

Question for students (and subscribers): Do you have a favorite rock and roll song? Please let us know in the comments section below this article. Rock and Roll, however, lives on and is healthier than ever. Turner was also nominated for 5 Grammy awards and won 2 of them! He died in 2007 after years of drug addiction and trouble with the law.

“Rocket ’88′” single cover by Chess Records.īrenston would go on to become an alcoholic and died only aged 49 without having achieved any further musical accomplishment, while Turner went on to even more success, especially with his wife, Tina Turner, with whom he is an inductee to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame. Sam Phillips, however, who had founded Sun Records, named it the first Rock and Roll release.

Of those, “Rocket 88” is certainly one of the most significant. Of course, several other songs have a claim to being the first Rock and Roll release, and many serious historians do not narrow it down to a single song but to important, influential records that defined the genre. Popular among the African-American community, “Rocket 88” also caught the attention of the white public, and Bill Haley and the Saddlemen (later Bill Haley and his Comets of “Rock Around the Clock” fame) did a cover version of the hit within a few months of its release. Despite being different in sound, it was a hit and reached #1 on the R&B charts. Done in a style of jump blues combined with swing, it was also given a raw, biting edge and featured a new technique called “fuzz guitar,” making it something new. Digging Deeperīased on the 1947 hit “Cadillac Boogie” and influenced by the instrumental hits “Rocket 88 Boogie” parts 1 and 2,” “Rocket 88” was also about the popular Oldsmobile model, the Rocket 88. In fact, the song was written by Brenston and Turner, though Turner was not originally credited. Called “Rocket 88,” the lively song was recorded by Chess Records at Sam Phillip’s studio in Memphis and is credited to Jackie Brenston and the Delta Cats who were actually Ike Turners’s band, the Kings of Rhythm. What does Shakespeare have to do with punk rock? Find out here.ĭo you have word questions related to other musical styles or artists? Let us know.On March 3, 1951, music history was made when the first song deemed to be “ rock and roll” was recorded. As his radio show gained popularity, so too did the phrase. And why is the “and” sometimes written as ‘n? That’s called an apocopation – the omission of the final sound of a word. Trixie Smith’s 1922 blues ballad, “My Man Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll)” may be the first use of the phrase in song.Īlan Freed, a disc jockey in Cleveland, Ohio used the phrase, “The Rock and Roll Session” to describe the amalgamation of rhythm and blues and country music he played during his show. Similar metaphors slipped into popular discourse, but one in particular became the inspiration for the genre’s moniker. By the 1920s, “rocking and rolling” became a popular double entendre referring to either dancing or sex.

Roll is derived from the Latin rotula meaning, “small wheel.” The phrase “rocking and rolling,” a metaphor used by seamen to describe the motion of a ship, dates from the 17th century. Another equally contentious question: Where does the term rock and roll come from? Rock is derived from the Old English roccain, related to the Old Nordic rykkja meaning, “to pull, tear, move.” The earliest recorded use of the term in literature can be found in the lullaby “Rock-a-bye Baby” from 1805. Is “Rocket ‘88” by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats the very first rock and roll record? The question has inspired debate among musicologists for years.
