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Nei tardi anni 70 e 80, la forma più popolare del Rock and roll fu l'Heartland rock. Fu caratterizzato da uno stile molto pulito, e dalla convinzione che il rock avesse uno scopo sociale oltre che al semplice intrattenimento.

Storia

Le origini dell'Heartland Rock, come molti generi, è difficile da definire. Il genere parti inizialmente come una fusione tra white soul, garage rock, rhythm and blues e rock and roll.

Mentre il genere inizio ad essere riconosciuto dal pubblico nei tardi anni settanta con il successo di Bruce Springsteen, Bob Seger, e Tom Petty, il genere apparse nelle pop charts gia prima grazie ad artisti folk come, Bob Dylan, Creedence Clearwater Revival, Mitch Ryder and the Detroit Wheels e Van Morrison, ed artisti meno conosciuti come (The Flaming Ember, che con la canzone del 1971 "Westbound Number Nine" fu un esempio di un mix tra garage rock, rhythm and blues e rock.

Il genere raggiunse il picco commerciale ed artistico nelle meta degli anni 80, con John Mellencamp, Seger, e Petty che furono gli artisti piu rappresentativi.

L'Heartland rock declinò come genere nei primi anni 90 e perse influenza tra i piu giovani. Molti artisti dell' heartland rock continuano a registrare album tutt'oggi con successo della critica e anche commerciale, i piu noti Bruce Springsteen, Tom Petty and John Mellencamp, anche se i loro lavori sono divenuti molto piu sperimentali e personali e che non si possono ricondurre ad un singolo genere.

Caratteristiche

L'Heartland rock puo essere visto uno delle tante espressioni artistiche regionali della classe operaia bianca Americana. L'Heartland rock fu una controparte del Southern rock nel sud degli USA ai Lynyrd Skynyrd, Marshall Tucker Band), ed al country rock nella West coast (The Eagles, Firefall, Poco). Questi tre generi comunque sono molto vicini per quanto riguarda i temi dei testi e lo stile musicale.

Le caratteristiche piu comuni nell' Heartland Rock sono:

Strumentazione tradizionale - Predominano la Chitarra Elettrica, Chitarra Acustica, Basso e Batteria. Poi ci sono Pianoforte, l'organo Hammond B3 e Organo elettronico). L'armonica e il mandolino appaiono spesso - che evidenziano le radici rhythm and blues e country dell' Heartland Rock.
Influenze - L'Heartland Rock ha raccolto molte influenze del rock pre-1964 e dal rhythm and blues, e per un pò anche dal country and western, rockabilly, dalla British invasion, e dal "White Soul" del 1960 e degli anni 1970. Artisti come Van Morrison e Bob Dylan ne hanno raccolto una larga influenza.

Questo genere quindi ha raccolto molto del Country e del western, ma l'Heartland aggiunge a questo la comunione tra i musicisti e gli ascoltatori di obiettivi e valori comuni.

Artisti

Artisti piu importanti

By far the most prominent heartland artists, and the nucleus of the genre, were:

Bruce Springsteen - Bringing the influences of Van Morrison, Bob Dylan, and pre-Beatles rock and roll to bear, the musical style and the lyrical themes of heartland were lurking in Springsteen's Jersey-flavored music from the start. But they really gelled on Darkness on the Edge of Town (1978) and The River (1980), where songs such as "Badlands" and "The River" intertwined personal and economic concerns. The heartland genre reached the apex of its general popularity with Springsteen's massively-selling Born in the U.S.A. (1984) and his subsequent sold-out arena and stadium tour. These shows featured rock versions of Nebraska (1982)'s depressed heartland folk as well as Woody Guthrie's "This Land Is Your Land" and the Steinbeck-influenced "Seeds", preceded and followed in best redemptive fashion by party songs from the early 1960s, all documented within the Live/1975-85 album.
Bob Seger - More rooted in traditional, blues-based barroom rock than Springsteen, Michigan native Seger owed a lot more to Chuck Berry, Mitch Ryder, and The Rolling Stones. Some of Seger's early songs such as "Beautiful Loser" and "Turn the Page" were heartland antecedents, while his later classic heartland albums include Night Moves (1976), Stranger in Town (1978), and The Distance (1982). Generally acknowledged as the best singer of this group, Seger's voice could convey heartland sentiments ranging from the delicate time-spanning nostalgia of "Night Moves" to the powerless fury of "Feel Like a Number" to the uncertain maturity of "Against the Wind".
John Mellencamp - A reformed glitter-rocker, Mellencamp came to embrace and finally flaunt his small town Indiana roots in the early 1980s. "Jack and Diane" from 1982 and "Pink Houses" from 1983 were among the first hit singles directly identified with the genre, while his albums Uh-Huh (1984) and The Lonesome Jubilee (1987) were representative. Moreoever the quintessential work of the entire heartland rock genre was probably Mellencamp's 1985 album Scarecrow, with its depictions of struggling family farmers, odes to small town life, tales of the passing of generations, and tributes to the redemptive power of rock 'n' roll, set to a deceptively low-tech sounding production.
Tom Petty - From Gainesville, Florida and forthright about his debt to The Byrds, Petty's style was both more laconic and more experimental than most other heartland rockers. But "Refugee" and "Even the Losers" from Damn the Torpedoes (1979), "The Waiting" from Hard Promises (1981), and "I Won't Back Down" and "Runnin' Down a Dream" from Full Moon Fever (1989) all fit squarely in the genre, while the daring Southern Accents (1985) stretched the genre to its limits.

