[Ads-l] Antedating of "Rock 'n' Roll" (Modern Sense)

[Laurence Horn]

Curious to see Alan Freed in 1955 described as a “Jazz jockey”. I never thought of what he spun on "WINS 1010 New York” as jazz, although I confess I was more a devotee of Peter Tripp, the self-described "curly-headed kid in the third row” on WMGM.  In both cases, I’d have thought “pop(ular)” music (or “Top 40”/Countdown) a better descriptor of what they played than “jazz", to the extent that it couldn’t have been called rock ’n’ roll.  In retrospect, some of the songs I was addicted to in the mid-50s were rock ’n’ roll but many weren’t—and we didn’t call them “oldies” back then! 

LH 

> On May 7, 2020, at 4:43 PM, Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at YALE.EDU> wrote:
> 
> Ben's points are all correct.  I had forgotten about the Billboard cite from 4 Dec. 1954, which I believe I contributed to the OED.
> 
> I don't know why the earliest attributive cites aren't part of the quotations for OED sense 2 of "rock 'n' roll."  Sense 2 is hard to disentangle from sense 1, but anything with "Alan Freed" in it should be sense 2.
> 
> The OED inevitably has sense-divisions for some entries that are not clearcut.  As a result, important coinages can be obscured or omitted altogether.
> 
> Fred Shapiro
> 
> 
> 
> ________________________________
> From: American Dialect Society <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU> on behalf of Ben Zimmer <bgzimmer at GMAIL.COM>
> Sent: Thursday, May 7, 2020 4:19 PM
> To: ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU <ADS-L at LISTSERV.UGA.EDU>
> Subject: Re: Antedating of "Rock 'n' Roll" (Modern Sense)
> 
> This is a very cool find, but I think it would belong in the C1 section of
> the OED3 entry, "general attributive." There are other cites there showing
> that the transition from the older swing/R&B sense of "rock 'n' roll" to
> the Alan Freed-related style was taking hold by 1954.
> 
> 1938   N.Y. Times 5 June e10/2 (caption) 'Rock-and-Roll' men. Band leaders
> Benny Goodman (left) and Gene Krupa--Their likes are not to be heard abroad.
> 1945   Billboard 10 Mar. 66/2   It's rock and roll rhythm all the way, with
> some race blues wordage added by the maestro.
> 1952   A. O'Day (title on record label)    Rock 'n roll blues.
> 1953   Los Angeles Sentinel 20 Aug. 2 b/1   Two new sides featuring the
> exciting 'rock 'n' roll' rhythms of the Joe Houston band on the Combo
> label, 'Drunk' and 'Lightnin'', both composed by the fast rising young
> bandleader himself, have been released this week.
> 1954   Variety 13 Jan. (Entertainm. Industry Mag. Archive) 67/4   Savage
> opens up with a hot rock 'n' roll piece which for a second only he holds
> with his thin pipes.
> 1954   Billboard 4 Dec. 22/2   Freed is now calling his program the ‘Rock
> and Roll Show’.
> 
> Note that the cite from Billboard about Freed's "Rock and Roll Show" has
> the same date as the Newsday cite.
> 
> On Thu, May 7, 2020 at 9:46 AM Shapiro, Fred <fred.shapiro at yale.edu> wrote:
> 
>> rock 'n' roll (OED, 2., 1955)
>> 
>> 1954 _Newsday_ 4 Dec. 19 (ProQuest Historical Newspapers)  Doesn't WINS'
>> rock 'n roll Jazz-jockey, Alan Freed, ever run out of breath?
>> 
>> 
> 
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