What Is Rock and Roll [Paperback]

Put on your dancing shoes and move to the music.

Rock and roll sprang from a combination of African-American genres, Western swing, and country music that exploded in post World War II America. Jim O'Connor explains what constitutes rock music, follows its history and sub-genres through famous musicians and groups, and shows how rock became so much more than just a style of music influencing fashion, language, and lifestyle.

This entry in theNew York Timesbest-selling series contains eighty illustrations and sixteen pages of black and white photographs.Jim O'Connor is the author ofWhat Was Pompeii?,What Was the Battle of Gettysburg?, andWho Is Bob Dylan?What Is Rock and Roll?
 

In August of 1953, an eighteen-year-old truck driver walked into a small building in Memphis, Tennessee. The neon signs in the windows read “Memphis Recording Service.” 
 
The young man was named Elvis Presley. He wanted to record two songs, “My Happiness” and “That’s When Your Heartaches Begin,” as a birthday present for his mother. The receptionist, Marion Keisker, was also the sound engineer that day. So she led Elvis into the studio and put him in front of the microphone.
 
Then she went into the tiny control room and recorded what he sang.
 
There was something about the yearning quality in Elvis Presley’s voice that intrigued her. So she decided to make a copy for her boss, Sam Phillips, to hear. 
 
That was the beginning of Elvis Presley’s career.
 
It was also a breakthrough for rock and roll.
 
 
Chapter 1: The Roots of Rock
 
 
Rock and roll is true made-in-the-USA music. But in the early 1950s, if you asked kids what rock music was, most of them wouldn’t have had a clue what you were talking about.
 
Rock music didn’t just ls