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The expression, which literally means «rock and roll», was part of black American slang since the first decades of the twentieth century, to refer to the sexual act. Thus, it already appeared in several blues and rhythm’n’blues lyrics such as “Good Rockin’ Tonight” (1947), by Roy Brown – before being adopted as the name of the new musical style, which emerged in the 50s, with Bill Halley and Elvis Presley, and basically consisted of the fusion of these black rhythms with white country music. This baptism is usually attributed to the American disc jockey Alan Freed (1922-1965), whose radio program was one of the main responsible for the popularization of the new wave, highly danceable, which soon infected all the youth of the country and the world.
In the 60s, the label was abbreviated to rock, to encompass the changes brought about by artists such as Bob Dylan and the Beatles, opening up an infinite range of variations: psychedelic rock, progressive rock, folk rock, hard rock, heavy metal etc etc. From then on, the term rock’n’roll came to mean exclusively the original style, characteristic of the 50’s.
Alan Freed, history’s first superstar DJ, christened rocking pop.
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