Can someone explain 'Rock and Roll' to me?

Western Swing morphs into Hillbilly Bop when it embraces R&B. 1943's Pistol Packin' Mama is checked here, but Hank Penny's 1943 stuff sounds waaay more R&B influenced to me.

Lucky Millinder & Wynonie Harris's Who Threw the Whiskey in the Well came out in 1944 and *really* hit home with the R&B goes gospel sound. This practically spawns a whole genre of the 2/4 "rockin'" beat for the end of 40's race records.

WDIA is the 1st "all Black" radio station in Memphis (the entire staff was not black, but whatever). It went on the air in 1947. DJ's included Nat D Williams, Rufus Thomas, BB King, etc.

White DJ Dewey Phillips at WHBQ in Memphis followed suit palying Black R&B in 1949. It could be said that it was Dewey's country rambling and speed fueled personality that pumps energy into listeners, generating White fans for "race music".

These were small local Memphis stations, but in Nashville, WLAC had a white ran black radio show by Gene Nobles, John R, and Hoss. They were 50,000 watts, so on a clear night, it reached everywhere on the east coast. They began playing race music due to Fisk university students requesting it.

1951 was the year of "Rocket 88", which all the so-called historians now claim as the first rock record (the original Jackie Brenston/Ike Turner version is always cited). The thing about Rocket 88 was it was just a reworking of Ida Red, which had been traded back and forth between R&B and Hillbilly Bop for years...and the other Jackie Brenston/Ike Turner songs from 1951 sounded similar.

I personally think the criteria that cites Rocket 88 comes from a revisionsit standpoint...but it is pretty damned important to note that Bill Haley and The Saddlemen covered it that year while ditching the majority of their country leanings. The earlier Haley stuff liek Cnady Kisses are pretty much straight-forward country.

So yeah, Alan Freed. In Akron, I don't think he played exclusivly R&B, but rather, had something like a Jazz show that incorporated some race records...but when he moved to Cleveland, Leo Mintz convinced Alan to play all race records records as a way to advertise Leo's Record Rendezvous record store as it specialized in race music.

In 52 Jerry Wexler and Billboard changed the term "race music" to R&B.

Sun Recorsd also comes around in 1952, who early on had somewhat erratic releases, but focusing on Blues and R&B.

It was 1952 when Alan Freed's Moondog Coronation Ball probably grabbed the nation's attention as it more than sold out. Freed was using his term "Rock and Roll" at that time. So many specualtions on where Freed grabbed it from, but it's enough to say that a lot of 1947-1949 R&B songs had the words rock and roll in the title. For all we know, Freed missed out on Billboard changing the name to R&B.

Bill haley still the lone ranger on this thing as he hit it big with Crazy Man Crazy in 1953. Not country...not straight forward R&B either. wasn't this also the year of Doo-Wop? Doo-Wop lacks the beat of Jump Blues styled R&B, but represents the oldies perspective of Rock and Roll more. The Crows' Gee came out in 1953 and represents this well.

At the same time Sam Phillips at Sun claimed to be searching for "a white man that can sing black", which eventually spawned Rockabilly when Rock and Roll wasn't really even a genre per say...more like a marketing scheme. Elvis's first singles for Sun are 54.

Around the same time Sam Phillips was trying to figure it out, Bill Haley finally came crashing through with Rock Around the Clock as it was included in the movie Blackboard Jungle. The song was recorded and released in 1954, but BB Jungle hit in 1955, spreading it everywhere that year.

Needless to say this amounts to Elvis signing his major deal, although Elvis-mania supposedly didn't hit until Heartbreak Hotel in 1956

The question then becomes how much did the R&B market A&R themselves to bend to this new marketing scheme that was Rock and Roll? Seems Chuck Berry wasn't aiming at traditional R&B charts. We know that Alan Freed was "proposistioned" for marketing Berry's Maybeline, so clearly the R&B labels knew this was the new market. Does the bending itself constitute music that was Rock and Roll?