Thermionik Posted May 25, 2009 Posted May 25, 2009 Alan "Moondog" Freed (Dec'21 to Jan'65) called himself "The Father of Rock and Roll" [NOT to be confused with the great Louis T Hardin - 'The Viking of 6th Avenue'] Word on the streets was/is that the phrase "Rock and Roll" was Freed's own. He said back in 1956: Rock and roll is a river of music that has absorbed many streams: rhythm and blues, jazz, rag time, cowboy songs, country songs, folk songs. All have contributed to the big beat. What do you guys think.....
AXE® Posted May 25, 2009 Posted May 25, 2009 My research says Cleveland, [Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed]coined the phrase.
cookieman15061 Posted May 25, 2009 Posted May 25, 2009 Alan Freed on this we clearly have agreed. Sorry I was in a rhymey mood.
Rocky4 Posted May 25, 2009 Posted May 25, 2009 http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Who_coined_the_phrase_rock_and_roll
Homz Posted May 25, 2009 Posted May 25, 2009 Here is a very subject one. Who was the first rock and roll band? And the first rock and roll song. I'm going with 'Bill Haley and the Comets' , "Rock Around the Clock".
Thermionik Posted May 25, 2009 Author Posted May 25, 2009 Rocky4 - does your pointer to that wiki.answers thing mean you would credit the term "Rock and Roll" to J.Russel Robinson and Bill Livingston from their 1935 hit "Get rhythm in your feet and music in your soul" way back in 1935? Because it's your opinions I'm after.....
cvansickle Posted May 25, 2009 Posted May 25, 2009 "Rocket 88" is often cited as the first rock n' roll song. The term "rock n' roll" was a synonym for sexual intercourse goin gback to the 1920s, long before it was ever applied to music. It was eventually used for music when parents and preachers thought that this "beat" music would make young kids want to have sex when they heard it.
Rocky4 Posted May 25, 2009 Posted May 25, 2009 Rocky4 - does your pointer to that wiki.answers thing mean you would credit the term "Rock and Roll" to J.Russel Robinson and Bill Livingston from their 1935 hit "Get rhythm in your feet and music in your soul" way back in 1935? Because it's your opinions I'm after..... Origins of the phrase In 1951' date=' Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues and country music for a multi-racial audience. Freed is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music he played. However, the term had already been introduced to US audiences, particularly in the lyrics of many rhythm and blues records. The line "commence to rock and roll" appeared in the swing tune "Get Rhythm in Your Feet and Music in Your Soul" recorded by Benny Goodman and his orchestra in July 1935. Three different songs with the title "Rock and Roll" were recorded in the late 1940s; one by Paul Bascomb in 1947, another by Wild Bill Moore in 1948, and yet another by Doles Dickens in 1949, and the phrase was in constant use in the lyrics of R&B songs of the time. One such record where the phrase was repeated throughout the song was "Rock and Roll Blues," recorded in 1949 by Erline "Rock and Roll" Harris. The phrase was also included in advertisements for the film Wabash Avenue, starring Betty Grable and Victor Mature. An ad for the movie that ran April 12, 1950 billed Ms. Grable as "the first lady of rock and roll" and Wabash Avenue as "the roaring street she rocked to fame". Before then, the phrase "rocking and rolling", as secular black slang for dancing or sex, appeared on record for the first time in 1922 on Trixie Smith's "My Man Rocks Me With One Steady Roll". Even earlier, in 1916, the term "rocking and rolling" was used with a religious connotation, on the phonograph record "The Camp Meeting Jubilee" by an unnamed male "quartette".