Rock and Roll (Weekly Blog #12)

Rock & roll is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. Rock & roll is a combination of African American blues, country, jazz, and gospel music. Though elements of rock and roll can be heard in country records of the 1930s, and in blues records from the 1920s, rock and roll did not acquire its name until the 1950s.

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 added by guitar in the middle to late 1950s. The beat is usually a blues rhythm with a stressed backbeat, the latter generally provided by a snare drum. Classic rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars (one lead, one rhythm), a string bass or (after the mid-1950s) an electric bass guitar, and a drum kit.

Rock and roll began achieving wide popularity in the 1960s. The massive popularity and eventual worldwide view of rock and roll gave it a widespread social impact.

Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rock_and_roll