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The rock 'n' roll started in the United States with black musicians, the great rhythm 'n' blues players: Muddy Waters, John Lee Hooker and Chuck Berry.
Forty years ago black music and white music were two completely separated1 things. Chuck Berry was the first black musician to cross the barrier2 and sell records to both black and white young people: His songs were about the lives of teenagers. In 1958 he had a big hit with Sweet Little Sixteen.
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Jerry Lee Lewis, Elvis Presley and Buddy Holly mixed black music with white 'country' music to create rock 'n' roll. All this was happening in the United States. But people in Britain were listening to this music, too. The black rhythm 'n' blues singers and the best rock 'n' roll stars like Buddy Holly and Eddie Cochran were more popular in Britain than in the States.
Then, in the 1960s, a strange thing happened. The wind across the Atlantic Ocean changed direction. The British invaded America — The Beatles, The Rolling Stones, The Kings, The Who. There were concerts with tens of thousands of fans. Girls screamed3 and fainted4. The name of the music — 'rock 'n' roll' — changed to 'rock'.
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In the 1960s the style of the musicians changed a lot. Before this
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