Rock and roll

Posted by ESC on September 03, 2009 at 13:11

In Reply to: Rock and roll posted by Dieter Marzinger on September 03, 2009 at 09:34:

: Does anyone know the origin of "Rock and roll"?

Someone has probably written a book on just the origin of this phrase. Short answer: rock and roll = good sex. (We're all grownups here, right?) But, adding details, here is what it says in a book that I just acquired. "The Language of the Blues from Alcorub to Zulu" by Debra DeSalvo, Billboard Books, New York, unedited galleys, Page 130-131. There is a long entry on "rock" that includes information about roustabouts who would place a load "on their 'totin' machine,' a rope sling with two loops hanging between two heavybars..." They would rock the load "to keep it light on their shoulders while they carried it down the plank toward the ship." In the 1940s gospel singers used "rock" to mean "spiritual rapture." "...but it had taken on a sexual connotation as well. To rock meant to keep the rhythmic action of intercourse steady, slow, and under control so that the man could make love for a long time with ejaculating." Under rock 'n' roll: "By the 1940s, the term 'rock 'n' roll' was well established in Southern juke joints as meaning 'to have sex.'...Segregated as 'race music,' regional hits like Roy Brown's 'Good Rocking Tonight' weren't played on white radio until 1951, when Cleveland DJ Alan Freed brought this revved-up R&B to a white audience and called it 'rock 'n' roll..."