Answers
1. According to music historian Peter Guralnick, the first rock and roll
record was "Rocket 88", by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (written
by 19-year-old Ike Turner, also the session leader) and recorded by Sam Phillips
for his Memphis Recording Service in 1951 (the master tape being sold to and
later released by Chess Records). But this may be the result of shameless
self-promotion on Phillips' part, as many other records recorded in the same
time period or earlier are equal, or better, contenders for this title.
2. Wynonie Harris' 1947 cover of Roy Brown's "Good Rocking Tonight"
is probably the most legitimate claimant for the title of first rock and roll
record, as the popularity of this record led to many answer songs, mostly by
black artists, with the same rocking beat, during the late 40's and early 50's.
(Roy Brown's original had a shuffle blues beat, not quite rocking, but Wynonie
Harris changed the rhythm to a rocking gospel beat with hand clapping on the
backbeat, which distinguishes it from previous records).
3. Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" (1955) became the first
rock and roll song to top Billboard magazine's main sales and airplay charts,
and opened the door worldwide for this new wave of popular culture.
4. Both rock and roll and boogie woogie have four beats (usually broken down
into eight eighth-notes/quavers) to a bar, and are twelve-bar blues. Rock and
roll however has a greater emphasis on the backbeat than boogie woogie.
5. Little Richard combined boogie-woogie piano with a heavy backbeat and
over-the-top, shouted, gospel-influenced vocals that the Rock and Roll Hall of
Fame says "blew the lid off the '50s." However, others before Little
Richard were combining these elements, including Esquerita, Cecil Gant, Amos
Milburn, Piano Red, and Harry Gibson.
6. Bo Diddley's 1955 hit "Bo Diddley" backed with "I'm A
Man" introduced a new, pounding beat, and unique guitar playing that
inspired many artists.
7. Others point out that performers like Arthur Crudup and Fats Domino were
recording blues songs as early as 1946 that are indistinguishable from later
rock and roll, and that these blues songs were based on themes, chord changes,
and rhythms dating back decades before that. Crudup's "That's All
Right" recorded with an electric guitar in 1946 is similar in style to
Elvis's version recorded in 1954.
8. R&B saxophone player and band leader Louis Jordan actually broke into
the pop charts in the mid-forties with the rocker "Caldonia".
9. In 1947 Jack Guthrie and his group The Oaklahomans had a hit with "Oakie
Boogie", basically a mix of boogie woogie with hillbilly and an electric
guitar thrown in (a fairly new invention in 1947).
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Even
more than most other musical genres, rock and roll emerged gradually
from many artists work over a number of years, so any attempt to label a
record as the first rock and roll song is an exercise in narrowing
things down farther than they can reasonably be narrowed. But that
hasn't stopped many people from asserting one song or another as the
first.