Rock music of Canada the 1920s, rock and roll did not acquire its name until the 1950s. "Rock"' or its forerunners electric blues (Chicago blues) and rhythm and blues (Jump blues) was first heard in the late 1940s by Canadians who were living close enough to the American border to tune into American radio station broadcasts. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio, disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, and is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the musical sound of the Doo-wop vocal groups and the rockabilly singers who emerged in the 1950s.
Origins of rock and roll Origins of rock and roll Rock and roll emerged as a defined musical style in the United States in the early to mid-1950s. It derived most directly from the rhythm and blues music of the 1940s, which itself developed from earlier blues, boogie woogie, jazz and swing music, and was also influenced by gospel, country and western, and traditional folk music. Rock and roll in turn provided the main basis for the music that, since the mid-1960s, has been generally known simply as rock music. The phrase "rocking and rolling" originally described the movement of a ship on the ocean,