Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll, rock-n-roll, rock 'n' roll, rock n' roll or Rock n' Roll) is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s.[1][2] It originated from African American music such as jazz, rhythm and blues, boogie-woogie, electric blues, gospel, jump blues,[3] as well as country music.[4] While rock and roll's formative elements can be heard in blues records from the 1920s[5] and in country records of the 1930s,[6] the genre did not acquire its name until 1954.[7][2]
According to journalist Greg Kot, "rock and roll" refers to a style of popular music originating in the United States in the 1950s. By the mid-1960s, rock and roll had developed into "the more encompassing international style known as rock music, though the latter also continued to be known in many circles as rock and roll."[8] For the purpose of differentiation, this article deals with the first definition.
In the earliest rock and roll styles, either the piano or saxophone was typically the lead instrument. These instruments were generally replaced or supplemented by guitar in the middle to late 1950s.[9] The beat is essentially a dance rhythm[10] with an accentuated backbeat, almost always provided by a snare drum.[11] Classic rock and roll is usually played with one or more electric guitars (one lead, one rhythm) and a double bass (string bass). After the mid-1950s, electric bass guitars ("Fender bass") and drum kits became popular in classic rock.[9]
Rock and roll had a polarizing influence on lifestyles, fashion, attitudes, and language. It is often portrayed in movies, fan magazines, and on television. Some people believe that the music had a positive influence on the civil rights movement, because both Black American and White American teenagers enjoyed it.[12][13]
The term "rock and roll" is defined by Greg Kot in Encyclopædia Britannica as the music that originated in the mid-1950s and later developed "into the more encompassing international style known as rock music".[8] The term is sometimes also used as synonymous with "rock music" and is defined as such in some dictionaries.[14][15]
The phrase "rocking and rolling" originally described the movement of a ship on the ocean,[16] but by the early 20th century was used both to describe the spiritual fervor of black church rituals[17] and as a sexual analogy. A retired Welsh seaman named William Fender can be heard singing the phrase "rock and roll" when describing a sexual encounter in his performance of the traditional song "The Baffled Knight" to the folklorist James Madison Carpenter in the early 1930s, which he would have learned at sea in the 1800s; the recording can be heard on the Vaughan Williams Memorial Library website.[18]