which implicated major figures, including Alan Freed, in bribery and corruption in promoting individual acts or songs, gave a sense that the rock and roll era established at that point had come to an end.

By 1959, the death of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens in a plane crash, the departure of Elvis for the army, the retirement of Little Richard to become a preacher, prosecutions of Jerry Lee Lewis and Chuck Berry and the breaking of the payola scandal,

Commentators have traditionally perceived a decline of rock and roll in the late 1950s and early 1960s.

The use of power chords, pioneered by Francisco Tárrega and Heitor Villa-Lobos in the 19th century and later on by Willie Johnson and Pat Hare in the early 1950s, was popularized by Link Wray in the late 1950s.

The use of distortion, pioneered by Western swing guitarists such as Junior Barnard[46] and Eldon Shamblin was popularized by Chuck Berry in the mid-1950s.

The era also saw the growth in popularity of the electric guitar, and the development of a specifically rock and roll style of playing through such exponents as Chuck Berry, Link Wray, and Scotty Moore.

Acts like the Crows, the Penguins, the El Dorados and the Turbans all scored major hits, and groups like the Platters, with songs including "The Great Pretender" (1955), and the Coasters with humorous songs like "Yakety Yak" (1958), ranked among the most successful rock and roll acts of the period.

Other styles like doo-wop placed an emphasis on multi-part vocal harmonies and backing lyrics (from which the genre later gained its name), which were usually supported with light instrumentation and had its origins in 1930s and 1940s African American vocal groups.

with rock and roll standard musician Ritchie Valens and even those within other heritage genres, such as Al Hurricane along with his brothers Tiny Morrie and Baby Gaby as they began combining rock and roll with country-western within traditional New Mexico music.

Hispanic and Latino American movements in rock and roll, which would eventually lead to the success of Latin rock and Chicano rock within the US, began to rise in the Southwest;