Rock and roll

Rock and roll emerged as a popular music genre in the United States between the late 1940s and early 1950s. It blended African-American musical styles—primarily rhythm and blues—with elements drawn from gospel, jazz, boogie-woogie, electric blues, jump blues, swing, and folk music. Though early hints of the sound appeared in blues records from the 1920s and country records from the 1930s, the genre didn’t get its name until 1954.

In its earliest form, the piano or saxophone usually carried the lead, but by the mid-to-late 1950s the electric guitar had largely taken over that role. The beat is a dance rhythm built around an accentuated backbeat, almost always played on a snare drum. Chord progressions are often minimal, like the twelve-bar blues. Classic rock and roll typically uses one or more electric guitars (lead and rhythm) along with a double bass. After the mid-1950s, the electric bass guitar—first mass-produced by Fender in the early 1950s—and drum kits became standard.

The music had a deep impact on American lifestyles, fashion, attitudes, and language, and was frequently featured in movies, fan magazines, and television. According to G.C. Altschuler, it also positively influenced the civil rights movement by appealing broadly to both Black and White teenagers.

The term “rock and roll” itself has a long history. In the late eighteenth century, “Rock and Roll” was advertised as a type of brimstone (sulfur)—rock brimstone being the natural form, roll brimstone shaped into sticks or blocks. The phrase “rocking and rolling” originally described a ship’s motion at sea, but by the early 1900s it was used for the spiritual fervor of Black church rituals and as a sexual analogy. A retired Welsh seaman, William Fender, can be heard singing the phrase in a sexual context in his early-1930s performance of the traditional song “The Baffled Knight,” learned at sea in the 1800s; that recording is held by the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library.

Before the term became widely popular, it appeared in gospel, blues, and swing recordings. The African-American spiritual “Bosom of Abraham,” documented no later than 1867, uses the phrase “rock my soul” in a religious sense; it was later recorded by The Jordanaires, Louis Armstrong, Lonnie Donegan, and Elvis Presley. Blues singer Trixie Smith’s 1922 song “My Man Rocks Me with One Steady Roll” also used the phrase. In the 1940s, it appeared in recordings and reviews of rhythm and blues aimed at Black audiences. Huey “Piano” Smith credited jump-blues shouter Cha Cha Hogan with popularizing the term in his 1950 song “My Walking Baby.”

In 1934, the Boswell Sisters’ song “Rock and Roll” was featured in the film *Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round*. By 1942, *Billboard* columnist Maurie Orodenker used the term to describe upbeat recordings like Sister Rosetta Tharpe’s “Rock Me,” calling it “rock-and-roll spiritual singing.” The “Rock and Roll Inn” opened in South Merchantville, New Jersey, as a music venue in 1943. In 1951, Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed began playing this style on mainstream radio and calling it “rock and roll,” popularizing the phrase. Some sources say Freed found the term—used as a synonym for sex—on Billy Ward and his Dominoes’ record “Sixty Minute Man,” which includes the line “I rock ’em, roll ’em all night long.” Freed didn’t acknowledge that in interviews, instead explaining, “Rock ’n roll is really swing with a modern name. It began on the levees and plantations, took in folk songs, and features blues and rhythm.” Greg Harris, then executive director of the Rock n Roll Hall of Fame, told CNN that Freed’s role in breaking down racial barriers—by leading white and Black kids to listen to the same music—put him “at the vanguard” and made him “a really important figure.” After Freed received a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the organization’s website noted he became internationally known for promoting African-American rhythm and blues on the radio under the name rock and roll. Less often acknowledged is that Todd Storz, owner of Omaha radio station KOWH, was the first to adopt the format.