The alliterative phrase "rocking and rolling" originally was used by mariners at least as early as the 17th century to describe the combined "rocking" (fore and aft) and "rolling" (side to side) motion of a ship on the ocean. Examples include an 1821 reference, "... prevent her from rocking and rolling ...", and an 1835 reference to a ship "... rocking and rolling on both beam-ends".
On April 25, 1881, comedian John W. Morton of Morton's Minstrels performed a song entitled "Rock and Roll" as part of a repertoire of comic songs at a concert at the Theatre Royal in Victoria, British Columbia. A comic song titled "Rock and Roll Me" was performed by Johnny Gardner of the Moore's Troubadours theatrical group during a performance in Australia in 1886, and one newspaper critic wrote that Gardner "made himself so amusing that the large audience fairly rocked and rolled with laughter."
At around the same time, the terminology was used in secular contexts, for example to describe the motion of railroad trains. It has been suggested that it also was used by men building railroads, who would sing to keep the pace, swinging their hammers down to drill a hole into the rock, and the men who held the steel spikes would "rock" the spike back and forth to clear rock or "roll", twisting it to improve the "bite" of the drill. "Rocking" and "rolling" were also used, both separately and together, in a sexual context; writers for hundreds of years had used the phrases "They had a roll in the hay" or "I rolled her in the clover".
By the early 20th century the words increasingly were used together in secular black slang with a double meaning, ostensibly referring to dancing and partying, but often with the subtextual meaning of sex.
However, the terms "rocking", and "rocking and rolling", were increasingly used through the 1920s and into the late 1940s, especially but not exclusively by black secular blues and jump blues musicians, to refer to either dancing or sex, or both. The term maintained a strong sexual connotation in the blues and R&B genre into the 1950s.
When Alan Freed began referring to rock and roll on mainstream radio in 1951 however, "the sexual component had been dialled down enough that it simply became an acceptable term for dancing".
By the early 1940s, the term "rock and roll" was being used in record reviews by Billboard journalist and columnist Maurie Orodenker. In the May 30, 1942 issue, for instance, he described Sister Rosetta Tharpe's vocals on a re-recording of "Rock Me" with Lucky Millinder's band as "rock-and-roll spiritual singing", and on October 3, 1942, he described Count Basie's "It's Sand, Man!" as "an instrumental screamer.. [which].. displays its rock and roll capacities when tackling the righteous rhythms." In the April 25, 1945 edition, Orodenker described Erskine Hawkins' version of "Caldonia" as "right rhythmic rock and roll music", a phrase precisely repeated in his 1946 review of "Sugar Lump" by Joe Liggins.
Freed, familiar with the music of earlier decades, used the phrase 'rock and roll' to describe the music he aired over station WJW (850 AM); its use is also credited to Freed's sponsor, record store owner Leo Mintz, who encouraged Freed to play the music on the radio.
Several sources suggest that Freed discovered the term (a euphemism for sexual intercourse) on the record "Sixty Minute Man" by Billy Ward and his Dominoes. The lyrics include the line, "I rock 'em, roll 'em all night long". Freed did not acknowledge the suggestion about that source (or the original meaning of the expression) in interviews, and explained the term as follows: "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".
In discussing Alan Freed's contribution to the genre, two significant sources emphasized the importance of R&B in its development. After Freed was honored with a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame in 1991, the organization's website offered this comment: "He became internationally known for promoting African-American rhythm and blues music on the radio in the United States and Europe under the name of rock and roll". Some years later, Greg Harris, then the Executive Director of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, said to CNN: "Freed's role in breaking down racial barriers in U.S. pop culture in the 1950s, by leading white and black kids to listen to the same music, put the radio personality 'at the vanguard' and made him 'a really important figure'".
Rock and roll music emerged from the wide variety of musical genres that existed in the United States in the first half of the 20th century among different ethnic and social groups. Each genre developed over time through changing fashion and innovation, and each one exchanged ideas and stylistic elements with all the others. Contributions came from America's black population, with an ancient heritage of oral storytelling through music of African origin, usually with strong rhythmic elements, with frequent use of "blue notes" and often using a "call and response" vocal pattern. African music was modified through the experience of slavery, and through contact with white musical styles such as the folk ballad, and instruments, such as the Spanish guitar. New styles of music emerged among black Americans in the early 20th century in the form of blues, ragtime, jazz, and gospel music. According to the writer Robert Palmer:
Increasingly, the term "rocking" was used in the records themselves, and by the late 1940s frequently was used to describe the music of performers such as Wynonie Harris whose records reached the top of the newly christened "rhythm and blues" charts.
