Rock and roll is an original art form, created in the US around 1950, and it's still going strong. The creators of rock and roll are many, and so are the musical influences.
Today, there are numerous styles of rock and roll, all the way from lover's rock to death metal, and everything in between. There may be as many styles of rock as there are rock musicians. It's a very original style of music.
And rock and roll is more than a musical style. It's also a lifestyle, and a way to tell the world who you really are. Take a look at rock and roll T shirts on the street.
As far as the music goes, it's a popular debate among musicologists about where rock music came from, and what was the first rock and roll record.
First came the ideas of rock and roll, and the words rock and roll, in various recordings stretching all the way back to 1904.
Earliest Known Uses of Rock Terminology
The earliest known use of the phrase, rockin' and rollin', was on a 1904 Victor phonograph record The Camp Meeting Jubilee by the Haydn Quartet. The song contains the words "We've been rockin' an' rolling in your arms/ Rockin' and rolling in your arms/ Rockin' and rolling in your arms/ In the arms of Moses."
Rock and roll themes kept popping up in songs of the 1920s, 30s and 40s, and these songs kept hinting at a musical lifestyle. The words, rock and roll, were increasingly used together with a double meaning.
Over the years, the terms "rocking", and "rocking and rolling", was increasingly used by musicians, to refer to dancing and partying, and sometimes sex.
Even in the early 19th century, there was a sea shanty "Johnny Bowker" which contains the lines "Oh do, my Johnny Bowker. Come rock and roll me over". In those days, everyone knew what these lines meant, in a song.
The Boswell Sisters had a hit with a song called "Rock and Roll" in the 1938 film Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round. They were singing about being tossed around on a boat, and also in a love affair.
In 1938, Ella Fitzgerald and Chick Webb released a song called Rock It For Me, which contains the lyrics, "Rock Me. Won't you satisfy my soul, With your rock and roll". Perhaps it takes a woman like Ella Fitzgerald, who grew up in a brothel, to sing a sexy song like this in front of an audience.
After the second world war, it was like everyone was getting into rock and roll songs. One of the best jazz singers of her time, Anita O'Day, recorded an original song called Rock and Roll Blues. Her sophisticated jazz band rocked out on this song so much, it sounds like a rock masterpiece from many years later.
Blues artist, Roy Brown's song, Good Rocking Tonight, came out in 1948, and was soon covered by Wynonie Harris with a different version, in which "rocking" was ostensibly about dancing but, in fact, "rocking" was a thinly veiled allusion to sex. You got it right. Rock and Roll is named for sex.
Good Rocking Tonight was again recorded by Elvis Presley in 1954, as his second hit single. When he sang the words, "Have you heard the news? There's good rockin' tonight," teen age girls knew what he was singing about, even when their parents didn't know the whole story.
Songs like this were usually classed as race music, or Rhythm & Blues, but the white kids loved this new music too. Ike Turner caused a scandal when he released his Rocket 88.
A craze began in the rhythm and blues market for songs about rocking, including We're Gonna Rock by Wild Bill Moore, a commercially successful saxophone recording, with the words "We're gonna rock, we're gonna roll" as a background chant.
Double-entendres about rocking music and sexy dancing were well established in R&B music and underground clubs, but were new to radio until 1950. That's when Rock & Roll exposed itself to the world.
By the 1950's, ideas of sex and rock and roll were coming together with a new musical style, powered by amplified speakers, rock and roll radio, singers on drugs, and record industry payola.
A new age had begun in the world of music.
In 1951, Cleveland-based disc jockey Alan Freed began playing this new sex friendly music on WAKR radio, and he called it Rock and Roll. At concerts, fans were yelling for sex, drugs and rock and roll.
Freed is commonly referred to as the Father of Rock and Roll, due to his promotion of the music, and his introduction of the phrase Rock and Roll on mainstream radio.
Freed claims that after a night of heavy drinking, he and his friends came up with the name for his show, Rock and Roll Party.
As his show became more popular, the term was widely used to describe the style of music he played. At the time, Rock & Roll was whatever Alan Freed played on his nightly radio shows.
According to the writer Robert Palmer: "Rock 'n' roll was an inevitable outgrowth of the social and musical interactions between blacks and whites in the Southern US.. The single most important process in the creation of Rock n Roll was the coming together of black music and white music."
Early Rock n Roll Recordings
One popular song was Rock the Joint, recorded by Jimmy Preston in 1949. Preston's version is often considered a prototype of a rock-and-roll song. It was covered as a white kids rock and roll song in 1952 by Bill Haley.
Marshall Lytle, Haley's bass player, claimed Rock the Joint was one of the songs that inspired Alan Freed to coin the phrase Rock and Roll to refer to the music he played.
Although Bill Haley first recorded in 1946, his early recordings were in the style of country swing, as was his 1951 cover of Rocket 88. Rock the Joint in 1952, became the first of his records in the style that became known as rockabilly.
Crazy Man, Crazy, a song recorded in 1953, by Bill Haley and his Comets, was the first of his recordings to make the Billboard pop charts. Crazy Man, Crazy was considered "the first white rock hit"
Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock, recorded in 1954, was the first number 1 Rock and Roll record on the US pop charts. It stayed in the Top 100 for a record 38 weeks.
Rock Around the Clock was such a big hit that it's often credited with propelling rock into the mainstream, at least the teen mainstream.
Then Elvis Presley came along and polished the rock and roll lifestyle into a perfect performance, with a string of hits that made rock and roll everybody's favourite music.
Elvis started singing in public in 1954. By 1960, he had sold 75 million records. His record label, RCA was so impressed, they gave him a gold Omega watch. His wrist watch was resold in a fan auction in 2018, for $1.8 million dollars. That's how much people still love his music.
