Major Antedating of "Rock and Roll"

[Fred Shapiro]

On Sun, 7 Jul 2002, Gerald Cohen wrote:

>         Fred Shapiro's spotting of "rock and roll" in the 1946
> _Billboard_ article provides an interesting piece in the "rock and
> roll" puzzle, but I
> don't believe it necessarily demonstrates that "rock and roll" was
> already designating a genre of music, as, say, "rhythm and blues" did.

I agree that the 1946 usage of "rock and roll" referring to a type of
music was isolated or at least uncommon.  Freed clearly still deserves
credit for popularizing the term.  But this is, as far as I can see,
an antedating of the OED.

Fred Shapiro


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Fred R. Shapiro                             Editor
Associate Librarian for Public Services     YALE DICTIONARY OF QUOTATIONS
  and Lecturer in Legal Research            Yale University Press,
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