Entry · catalog no. 9632
rock and roll
/ /ˌrɒk ən ˈroʊl/ /rok un ROHL
noun · United States (Black South and urban North) · 1920s
✓ Verified
1.
Originally blues and gospel slang: to "rock" and to "roll" were words for sex and for dancing hard, and in church for spiritual ecstasy. By the late 1940s it described the driving, backbeat-heavy rhythm and blues played by Black artists, and later the wider music that grew out of it.
“Sister Rosetta Tharpe was playing rock and roll on an electric guitar before Elvis was out of grade school.”
Origin & Attribution
The words appear together in Black blues and gospel long before the genre had a name: Trixie Smith recorded "My Daddy Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll)" in 1922, and Wynonie Harris recorded "Good Rockin' Tonight" in 1948. Ike Turner's band recorded "Rocket 88" in 1951, the same year disc jockey Alan Freed began using the phrase for Black rhythm and blues on his Cleveland radio show. Freed popularized the label; he did not invent the music or the language. The common claim that white artists created rock and roll erases its Black makers, among them Sister Rosetta Tharpe, Chuck Berry and Little Richard.
1922
Trixie Smith records "My Daddy Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll)."
1948
Wynonie Harris records "Good Rockin' Tonight."
1951
Ike Turner's band records "Rocket 88"; Alan Freed promotes the phrase on radio.
Region of origin
West
Midwest
N.East
South
Nationwide / diaspora
United States (Black South and urban North) · 1920s
Spoken by
Blues, gospel and rhythm and blues musicians and audiences
$ROCKANThe Record · cultural traction
▲ Steady29 yrs
ahead of the mainstream
60/100
peak cultural energy
Introduced to English by the culture — logged here before the mainstream caught on.
Cultural usage — the recordMainstream search interest
First used
1922
in the culture
Recorded here
2026
point of first record
Mainstream crossover
1951
search interest spikes
Cultural energy indexed from documented usage, search interest, and citation frequency. The recorded date is the archive’s permanent point of record.
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Atlanta, GA
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Memphis, TN
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Citations & Sources
■
Trixie Smith, "My Daddy Rocks Me (With One Steady Roll)" (Black Swan, 1922)
record, 1922
■
Wynonie Harris, "Good Rockin' Tonight" (King Records, 1948)
record, 1948
■
+ Cite a sourceJackie Brenston and His Delta Cats (Ike Turner), "Rocket 88" (Chess, 1951)
record, 1951
See also