Broadcasters

The origins of rock and roll have been fiercely debated by commentators and historians of music. There is general agreement that it arose in the southern United States of America - the region which would produce most of the major early rock and roll acts - through the meeting of the different musical traditions which had developed from transatlantic African slavery and largely European immigration in that region. The migration of many freed slaves and their descendants to major urban centres like Memphis and north to New York City, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland and Buffalo meant that black and white residents were living in close proximity in larger numbers than ever before, and as a result heard each other's music and even began to emulate each others fashions. Radio stations that made white and black forms of music available to other groups, the development and spread of the gramophone record, and musical styles such as jazz and swing which were taken up by both black and white musicians, aided this process of "cultural collision".

The immediate roots of rock and roll lay in the so-called "race music" and hillbilly music (later called rhythm and blues and country and western) of the 1940s and 1950s. Particularly significant influences were jazz, blues, boogie woogie, country, folk and gospel music. Commentators differ in their views of which of these forms were most important and the degree to which the new music was a re-branding of African American rhythm and blues for a white market, or a new hybrid of black and white forms.

In the 1930s jazz, and particularly swing, both in urban based dance bands and blues-influenced country swing, was among the first music to present African American sounds for a predominately white audience. The 1940s saw the increased use of blaring horns (including saxophones), shouted lyrics and boogie woogie beats in jazz based music. During and immediately after World War II, with shortages of fuel and limitations on audiences and available personnel, large jazz bands were less economical and tended to be replaced by smaller combos, using guitars, bass and drums. In the same period, particularly on the West Coast and in the Midwest, the development of jump blues, with its guitar riffs, prominent beats and shouted lyrics, prefigured many later developments. Similarly, country boogie and Chicago electric blues supplied many of the elements that would be seen as characteristic of rock and roll.

Rock and roll arrived at time of considerable technological change, soon after the development of the electric guitar, amplifier and microphone, and the 45 rpm record. There were also changes in the record industry, with the rise of independent labels like Atlantic, Sun and Chess servicing niche audiences and a similar rise of radio stations that played their music. It was the realization that relatively affluent white teenagers were listening to this music that led to the development of what was to be defined as rock and roll as a distinct genre.

Early rock and roll records

Original 1954 Decca issue of Bill Haley's Rock Around the ClockMain article: First rock and roll record.
There is much debate as to what should be considered the first rock & roll record. Big Joe Turner was one of many forerunners and his 1939 recording, "Roll 'Em Pete", is close to '50s rock and roll. Sister Rosetta Tharpe was also recording shouting, stomping music in the 1930s and 1940s that in some ways contained major elements of mid-1950s rock and roll. She scored hits on the pop charts as far back as 1938 with her gospel songs, such as "This Train" and "Rock Me", and in the 1940s with "Strange Things Happening' Every Day", "Up Above My Head", and "Down by the Riverside". Other significant records of the 1940s and early 1950s included Roy Brown's "Good Rocking Tonight" (1947), Hank Williams' "Move It On Over" (1947), Amos Milburn's "Chicken Shack Boogie" (1947), Jimmy Preston's "Rock the Joint" (1947), Fats Domino's "The Fat Man" (1949), and Les Paul and Mary Ford's "How High the Moon" (1951).

A leading contender as the first fully formed rock 'n' roll recording is "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (which was, in fact, Ike Turner and his band The Kings of Rhythm recording under a different name), recorded by Sam Phillips for Sun Records in 1951. Three years later the first rock and roll song to enter Billboard magazine's main sales and airplay charts was Bill Haley's "Crazy Man, Crazy" and the first to top the charts, in July 1955, was his "Rock Around the Clock" (recorded in 1954), opening the door worldwide for this new wave of popular culture. Rolling Stone magazine argued in 2004 that "That's All Right (Mama)" (1954), Elvis Presley's first single for Sun Records in Memphis, was the first rock and roll record, but, at the same time, Big Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle & Roll", later covered by Haley, was already at the top of the Billboard R&B charts.

Early rock and roll used the twelve-bar blues chord progression and shared with boogie woogie the four beats (usually broken down into eight eighth-notes/quavers) to a bar. Rock and roll however has a greater emphasis on the backbeat than boogie woogie. Bo Diddley's 1955 hit "Bo Diddley", with its b-side "I'm A Man", introduced a new, pounding beat, and unique guitar playing that inspired many artists.

Also formative in the sound of rock and roll were Little Richard and Chuck Berry. From 1955, Little Richard combined gospel with New Orleans R&B, heavy backbeat, pounding piano and wailing vocals. His explosive music, with songs such as "Tutti Frutti" (1955), "Long Tall Sally" (1956) and "Good Golly, Miss Molly" (1958), has been seen as laying the foundation for rock and roll and influenced generations of rhythm and blues, rock and soul music artists. Chuck Berry, between his cover of "Maybellene" in  1955, through hits including "Roll over Beethoven" (1956) and "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) to "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), refined and developed the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, focusing on teen life and introducing guitar intros and lead breaks that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music.

Soon rock and roll was the major force in American record sales and crooners such as Eddie Fisher, Perry Como, and Patti Page, who had dominated the previous decade of popular music, found  their access to the pop charts significantly curtailed.