Rock and Roll interesting facts

June 28, 2010 | In: Music facts

Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, primarily from a combination of the blues, country music and gospel music.

In the earliest rock and roll styles of the late 1940s and early 1950s, either the piano or saxophone was often the lead instrument, but these were generally replaced or supplemented by guitar in the middle to late 1950s.

Alan Freed was known as the father of rock and roll. He had a long successful career but a payola radio scandal ruined his career.

From its early-1950s inception through the early 1960s, rock and roll music spawned new dance crazes. Teenagers found the irregular rhythm of the backbeat especially suited to reviving the jitterbug dancing of the big-band era.

“Sock hops,” gym dances, and home basement dance parties became the rage, and American teens watched Dick Clark’s American Bandstand to keep up on the latest dance and fashion styles.