Musicians of all kinds have jumped on the rock and roll bandwagon since Elvis' time, and its popularity continues to this day, adding up to many lifetimes worth of great rock recordings.
The First Rock & Roll Song
Elvis always gave credit to those who sang before him. He is quoted as saying: "A lot of people seem to think I started this business, but rock and roll was here a long time before I came along."
But the Identity Of The First Rock And Roll Record is a subject of debate among rock historians.
A number of sources claim, the first rock song was Rocket 88, recorded by Ike Turner in 1951. But Rocket 88 was more of an R&B hit. It wasn't seen as rock and roll at the time.
Music historian Robert Palmer wrote that Goree Carter's 1949 song Rock Awhile is a much more rock-sounding song than the more frequently cited Rocket 88. Music historians might say, Rock Awhile sounds more like a rock song.
All of this early rock and roll was bubbling under the surface of American consciousness, when along came Elvis, Bill Haley, Chuck Berry and Little Richard. These four knocked it out of the park, consistently, especially in live shows.
Rock and Roll came of age onstage with superstars on tour, and classy rockers, like Jerry Lee Lewis, Johnny Cash, Roy Orbison, Buddy Holly, and Pat Boone.
People are still wondering, How did Pat Boone get on the list of early rockers? But there he was.
Buddy Holly made an impressive start to his career, but only 18 months after releasing his first hit record, Holly died in a plane crash. In this short time, he succeeded in recording an amazing catalogue of songs that are still played on radio every day, somewhere in the world.
As a founding father of the rock genre, Buddy Holly deserves special credit for bringing the guitar from backstage to centerstage. In the big band swing era of the 1940s, there was always a guitar in the band, but in the background, playing harmony.
Although Elvis wore a guitar onstage, starting in 1954, it was mostly for show. Elvis was a singer, not a guitar player. But Buddy Holly sang and played, and he was a master musician.
When Buddy Holly and The Crickets put out their first album in 1957, Holly's guitar playing showed everyone else how to do it. Thanks to Buddy Holly, guitars found their place as the lead instrument in rock bands.
Chuck Berry is also remembered as a rock god, and founding father of rock and roll. Like Elvis, Berry wasn't a brilliant guitar player, but he was a great showman. Along with Elvis, Chuck Berry showed other musicians how to put the show in rock and roll.
Berry recorded Maybellene, his first hit, in 1955. Maybellene is a story of a man in a Ford V8, who's trying to catch up with his cheating girlfriend and her new man, who is driving a faster Cadillac. The way Berry delivers this simple song, you feel like you're in the front seat with him.
Chuck Berry's Maybellene reached # 1 on the R&B chart, and then # 5 on the US pop chart. His hits kept coming.. Roll over Beethoven (1956), Rock and Roll Music (1957), Johnny B. Goode (1958). This was the beginning of a career that lasted more than half a century.
Berry was among the first musicians to be inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Rolling Stone Magazine called him a "Father of Rock & Roll" who "gave the music its sound and its attitude". He was ranked fifth in Rolling Stone's 2004 and 2011 lists of the 100 Greatest Artists of All Time.
With rock pioneers like Elvis, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly and Chuck Berry, the world of rock and roll kept growing. Rock became the most popular form of music in the world, for a while. Everyone was jumping on the rock and roll band wagon.
There's even a song by Muddy Waters called The Blues Had A Baby and They Called It Rock 'N' Roll. And in 1975, country singer, Mac Davis, had a country hit with a great country song called, Rock and Roll, I Gave You The Best Years Of My Life.
It's like everybody wanted a piece of the rock and roll pie, now that it was famous. At their live concerts, everyone still sings along with Nickelback when they play their hit song, "I Wanna Be A Rockstar."
The Heart of Rock & Roll * Original, Creative, Energy
The question still remains. What is the essence of rock and roll? Is it the blues or the pop influence? The answer is yes. Rock and Roll is a musical blend of many styles of music.
But Rock & Roll is more than a musical style. What makes rock & roll unique is its high level of creativity.
The Who's equipment smashing melodies are combined with classical string arrangements that come straight out of the London Symphony. That's a big jump, musically speaking.
It's not like rock and roll is a better style of music, but it does keep the world on the edge of its seat, and singing along, all while dancing in the street.
Rock and Roll can do all these things, because rock and roll is high energy music. Rock and Roll is more about the energy of the creative process than any particular musical arrangements.
One way to appreciate rock and roll is to see it as a living laboratory, where musical ideas are explored, just for the fun of it. As Ice Cube said, in his Rock & Roll Hall of Fame Induction speech, "Rock isn't just a genre or a style of music. Rock & Roll is a spirit". A very creative spirit, it seems.
It's also possible that Rock & Roll is as much about showmanship as the music. We can see this in a big screen video, called The Power of Rock, at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame.
In the Hall of Fame Power of Rock video, we see Prince playing George Harrison's song, While My Guitar Gently Weeps, so dramatically, that it's enough to make you cry and laugh, and yell out loud, all at the same time.
From it's humble beginnings onstage, with memorable performances by Elvis, Bill Haley, Buddy Holly, Chuck Berry, Little Richard, The Beatles, The Stones, The Moody Blues, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd, and The Who, and onward to Bon Jovi, Bruce Springsteen, and Billy Joel, plus Nickelback and The Killers, and the millions of musicians around the world, who call themselves rock musicians, Rock and Roll is a never-ending influence on the world of music today.
The world of social media is all ears, in a never-ending search for the next rock superstar.
Please Note: Like Rock & Roll, this page is still under construction.
To be continued... May the party never end....
