I’ve been working for some time in trying to track down the origins of this term, and have independently tracked down most of what I saw in the column.
I’ve tried to go a step further, and have a theory, which I have not been able to either confirm or deny.
It seems that a popular brand of Juke Box in the thirties (before and after this decade too) was “Rockola”. If you say it out loud (ok, maybe you have to slur a bit), there’s a similarity between “Rockola” and “Rock and Roll”. I also seem to recall finding a site (lost in the mists of research, I’m afraid) that the Rockola Juke Boxes were particularly popular in the South, where the phrase Rock and Roll seems to have originated.
Since Rockola jukeboxes were named after the company’s founder David Rockola, if there’s a connection, the term Rock and Roll would have had to come from the Juke Box, not the other way around. So the question is – Is Rock and Roll an offshoot of David Rockola’s name.
I’d appreciate any information anyone else has come across relating to this.
The Rockola Juke Box story is one of those fabulous coincidences that will have everybody scratching there heads centuries from now, thinking there has to be a connection. Head over to the Alan Freed page: http://www.alanfreed.com/
Cleveland D.J. Freed was credited with being the first person to use the term “rock and roll”, referring to rythymn and blues music and there is no indication that the juke box influenced him. I don’t think juke boxes played cutting edge music in those days. It took people like Freed to get the devil’s music music into the mainstream. Freed, of course was the cultural connection to rock and roll that Cleveland needed to land the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame over, say, Dick Clark’s Philadelphia.
Without meaning do deny Alan Freed his rightful place in the Rock Pantheon (he certainly is the person most responsible for mainstream popularising of the term) it’s derivation pre-dates Freed.
The Straight Dope Column http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_027b.html
takes a look at the history of the term “Rock and Roll” and finds Pre-Freed references going back at least to the 30’s and maybe to the 20’s. This time frame also coincides with the emergence of Rockola Jukeboxes.
Hence my question – has anyone found any connection, or is this just one heckuva coincidence.
Without meaning do deny Alan Freed his rightful place in the Rock Pantheon (he certainly is the person most responsible for mainstream popularising of the term) it’s derivation pre-dates Freed.
The Straight Dope Column http://www.straightdope.com/classics/a2_027b.html
takes a look at the history of the term “Rock and Roll” and finds Pre-Freed references going back at least to the 30’s and maybe to the 20’s. This time frame also coincides with the emergence of Rockola Jukeboxes.
Hence my question – has anyone found any connection, or is this just one heckuva coincidence.