The musician Steven Tyler wanted to “smack in the face”
As the 1970s began, rock and roll was about to get a lot heavier. In the wake of the British invasion crashlanding in the US with The Beatles, the British blues boom also brought many different acts into the American consciousness, with Led Zeppelin signalling the possibilities of what heavy music could do. Although Zeppelin may have paid tribute to the classics, Steven Tyler had something else in mind when putting together Aerosmith.
Taking the bombast of Zeppelin and channelling it through the bluesy-infused swagger of The Rolling Stones, Tyler would sculpt the ultimate rock and roll outfit, working alongside Joe Perry to create the biggest anthems of the time. Although Tyler had an inherent love of British rock, the genesis behind songs like ‘Movin’ Out’ and ‘Same Old Song and Dance’ went much further back than The Beatles and The Stones.
Throughout every era of Aerosmith’s career, Tyler has been reverent towards the sound of the blues. Outside of covering many blues legends on their covers album Honkin On Bobo, Tyler would eventually create songs that could have been a modern update of typical bluesmen from the Mississippi Delta, breaking out the harmonica for tracks like ‘St John’ off Permanent Vacation.
While many blues acts may be celebrated these days, none of their songs got the airplay they deserved until Elvis Presley came along. Since segregation was still strong in America during the 1950s, the first exposure many people had to bluesy classics like ‘Hound Dog’ was through the ‘King of Rock and Roll’ singing them first, igniting teenage audiences into a frenzy whenever he played.
Despite having the utmost respect for artists like Sister Rosetta Tharp or Big Mama Thornton, Presley never credited the originators of the songs. Even though he would only make a few subtle changes, part of Presley’s contract involved him having a songwriting credit on any track that he performed, even if he didn’t contribute anything to the music.
This logic didn’t just apply to blues musicians, either. When country legend Dolly Parton offered Presley to sing one of her songs, she baulked when she was told the mechanics of the deal, electing to record the immortal ‘I Will Always Love You’ by herself. Although Presley may be known as one of the almighty fathers of rock and roll, Tyler thought that Presley’s treatment of black musicians was the ultimate musical injustice.
When talking about his legacy, Tyler said he would have wanted to give ‘The King’ a taste of his own medicine, telling The San Diego Tribune, “If I could sit down with Elvis, I’d smack him in the face for not giving credit to all those black musicians. For years, I’ve been struggling with that. You know, he was a great man, but he maliciously — or maybe unconsciously — took all the credit”.
Even though many of the fathers of the blues may have gotten their song copyrights stripped from them, other artists were happy to give credit to the original composer, with The Rolling Stones crediting Robert Johnson for their brilliant covers of tracks like ‘Love In Vain’ and ‘Stop Breaking Down’. While Tyler may have been guilty of aping the styles of his favourite artists, he always knew to sing the praises of those who came before him as well.
