WHAT IS ROCK & ROLL MUSIC?
Rock and roll emerged as a defined musical style in America in the 1950s, though
elements of rock and roll can be seen in rhythm and blues records as far back as
the 1920s. Early rock and roll combined elements of blues, boogie woogie, jazz
and rhythm and blues, and is also influenced by traditional folk music, gospel
music, black and white, and country and western. Going back even further, rock
and roll can trace a foundational lineage to the old Five Points district of
mid-19th century New York City, the scene of the first fusion of heavily
rhythmic African shuffles and sand dances with melody driven European genres,
particularly the Irish jig.
Origins of the name rock and roll
Rocking was a term first used by gospel singers in the American South to mean
something akin to spiritual rapture. A double, ironic, meaning came to popular
awareness in 1947 in blues artist Roy Brown's song "Good Rocking Tonight" (also
covered the next year by Wynonie Harris in an even wilder version), in which
"rocking" was ostensibly about dancing but was in fact a thinly-veiled allusion
to sex. Such double-entendres were nothing new in blues music (which was mostly
limited in exposure to jukeboxes and clubs) but were new to the radio airwaves.
After the success of "Good Rocking Tonight" many other rhythm and blues artists
used similar titles through the late 1940s including a song called "Rock and
Roll" recorded by Wild Bill Moore in 1949. These songs were relegated to "race
music" (the music industry code name for rhythm and blues) outlets and were
barely known by mainstream white audiences. The phrase ' rock and roll' may
first appear in a Louis Jordan version of Tamburitza Boogie recorded in New York
City in 1950. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed would begin
playing this type of music for his white audience, and it is Freed who is
credited with coining the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the rollicking R&B
music that he brought to the airwaves. The term, with its simultaneous allusions
to dancing, sex, and the sound of the music itself, stuck even with those who
didn't absorb all the meanings.
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First record
Main article: first rock and roll record
According to some, notably music historian Peter Guralnick, the first rock and
roll record was "Rocket 88", by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (written by
19-year-old Ike Turner, also the session leader) and recorded by Sam Phillips
for the Sun Records label, in 1951. Many other records recorded in the same
period are also contenders for this title. Others have pointed to the later
broad commercial success with white audiences of Chuck Berry's "Maybellene" or
"Rock Around the Clock" by Bill Haley and his Comets as true starting points.
Still others point out that performers like Fats Domino were recording blues
songs as early as 1949 that are indistinguishable from later rock and roll, and
that these blues songs were based on themes, chord changes, and rhythms dating
back decades before that. Rhythm and Blues sax player and band leader Louis
Jordan actually broke into the country charts in the forties with "Is you is or
is you ain't my baby?". In 1947 Jack Guthrie and his group The Oaklahomans had a
hit with "The Oakie Boogie", basically a mix of boogie woogie with hillbilly and
an electric guitar thrown in (a fairly new invention in 1947). Benny Carter, a
co-author of "Cow Cow Boogie" (Capitol Records first gold single) back in 1942,
wrote the jazz-swing song "Rock Me to Sleep" with Paul Vandervoort II in 1950.
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