Both an antecedent and a heartland example was:

Creedence Clearwater Revival and John Fogerty - Credence was the seminal proto-heartland band, a decade before the genre was popularly recognized. Former leader Fogerty revived his career in 1985 with the album Centerfield, which recapped and extended Credence's themes. Fogerty's influence is widespread throughout the genre.

Artisti meno conosciuti

Lesser-known heartland artists included:

Michael Stanley - A Cleveland-area rocker with wide regional following but relatively obscure in the rest of the country, Stanley's 1983 hit "My Town" captured many of the themes of the genre: blue-collar swagger, cocky regionalism combined with a dogged love of local themes, and a broad, muscular musical arrangement. The Michael Stanley Band also had an album entitled Heartland and a song "In the Heartland" that also dealt with many of the themes of heartland rock.
Donnie Iris - A Pittsburgh native, Donnie Iris and the Cruisers shared some of the rust-belt roots and characteristics of Heartland rock. However, they were a little more quirky than the typical band of this genre. They had several top 40 hits in the early 1980s, including "Ah! Leah!".
Red Rider - A Canadian band led by singer Tom Cochrane, Red Rider was an excellent example of the genre.
The Iron City Houserockers - A heavily Rolling Stones-influenced group from Pittsburgh featuring Joe Grushecky, the Houserockers were an uncommonly kinetic group that garnered critical acclaim but little commercial success.
Joe Ely and Steve Earle - Ely and Earle are best known as country artists, but both were frequently associated with the heartland genre. Earle's "Copperhead Road", for instance, would fit right into a Springsteen or Seger album (and, indeed, the B-side of that 12-inch radio single was a cover of Springsteen's "Nebraska"). As would, for that matter, country/Southern rocker Charlie Daniels' "Still In Saigon"; these songs, together with Springsteen's "Born in the U.S.A." and "Shut Out the Light", Billy Joel's "Goodnight Saigon", the Houserockers' "Saints and Sinners", and a few others were part of a Vietnam veteran-sympathetic subgenre of heartland that had a several bursts of visibility during the 1980s, as well as illustrating the sometimes-close links between the genre and country-western music.
James McMurtry - A protege of Mellencamp, McMurtry (son of author Larry McMurtry, himself a key artist in documenting the life, history and society of the heartland, albeit in literature rather than music) has evolved over the years into an alt-country artist.
John Cafferty and the Beaver Brown Band - The Narraganset Rhode Island band vaulted to massive success seemingly overnight with the release of the movie Eddie and the Cruisers, for which they'd recorded the soundtrack; the "overnight" success actually capped years of playing in the bars in the Northeast and the Jersey Shore. They were derided by some as a cut-rate Springsteen (similar musical style, similar band) - which didn't prevent their follow-up album, Tough All Over, from yielding two hits, "C.I.T.Y." and the title cut.

Artisti associati a volte con il genere

Also sometimes included in heartland rock were:

Neil Young - Canadian singer/songwriter who was an influence on heartland rock and whose later albums such as Freedom fit into the genre.
Robbie Dupree - Brooklyn pop singer who had the hits "Steal Away" and "Hot Rod Hearts" in 1980.
George Thorogood and the Destroyers - strictly a blues-rock band, but sometimes included in the genre because of Thorogood's blue collar oriented lyrics.
The Steve Miller Band - like Creedence Clearwater Revival, something of a heartland rock antecedent.
Billy Joel came out of the early 1970s singer-songwriter movement but became increasingly influenced by heartland rock during his middle period (roughly, Turnstiles (1976) through The Nylon Curtain (1982)). This influenced both his music ("Say Goodbye to Hollywood", the live version of "Captain Jack", as well as the later "Big Shot" and "You May Be Right") and his lyrics ("Allentown").
Bon Jovi's career, originally based on a mix of hard rock and glam metal, sustained itself when contemporaries in those genres faltered, due to the group's embrace of heartland rock sensibilities (and, said some critics/fans, wholesale importation of Springsteen-like stylistic elements including explicit playing-up of their New Jersey roots) in recastings of "Livin' On a Prayer", "Wanted Dead or Alive", "Born to Be My Baby", and "Keep the Faith", as well as in newer material such as "It's My Life", "Everyday", "Have a Nice Day", and "Who Says You Can't Go Home".
Bryan Adams was sometimes known earlier in his career (before his breakout in the early 1980s) as the "Canadian Springsteen", a reference to his dynamic stage presence, raw voice, guitar/organ-based instrumentation, and musical style. Songs like "Cuts Like A Knife", "Straight From The Heart", and "This Time" fit squarely into the genre. Adams' career later swerved into arena rock.
Southside Johnny and the Asbury Jukes - Contemporaries of Springsteen and long-time favorites on the New Jersey Shore music scene, the Jukes' horn-based sound was more heavily Rhythm and Blues based than most Heartland rock, owing much to Stax Records-style R and B. However, the band exemplifies the stylistic roots which, combined with stripped-down Creedence Clearwater-style rock and roll, spawned the genre.
Los Lobos - This band has spanned nearly every genre of American rock-era pop music; their How Will the Wolf Survive? album is a solid example of the Heartland genre (among a few others).
Jackson Browne during his Springsteen-influenced late 1970s-early 1980s phase on the albums Running On Empty and Hold Out, with songs like "Boulevard" and "The Load-Out/Stay". In the early 80s Browne would veer away from heartland rock in favor of a slicker studio pop style with leftist political lyrics a-la Bruce Cockburn.

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