Music: Good Rocking in Store

Two TV shows take on 25 years of R 'n' R

Shapes up like a wild weekend. On Friday, Feb. 9, ABC will lavish two of its primest hours on a high-velocity history of rock 'n' roll from way back then to right now. Two days later, the same network will devote most of its Sunday-night schedule to a dramatic biography of Elvis Presley. The show portrays the first—and maybe still the greatest—of the epic rockers with a dash of eccentric imagination and a large portion of compassion. ABC has high hopes that its weekend of rock will pile up Nielsen points during the February "sweeps" period, and that is something of a signal. Rock 'n' roll, roughly 25 years old, has endured, mutated and flourished. Only one thing has changed. Rock started as rebel music. It has been big business for years. This weekend is a reminder that it has slipped smoothly into the cultural mainstream.

Heroes of Rock 'n' Roll, a time capsule of peak moments and joyous traditions, is also a first-rate primer of rock history. Malcolm Leo and Andrew Solt, who produced, directed and co-wrote the show, pay particular attention to getting the roots—in country and rhythm and blues—right. Before they talk about Buddy Holly, they show Hank Williams. Elvis storms on only after due notice has been paid to Chuck Berry, Little Richard, Muddy Waters and Ray Charles. To underscore the point, and to illustrate how threatening this music once seemed, Leo and Solt include some footage of angry parents, disc jockeys breaking rock records, and assorted other representatives of a concerned older generation, including a member of the segregationist White Citizens' Council, denouncing the music with considerable heat.

Trouble was, they could never match the heat of the performers. Hetling is that the early rockers come on as strong now as they ever did. Berry, doing a mean strut and split to Sweet Little Sixteen; Jerry Lee Lewis, ripping through a typically delirious rendition of Whole Lotta Shakin' Going On; Holly, singing Peggy Sue straight into the TV camera as if he wanted to short out the cathode-ray tubes: nothing cute, quaint or antique about any of this.

The footage that covers the early years is rare (some of it never seen before) and so red-hot that subsequent performers run the risk of coming off like contestants in a charade contest. Dylan, the Stones, the Beatles, the Who all carry the weight of tradition with ease. But Elton John, performing in concert, sounds as if he's singing in a record-your-voice booth; Janis Joplin, desperate to please, sings blues with the synthetic soul of a Broadway belter; Linda Ronstadt's coy version of a great Jagger-Richards tune might more appropriately be retitled Fumbling Dice. Thoughts of decadence and decline occur; Donna Summer appears. But then Jimmy Cliff shows up, singing The Harder They Come, and the balance is redressed. By the time the show ends, with a flourish from Elvis Costello and a blast from Bruce Springsteen, you know the future is in good hands.