Freed first started playing the music in 1951, and by 1953 the phrase "rock and roll" was becoming used much more widely to market the music beyond its initial black audience. The practitioners of the music were young black artists, appealing to the post-war community's need for excitement, dancing and increasing social freedoms, but the music also became very attractive to white teenagers. As well as "rocking" rhythm and blues songs, such as the massively successful and influential "Rocket 88" recorded by Ike Turner and his band but credited to singer Jackie Brenston, the term was used to encompass other forms of black music. In particular, vocal harmony group recordings in the style that later became known as "doo-wop", such as "Gee" by the Crows and "Earth Angel" by the Penguins, became huge commercial successes, often for the new small independent record companies becoming established. These included Modern, Imperial, Specialty, Atlantic, King and Chess.
Some of the rhythm and blues musicians who had been successful in earlier years – such as Joe Turner, Ruth Brown, and Fats Domino who had his first R&B hit in 1950 – made the transition into new markets.
Fats Domino was not convinced that his work belonged to a new genre. In 1957, he said: "What they call rock 'n' roll now is rhythm and blues. I’ve been playing it for 15 years in New Orleans". In an interview, Ike Turner offered a similar comment but about Rocket 88: "I don't think that ‘Rocket 88’ is rock ‘n’ roll. I think that ‘Rocket 88’ is R&B, but I think ‘Rocket 88’ is the cause of rock and roll existing".
Much of the initial breakthrough of rock and roll into the wider pop music market came from white musicians, such as Haley, Presley, Carl Perkins and Jerry Lee Lewis, re-recording earlier rhythm and blues hits, often making use of technological improvements in recording and innovations such as double tracking, developed by the large mainstream record companies, as well as the invention of the 45-rpm record and the rapid growth of its use in jukeboxes. At the same time, younger black musicians such as Little Richard, Chuck Berry and Bo Diddley took advantage of the gradual breakdown of ethnic barriers in America to become equally popular and help launch the rock and roll era.
By the time of Haley's first hits in 1953, and those of Berry, Little Richard and then Presley the next year, the term and the concept of rock and roll was firmly established.
The Pentecostal church has also been identified as a crucial component in the development of rock and roll. The modern Pentecostal movement parallels rock and roll in many ways. Further, the unhinged, wild energy of the church is evidenced in the most important of early rock performers that were also raised in Pentecostal churches, including Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Elvis Presley, Little Richard, and Jerry Lee Lewis.
The identity of the first rock and roll record is one of the most enduring subjects of debate among rock historians. Various recordings dating back to the 1940s and 1950s have been cited as the first rock and roll record. A number of sources have considered the first to be "Rocket 88", which was recorded in 1951 by Ike Turner's band, but credited to his saxophonist and the song's vocalist Jackie Brenston. Turner led the band but provided no vocals for "Rocket 88". The identity of the writer of the song remains in dispute. Brenston said that "they had simply borrowed from another jump blues about an automobile, Jimmy Liggins’ 'Cadillac Boogie'". Turner continued to maintain that he wrote the music and that he and the band jointly wrote the lyrics.
The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame considers Chuck Berry to have been particularly significant in the origins of the genre. "While no individual can be said to have invented rock and roll ... Chuck Berry came the closest of any single figure to being the one who put all the essential pieces together".
Fats Domino was not convinced that he was singing rock and roll music. In 1956, he offered this comment on his work: "What they call rock and roll is rhythm and blues, and I've been playing it for 15 years in New Orleans."
Ike Turner offers another perspective, imagining Sam Philips' plan as follows: "'if I get me a white boy to sound like a black boy, then I got me a gold mine’, which is the truth". Ike's story continues: "So, that's when he got Elvis and he got Jerry Lee Lewis and a bunch of other guys and so they named it rock and roll rather than R&B... and so this is the reason I think rock and roll exists".
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