Rock-n-roll Accent - spring 2010

A ‘rock ‘n’ roll accent?’ Rhotic and non-rhotic r in rock and roll music

The period of the 1950s and early 1960s was a fertile time for popular music. The genres of rock n’ roll, Soul, and the styles Britpop and rockabilly all began or gained national notice during this time, and the music and singers of this generation continue to influence popular music today: Elvis, The Beatles, Chuck Berry, James Brown, etc. Rock music began in America, and was exported to England, which in turn exported the British Invasion to America, thus augmenting and further popularizing the genre. Since the rock artists of these early days are still so influential today, it is no surprise that their voices and style would be imitated and incorporated by many artists, from their contemporaries to those who could never have heard Buddy Holly or John Lennon at a live concert.

Rock and roll developed out of a confluence of artists from two
different dialect areas: British English and American English. These dialects display opposite post vocalic r – rhotic in most areas of America, and non-rhotic in most areas of England. Some singers from one area display the ‘r’ of the other dialect area: why? My thesis is that these singers choose to incorporate sounds from the other dialect for two reasons: aesthetics and convenience. Rhotic r is easy to add – as epenthetic and linking r - and this sound helps to give definition and clarity to a medial or final syllable. By the same token, at the end of a phrase, non rhotic r leaves the mouth more open, and is much easier to sing because it is then formed like a long vowel. In classical vocal music, singers of English often trill or “flap” r, as in Spanish, because it is a more clearly defined sound, and is considered better for singing (as compared to rhotic r). Singers of country music – music which has its roots in the American South – tend to use rhotic r, because many Southern dialects feature this r. Basically, for reasons of vocal convenience, and authenticity to the dialects reflected by the specific musical style, rhotic and non rhotic r are mixed and exchanged by singers from these two broad dialect groups.

Resolutions of the phoneme /r/ in English vary from American to British English, as well as, of course, between distinct variants of both major dialects. There are rhotic and non rhotic dialects in both these major groups – in England, the standard dialect (RP) is non rhotic, with rhotic varieties in the West Country, Lancashire, and areas bordering Scotland[1], whereas in America the standard dialect is rhotic, with non-rhotic varieties present in the Southern states such as Alabama and Georgia. Initially /r/ is always [ɹ]. Intervocalically, /r/ is almost always [ɹ] in American English (and also in British English – see words like “story”), but British English will occasionally put a ‘tap’ [ɾ], as in “very.” After a consonant, British and American will both usually use [ɹ] (as in the word Christ). Before a consonant, the British dialect typically results in [ə], non-rhotic r, and American in [ɹ], rhotic r, but this is one of the environments where sung English in popular music will use both variants interchangeably.

For this study, I have listened to certain songs in two or more different versions, and certain artists singing a variety of songs- to hear the same sound in different dialects, and the same dialect with the phoneme in different environments, to hear which environments produce each allophone. Specific groups and artists studied include The Beatles, and John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival.

“The Beatles” is the name of one of the most famous and influential rock bands in the history of pop music. John Lennon and Paul McCartney wrote most of the group’s repertoire, and often sang lead vocals; McCartney and George Harrison played bass and lead guitar, respectively; Ringo Starr played drums; and Harrison and Starr both occasionally contributed lead vocals and original compositions. All four were born in Liverpool, England, in the 1940s, and grew up in middle class households. The band was formed in the early 1960s with Lennon and McCartney and others, then joined by Harrison and Starr; their debut album was released in 1962. In those early years of the 1960s, rock n’ roll was all the rage in popular music, and many of the songs the band played at concerts were heavily influenced by American artists such as Chuck Berry and Buddy Holly, or covers of American songs. Later on The Beatles’ music became a very individual mix of music anywhere from traditional rock n’ roll to songs influenced by Ravi Shankar’s Indian sitar, to avant garde, to Baroque. As the music they sang grew from simple rock n’ roll to such diverse genres, the performance and delivery of the vocals became more varied as well: Lennon’s voice, which I once heard described as ‘the perfect voice for rock n’ roll’ for its vitality and virility, goes from energetic screaming in Twist and Shout, to nuanced subtleties in Julia (The Beatles, 1968). And as you might expect, his diction and delivery of the words changes as the tone of his voice does.

Lennon’s particular dialect is very straightforward Liverpudlian English. /r/ initially is always [ɹ], as in all American and British dialects, and results the same intervocalically and before a vowel; if a word with final /r/ immediately precedes a word beginning with a vowel, especially in singing, the r becomes rhotic (as intervocalic r due to resyllabification). Where /r/ will vary, finally and before a consonant, Lennon’s idiolect nearly always results in [ə], as in the words “girl” and “here.” The American ‘r’, [ɹ], almost never occurs.

