennon, Paul McCartney, George Harrison of The Beatles.