[5'] The word "rock" had a long history in the English language as a metaphor for "to shake up, to disturb or to incite". In 1937, Chick Webb and Ella Fitzgerald recorded "Rock It for Me," which included the lyric, "So won't you satisfy my soul with the rock and roll." "Rocking" was a term used by black gospel singers in the American South to mean something akin to spiritual rapture. By the 1940s, however, the term was used as a double entendre, ostensibly referring to dancing, but with the subtextual meaning of sex, as in Roy Brown's "Good Rocking Tonight." The verb "roll" was a medieval metaphor which meant "having sex". Writers for hundreds of years have used the phrases "They had a roll in the hay" or "I rolled her in the clover"[6]. The terms were often used together ("rocking and rolling") to describe the motion of a ship at sea, for example as used in 1934 by the Boswell Sisters in their song "Rock and Roll"[7], which was featured in the 1934 film "Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round",[8][9] and in Buddy Jones' "Rockin' Rollin' Mama" (1939). Country singer Tommy Scott was referring to the motion of a railroad train in the 1951 "Rockin and Rollin'". [10]. An alternative claim is that the origins of "rocking and rolling" can be traced back to steel driving men working on the railroads in the Reconstruction South. These men would sing hammer songs to keep the pace of their hammer swings. At the end of each line in a song, the men would swing their hammers down to drill a hole into the rock. The shakers — the men who held the steel spikes that the hammer men drilled — would "rock" the spike back and forth to clear rock or "roll", twisting the spike to improve the "bite" of the drill.[11] [edit]
G u e s t Posted May 26, 2009 Posted May 26, 2009 You should have realised Thermionik, people no longer have opinions themselves. Everything is Googled, and the Wiki-Opinion usually prevails. No thinking required, no opinions held. Like mainstream music. Depressing.
Rocky4 Posted May 26, 2009 Posted May 26, 2009 What's your opinion? Is concrete hard? Can you saw through wood? Does light help you see? Does grass grow? Is the earth flat? Can Guest spell realized? Who coined the phrase "Rock and Roll"? In the end, there is a factual answer. Had you asked if we are better off with Obama, then you get opinions. Should people over 50 jog? Who is the best guitar player? See how this opinion thing works?
Rocky4 Posted May 26, 2009 Posted May 26, 2009 What's your opinion? Is concrete hard? Can you saw through wood? Does light help you see? Does grass grow? Is the earth flat? Who coined the phrase "Rock and Roll"? In the end, there is a factual answer. Had you asked if we are better off with Obama, then you get opinions. Is global warming real? Who is the best guitar player? See how this opinion thing works?
DrJustice Posted May 26, 2009 Posted May 26, 2009 Thank you for pointing that out in such a clear way, Rocky4! I'm sick and tired of the trend of uninformed people demanding their right to have "opinions" about every factual and quantifiable thing. "What are the facts? Again and again and again — what are the facts? Shun wishful thinking, ignore divine revelation, forget what "the stars foretell," avoid opinion, care not what the neighbors think, never mind the unguessable "verdict of history" — what are the facts, and to how many decimal places? You pilot always into an unknown future; facts are your single clue. Get the facts!" - Lazarus Long DJ --
Thermionik Posted May 26, 2009 Author Posted May 26, 2009 The expression "I am sorry I asked" was rarely more apposite. I do have an opinion on the origination of the expression Rock and Roll. It is an opinion which differs from the accepted origin, but does have an underlying factual basis. I feel the word 'gondola', literally 'roll, rock' in the Italian sub family of Indo-European languages, may be a clue along the way. This describes the motion of a mid-1500's Venetian boat and was eventually used (1890's) to similarly describe the motion of a zeppelin cabin. This is contentious etymology - many people suggest gondola has other origins (like the Greek kontoura, or little vessel). My opinion, however, is that the motion describing is at least more poetic, if not more accurate. But that is just my opinion, others will, I hope, have different opnions. But I digress..... I would be prepared to also express the opinion that, long before Freed at al, the black population had noticed the rythmic rocking and rolling nature of the act of sexual congress and used it as a euphemism in song, certainly in the 30's and 40's and probably way back through the bad days of slavery and further still, to African music. But apparently I am uninformed and do not have the 'right' to an opinion. Nor to wonder if you do. My bad.
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