McCartney’s dialect is by birth also Liverpudlian, but though his voice has nowhere near the dramatic thrust and mutable timbre of Lennon’s, his dialect as reflected in his lead vocals lends variety to his voice, and sometimes shifts towards an American dialect. /r/ finally and before a consonant occasionally results in [ɹ], as in Another Girl: [ənʌðəgəɹl]. [Interestingly, Lennon, on backing vocals, sings “another” the same way, but pronounces “girl” [geəl].] This [ɹ] in McCartney’s idiolect is the most interesting aspect of The Beatles’ accents, because it suggests an American influence not only on the musical aspects of their sound, but on the specific speech characteristics of their music as well. McCartney as lead singer blends American and BrE dialects more than does Lennon, and his use of [ɹ] brings the unique sound of his voice closer to an American sound overall, whether consciously or unconsciously adapted. When contributing vocals to the band’s music, Harrison rarely uses rhotic r, and when he does it is borrowed from a rhotic BrE dialect (as there is one such dialect area, Lancashire, directly north of where all four Beatles grew up) rather than a blending of an American sound. Starr rarely ever uses rhotic r.

On the opposite side of the Atlantic, where the rock n’ roll sound was born, the sound of rock n’ roll was never homogeneous, and became more and more diverse as the genre grew: singers came from many diverse backgrounds and dialect areas: African-American dialect, Mid-Western dialect, Southern dialect, NYC, California, etc. It would be simple enough to look at a singer’s birthplace in order to find their specific dialect, but as in the case of Paul McCartney, certain singers mix and borrow from dialect areas other than their own. Some singers such as John Fogerty of Creedence Clearwater Revival, or Ray Dorset of Mungo Jerry, sing in a dialect similar to African-American singers: their native dialect is not reflected in the dialect they sing. Ray Dorset is the lead singer for the British band Mungo Jerry, which was formed in the 1970s and had several #1 hits. His dialect resembles an American South dialect, partly due to its vowels, and partly because of its occasional mixing of rhotic and non rhotic r. John Fogerty was born in the Bay area of California, and formed the band which became Creedence Clearwater Revival with his brother Tom and others from their high school. Fogerty contributed all the vocals to the bands’ songs: the style of CCR has been described as swamp rock, or roots rock, and reflects a Deep South feel, partly created by the accent in which Fogerty sang- he sings in a Southern accent, just as the band plays in a Southern style[2].

An interesting example of the same mixing of dialects by a group from a slightly different area is Simple Plan, a contemporary group from Quebec. Canadian English tends to be rhotic, like American English, but there are certain instances in their music where r becomes non rhotic. In the song Welcome to My Life, the word “ever” in the phrase “do you ever feel like” results in non-rhotic r, like a schwa, as it is unstressed, but the r in “turned [up so loud]” results in rhotic r, because it is stressed, both as the only syllable of the word and because the rhythm of the phrase stresses this syllable. Simple Plan’s lead singer alternates these two different /r/ sounds, and the rhotic r is a very distinct sound, almost exaggerated.

Certain characteristics that are traded back and forth by these singers are related to voice production, and diction in singing. For instance, as mentioned in the section on Lennon’s accent, final /r/ before a word beginning with /r/ will sound as intervocalic /r/, because it facilitates diction; this resyllabification occurs because the words sung together do not naturally break, just as speech does not naturally break. Resyllabification in music depends on timing and emphasis on certain words and beats, just as in speech. Tempo in music affects diction as well – words sung at a fast pace will naturally tend to be less distinct than words sung slowly, where diction can be made much more distinct (though contrarily, consonants at the end of a long held note will tend to trail off and be less audible). Because of this effect, certain words displaying /r/ in the same environment will sound differently when placed differently in a musical phrase (or sentence): the /r/ results in two different allophones: [ɹ] – often exaggerated and quite bright, with more emphasis on that resonant sound as opposed to the long vowel resulting from the non-rhotic r – at the end of a word or on an emphasized syllable, or [ə] and elided, in a syllable of short duration and little emphasis.

Rock n’ roll in its expansion and growth as a genre influenced and drew influence from diverse artists, who incorporated its characteristics into their work. This influence is most obvious when seen in the rhythms, harmonies, and energy present in all the music of or related to this genre. Rock n’ roll lyrics all have common material, as well: though later music developed a wide range of subjects, the earliest rock n’ roll was not much more thematically diverse than country or other genres of the ‘50s and 60s. The common thread of rock n’ roll extends also to the voices that sing this material, though this is a much less obvious influence: the simple explanation for the way that Paul McCartney and John Fogerty have anything dialectically in common is rock n’ roll. Both singers strove to incorporate this sound in the chords they played, the rhythms we rocked to, the words we all know, and the way those words sound, right down to the individual sounds which make up those words and other words. This synthesis of sound is particularly fitting for music born out of African-American folk music, brought to worldwide notice by a band from Britain, and now shared as a common heritage by artists around the world: this synthesis makes rock n’ roll a common idiom which reflects its roots.








[1] Wikipedia.org http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rhotic_and_non-rhotic_accents 5/5/10


[2] http://www.psych.mcgill.ca/levitin/fogerty.html