Where Did the Term Rock 'n Roll Come From?

Rock 'n roll is such a staple in American life that most of the time we don't even give it a second thought. When somebody says something about rock 'n roll we think about the fifties and artists like Elvis who made rock 'n roll a household term, but where does the term "rock 'n roll" come from? What does the phrase rock 'n roll mean? Why do we call it rock and roll?

Some people claim that the phrase comes from sailors who used the phrase to describe the movement of a ship on the ocean. The rock is the fore and aft movement of the ship and the roll is the port and starboard movement. Others claim that the term rock and roll is used to explain movement of the sailors as they weighed the anchor. If the ship had been in port for awhile and the anchor was stuck into the silt really deep then the sailors would have to rock and roll the windlass in order to bring up the anchor. They would use a barrel shaped crank with holes in it into which you inserted a wooden dowel called a man-spike. The process was to tug really hard to get the crank to turn one or two notches and then lock. Then you would remove the dowel and reinsert it up where you started and repeat the process. This process over time would bring up the anchor inch by inch until it worked free of the silt or mud. The motion of the sailor as he employed this process could be described as "rocking and rolling" because he would rock his body weight in order to roll the windlass and crank up the anchor from the sea floor. An old sea shanty called "Rock and roll me over" by Johnny Boker that was sung by sailors doing precisely this task says "One more time, me Johnny, One more time. Oh rock and roll me over, Johnny, One more time" (Freeman).

Another area that the phrase rock 'n roll may have been reborn from is the African American gospel culture of the late eighteen and early nineteen hundreds. By this time the phrase was already very popular in African American gospel songs. Albums like "The Camp Meeting Jubilee" recorded by the Little Wonder record label in 1916 had song lyrics that used rock 'n roll. The song's hook says "We've been rockin' an' rolling in your arms, Rockin' and rolling in your arms, Rockin' and rolling in your arms, In the arms of Moses." Many other African American gospel songs also had reference to at least the rock part of the phrase long before Elvis and other white groups picked up the term.

Although the African American culture in the late 1900's used the terms "rock" or "rocking" in a gospel sense there were some who made the word into a slang term for dancing or sex as the culture started to change. This can be evidenced by many of the African American songs from the late twenties up through the forties and fifties. Songs such as "Rock, Aunt Dinah, Rock" by Coot Grant in 1925, "Rock Me Mama" by Banjo Ikey Robinson in 1929, "Rocking & Rolling" by Robinson's Knights of Rest in 1930, and "I Want To Rock" by Cab Calloway in 1942 are just a few of the songs that used the slang meaning of the word. In 1947 Roy Brown made a song that brought both the gospel meaning and a sexual meaning to the words in a parody of gospel music he created which was called "Good Rocking Tonight" using blues riffs. Then later that same year a man called Wynonie Harris did a cover of Roy Brown's record with a more up-tempo gospel beat that became the new standard for African American artists for the next few years but was still called rhythm and blues or R&B for short.

Then, in 1951, a disc jockey named Alan Freed coined the phrase "Rock 'n Roll" after hearing the song "Sixty Minute Man" by The Dominoes. Alan probably created the term to get away from the stigma of "Black" music attached to R&B and to put a name to the new style of music that was emerging and becoming increasingly popular to the teenage white culture. Alan used the term "rock 'n roll" daily on his radio show called Moondog's Rock 'n' Roll Party and very soon the term became the name of the music. Radio hosts and disc jockey's all over the United States started calling it Rock 'n Roll and the term became a name of the genre that we know and love today.

Rock 'n Roll is not just a single entity that can be boxed into a rigid standardized type of music. It has such wide and diversified origins. It started with sea sailors who used rock and roll songs to help pass the time while weighing anchor. Later it moved into African American gospel and rhythm & blues music. It has its roots in Irish, Italian, African, German and English history as those people groups all came together here in America at just the right time in musical history to create something that is bigger than the sum of its parts but influenced by all of them, Rock 'n Roll.

Works Cited

Freeman, Anitra L. "Johnny Boker: Rock and Roll Me Over." Chantys: Work Songs of the Sea. 1995. http://anitra.net/chanteys/boker.html

Peneny, DK. "Alan Freed." The History of Rock 'n' Roll. Apr. 1998. March 25^th, 2006. http://www.history-of-rock.com/indx.html

"Rock and Roll" Wikipedia, The Free Encyclopedia. Jan. 2001. 30 Apr. 2006. http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_and_roll

Wright, Morgan. "Dawn of Rock." Rock Before Elvis. May 1998. Jan 2005. http://www.hoyhoy.com/dawn_of_rock.htm