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"Rock On" is a song recorded in 1973 that was composed and sung by English singer/songwriter David Essex. In March 1974, it reached number one in Canada on the ''RPM'' national Top Singles chart and was a Top 5 song (reaching the number five position) on the U.S. ''Billboard'' Hot 100 pop-music chart. It was Essex's only ''Billboard'' Top 40 hit. The song also reached the number three spot on the UK Singles Chart. "Rock On" was the title track to Essex's 1973 debut album and was also featured on the soundtrack album to the 1973 film ''That'll Be the Day'', in which Essex had a starring role. The song is still frequently played on classic rock and oldies radio stations. Essex later re-recorded the song in 1988 with an updated lyric. The version, which was remixed by Shep Pettibone, appeared on Essex's 1989 album ''Touching the Ghost.'' A single release of the updated version reached number 93 on the UK charts. The recording is featured in the movies ''Dick,'' ''The Devil's Rejects'' and ''Sunset Strip,'' as well as in episodes of ''The Sopranos'' and ''Cold Case.'' == Arrangement and Context== The song features a slow-tempo vocal performance in a minor key, along with a minimalist, rhythm-driven instrumental accompaniment to Essex's vocals, which shows the strong influence of Jamaican reggae and dub. The lyric pays homage to early rock and roll and its surrounding youth subculture, and notably to 1950s iconic rebel James Dean (although the lyrics refer to him as "Jimmy Dean", the same exact name as the country-western singer famous for ''Big Bad John''). The distinctive stripped-back musical arrangement was devised by producer Jeff Wayne after hearing Essex's original vocal demo: :" 'Rock On' was demonstrated to me in the studio after finishing the jingle session. And the way David demoed it for me was he went into the studio, our engineer put on a microphone and David picked up a trashcan and started banging out this little rhythm, so there was no instruments. Because there was no instruments, the engineer put on this sort of repeat echo, and it gave an atmosphere to it, and that's what I then went away to work on. I went away and thought about the song and the attractiveness was the hollows, the absences and the mood in the lyrics as well. And so I had this idea that there would nothing on it that played a chord, so that's why there's no keyboards, there's no guitars, there's nothing that plays a chord." :"When David wrote 'Rock On', it was the type of song that from my point of view as an arranger and producer gave me much more adventurous ideas, a concept of sound. A ballad is a ballad, whereas 'Rock On' allowed us to be a bit more off-the-wall. It was a gamble and a bit of a fight to get it through. But both David and I felt that 'Rock On' was a career-breaking record, whereas a ballad would give him a shorter-term success, it wouldn't distinguish him."〔(Steve Hoffman Music Forums - Your Thoughts on David Essex's Rock On ) retrieved 8 Nov. 2015〕 According to Wayne, only three session musicians played on the final backing track, and the most prominently featured was veteran session musician Herbie Flowers, whose double-tracked bass guitar was treated with a prominent "slapback" delay effect, creating a complex polyrhythmic backbeat: :" I can recall the three musicians on the backing track for 'Rock On' all looking around in a mostly empty Advision Studios, Studio 1, wanting to know when the rest of the band were arriving! I explained there weren't any others for that track, and I was relying on them to understand my idea for the production. While the drums and percussion parts were written out, it was definitely Herbie that grasped immediately that a bass guitar playing a lead riff could fill a large part of the spatial spectrum and he took my idea and turned some basic notes of mine, into his amazing bass riff. Then to top it off, he suggested playing it again an octave higher. So you get this unusual bass sound right up front - now it couldn't have been up front if the arrangement didn't allow the air and the space to be created that way."〔(Steve Hoffman Music Forums - Your Thoughts on David Essex's Rock On ) retrieved 8 Nov. 2015〕 Flowers himself noted that, as a reward for devising the double-tracked bass line, he was paid double his normal session fee, and thus received £24 instead of the usual £12.〔(Steve Hoffman Music Forums - Your Thoughts on David Essex's Rock On ) retrieved 8 Nov. 2015〕 "Rock On" can be linked to Don McLean's 1971 song, "American Pie", as a mysterious valediction for the recent past. The song might otherwise be located within the 1950s nostalgia strand in popular music of the 1970s; though in this context, Essex's allusive, ambiguous song is quite unlike typical expressions of the nostalgia boom, for example the hits of the UK band Showaddywaddy. 抄文引用元・出典: フリー百科事典『 ウィキペディア（Wikipedia）』 ■ウィキペディアで「Rock On (song)」の詳細全文を読む スポンサード リンク
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