The immediate origins of rock and roll lie in the late 1940s and early 1950s through a mixing of the genres of blues, country, R&B, folk and gospel music. Alan Freed, a disc jockey based in Cleveland, Ohio is generally credited with first using the phrase rock and roll in 1951, though the phrase was in constant use at time in lyrics of R&B songs of the time. The phrase rocking and rolling has its origins in slang for dancing or having sex. Many early rock and roll hits were re-writes of earlier R&B or blues songs. Black music was still taboo on radio stations, so producers and artists began making white versions of black music. In 1955, Bill Haley’s Rock Around the Clock became the first rock and roll song to top the charts. The song became one of the biggest hits in history, and hordes of teenagers began flocking to hear Haley and his band The Comets. Blues would continue to inspire rock for decades with great acts like Cream, The Yardbirds and Led Zeppelin drawing their inspiration from musicians like Robert Johnson and Skip James.

Rock and Roll influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes and language. It also appeared at a time when racial tensions were coming to a head in the United States, the music contributed to the civil rights movement as both black and white teenagers followed the music. It was a fresh sound which spawned fresh ideas and approaches which paved the way for the swinging sixties.

A genre of music that has the most ardent admirers and fans evolved around the latter half of 1940s as well as the early part of 1950s. In fact, Rock ‘n’ Roll is a composite mixture of various popular genres of music of that period and this includes blues, gospel, folk music, and various electric forms that were being experimented with in Chicago, Memphis, New Orleans, California, and Texas. As a result of this, there is a depth in Rock ‘n’ Roll music that can’t be seen or found in any other genre of music even today.

When you mix Rock ‘n’ Roll with guitars, screaming fans and social ideologies then it forms an intoxicating blend of superlative form of art and expression. This is the exact reason why it has had a deeper social impact and to a great degree has influenced attitude, fashion, events in daily life and even language. Although the Rockabilly lifestyle was high on sex and drugs, fashion crept in to bring the leather-clad and to an extent sexist image of the early rockers. The most prominent fashion was the hippie fashion, which caught on like wild fire in the 1960′s and was at the heart of Woodstock.