Take the ‘American’ out of the OP and Rush was the first band that came to mind. They have (had?) both the virtuosity and the popularity.
I think you may be overthinking this. Danger is merely: does it scare parents? Back in the day, rock music did this, across a lot of demographics and for a variety of reasons. You can dismiss Elvis as re-packaged Black music, but while he clearly was that, he was still legitimately dangerous in parents’ minds.
These days, music no longer serves that parent-scaring function. The Internet does. So we look at rock music differently.
As for Buddy Holly, I dunno - I think parents likely lumped him in with scary rock n’ roll music in general. The Beatles loved him and got in trouble with their parents / Aunt Mimi because they greased up their hair and hemmed in their drainpipe trousers.
I think by the late 60s or early 70s, it got to the point where there was a lot of rock music that was not threatening to anyone. Certainly by the mid-70s. One of the Sirius XM stations on regular rotation on my stereo is “Yacht Rock.” You might hear Kenny Loggins, Seals & Crofts, Stephen Bishop, Michael McDonald, Christopher Cross…this is all pretty good music from the standpoint of musicianship. It has good grooves, it has session players with great chops, the lyrics have a nice flow, and it is “soft” rock, but it’s still rock. Stephen Bishop’s song Save it For A Rainy Day is rock music, no matter how you look at it. It’s driven by the drums and guitar, Eric Clapton plays a solo on it ffs, but it’s based around major chords and major sevenths rather than ‘blue notes’ or dominant sevenths. The music Kenny Loggins created was rock music. “Heart To Heart” is rock music.
But there isn’t the slightest hint of anything threatening about any of this music. There aren’t (usually) any references to drugs; the sexual innuendo, if any, is very tame. It’s also easy to dismiss it as “white” but I regularly hear black artists on that channel too, and unless someone’s just outright racist, there’s nothing about it that anyone would find to be culturally transgressive.
Rush interests me because they have so much instrumental skill, but their songwriting is… different. Lyrics seem to be an afterthought, and some of the songs might have been better if they had just skipped that step. It’s very guitar-geek-y (well, band-geek-y) music, without the, umm… without the unnecessary distraction of good lyrics. 
Neil Peart’s lyrics are considered the soul of the band.
And as for Yacht Rock, yeah - it ain’t really rock, to me. And Fleetwood Mac gets lumped in with Carly Simon and Seals and Crofts, but Lindsey Buckingham brings the danger 
OK, if it’s not “rock”, is it “pop”?
Not rhetorical, I actually want to know what you’d say.
Which is why so many of us dismiss them without hesitation. 
I guess I’d say it was more Pop that happened to be done with guitar/rock arrangements. Just like Pop now can often be found today with EDM arrangements. It’s not worth arguing whether a given song/group is or is not Rock. As you say, if there’s guitars and drums and a Clapton solos…but It can still be rock-flavored Pop more than rock.
But if the discussion is about the greatest rock band, then hell yes, danger would have to be a major factor. But Kenny Loggins isn’t in that discussion so we’re cool
Hey; he’s alright; nobody worry 'bout him.
Of course my pick is the Ramones, but y’all knew that, didn’t you?
Eh, they pretty much fell off a cliff lyrically after Roll The Bones. But they (and Peart specifically) started by applying myth to music, and then phased more into commenting on life, politics, etc., both interesting pursuits.
2112 is a classic in the first vein, no two ways about it. By Moving Pictures they had mostly moved on…“Limelight”, though not particularly high on the cosmic truth scale, was a helluva good song. “Witch Hunt” would be more of an example of their political comment, and highly applicable today (35 years before the Trumpus was amungus). Signals and Grace Under Pressure mixed the two.
And then they started going mostly pop, with a minor resurrection on Roll The Bones. They lost it after that, songwriting not particularly engaging and lyrics decidedly meh.
As you can guess, I know a thing or three about them. 
I’m willing to vouch for the accuracy of Johnny’s post, eh.
I’m not exactly trying to debate WordMan’s definitions of what is ‘rock’ and what is ‘pop,’ but it does raise some questions.
Is Michael Jackson rock? Is Prince rock?
Is Vulfpeck’s song Back Pocket rock?
Is this song by an Australian band called Hiatus Kaiyote, an example of rock?
Is Steely Dan rock?
During what part of their careers?
MJ: Jackson 5, mostly Motown/pop. Solo, ranging from pop to soft rock to rock.
Prince: Mainly funk/rock, ranging almost to hip hop later on.
Steely Dan is mainly prog rock, I think…and their sound pretty much stayed the same.
I’m not sure Dan is “prog”, although they overlap with that genre somewhat in the sense of meticulous studio arrangements. There’s too much jazz influence in their work to put them in the same category as Yes, Genesis, Marillion, Gentle Giant, Camel, &c.
I also think there’s too much difference between Can’t Buy A Thrill and Aja or Goucho to say their sound didn’t change. But they did always maintain a stylistic continuity from one album to the next.
Funny, Vulfpeck sounds a lot like the Jackson 5 and Hiatus Kayote sounds like Steely Dan. Intentional? 
Vulfpeck are capable of sounding like a lot of things, but yeah that song is Jackson 5-ed out to the max, no doubt.
No, I wouldn’t at all put them in prog rock, though I can see an argument for it, depending on how one defines prog rock. To me, it’s in the jazz-rock category, with bands like Chicago and Mahavishnu Orchestra.
I’ll make another point about the Dead, also: I think it was Jerry, more than even Bob Dylan, who demonstrated to Americans that it’s possible to be a rock singer without having a great voice or some kind of vocal gimmick. People argue about whether Dylan had a good voice or not, but whatever it was, it was unique. It was gravelly, and somewhat affected. Like Mick Jagger, it’s been argued that Dylan was trying to sound black. Whether it’s that, or whether he was trying to just sound like some kind of drunken hobo, I don’t know. But it’s an affected voice. It’s a “rock singer” voice.
Jerry didn’t have a “rock singer” voice. He had a really natural, casual-sounding voice, with an almost conversational tone to it. For lack of a better word, he just sounded “like a normal guy” when he sang.
His voice never overshadowed any of the instruments, it was just another instrument in the band.
Another vote for Ramones. If you have to Google them, that says more about you than them.
Did someone seriously have to Google them?