Rock and roll is a genre of popular music that evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s. It originated from African American music such as jazz, rhythm and blues, boogie-woogie, electric blues, gospel, and jump blues, as well as country music. While rock and roll's formative elements can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s, the genre did not acquire its name until 1954.
Robert Leroy Johnson was an American blues musician and songwriter. His landmark recordings in 1936 and 1937 display a combination of singing, guitar skills, and songwriting talent that has influenced later generations of musicians. Although his recording career spanned only seven months, he is recognized as a master of the blues, particularly the Delta blues style, and as one of the most influential musicians of the 20th century. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame describes him as perhaps "the first ever rock star".
Sister Rosetta Tharpe was an American singer, songwriter and guitarist. She gained popularity in the 1930s and 1940s with her gospel recordings, characterized by a unique mixture of spiritual lyrics and electric guitar. She was the first great recording star of gospel music, and was among the first gospel musicians to appeal to rhythm and blues and rock and roll audiences, later being referred to as "the original soul sister" and "the Godmother of rock and roll". She influenced early rock-and-roll musicians including Little Richard, Johnny Cash, Carl Perkins, Chuck Berry, Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis, and also later guitarists, such as Eric Clapton.
The origins of rock and roll are complex. Rock and roll emerged as a defined musical style in the United States in the early to mid-1950s. It derived most directly from the rhythm and blues music of the 1940s, which itself developed from earlier blues, the beat-heavy jump blues, boogie woogie, up-tempo jazz, and swing music. It was also influenced by gospel, country and western, and traditional folk music. Rock and roll in turn provided the main basis for the music that, since the mid-1960s, has been generally known simply as rock music.
Wynona Merceris Carr was an American gospel, R&B and rock and roll singer-songwriter, who recorded as Sister Wynona Carr when performing gospel material.
Gospel blues is a form of blues-based gospel music that has been around since the inception of blues music. It combines evangelistic lyrics with blues instrumentation, often blues guitar accompaniment.
"You Gotta Move" is a traditional African-American spiritual song. Since the 1940s, the song has been recorded by a variety of gospel musicians, usually as "You Got to Move" or "You've Got to Move". It was later popularized with blues and blues rock secular adaptations by Mississippi Fred McDowell and the Rolling Stones.
"Up Above My Head" is a gospel song of traditional origin, first recorded in 1941 by The Southern Sons, a vocal group formed by William Langford of the Golden Gate Quartet. In the version that is now the best-known, it was recorded in 1947 by Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Marie Knight as a duo.
Thomas Paulsley LaBeff, known professionally as Sleepy LaBeef, was an American singer and musician.
Glory Train: Songs of Faith, Worship, and Praise is the seventeenth studio album released by American country music artist Randy Travis. It is his fifth album of gospel music and his fifth release for Word Records. The album comprises nineteen covers of traditional and contemporary gospel songs. No singles were released from it.
Marie Knight was an American gospel and R&B singer.
This article includes an overview of the major events and trends in popular music in the 1950s.
The Holmes Brothers were an American musical trio originally from Christchurch, Virginia. Mixing sounds from blues, soul, gospel, country, and rhythm & blues, they have released twelve studio albums, with three reaching the top five on the Billboard Blues Albums chart. They have gained a following by playing regularly at summer folk, blues, gospel, and jazz festivals. They have recorded with Van Morrison, Peter Gabriel, Odetta, Phoebe Snow, Willie Nelson, Freddie Roulette, Rosanne Cash, Levon Helm and Joan Osborne, and have gigged all over the world—including performing for President Bill Clinton. They won the Blues Music Award from the Memphis-based Blues Foundation for Band of the Year in 2005 and for the Soul Blues Album of the Year in 2008.
Long John's Blues was the début solo album by British blues singer Long John Baldry and his band, the Hoochie Coochie Men, featuring musicians who had previously played alongside Baldry in the Cyril Davies All-Stars. The album featured a track list that he would continue to play at live shows throughout his career.
"Strange Things Happening Every Day" is an African American spiritual that was most famously, and influentially, recorded by Sister Rosetta Tharpe in 1944. Released as a single by Decca Records, Tharpe's version featured her vocals and electric guitar, with Sammy Price (piano), bass and drums. It was the first gospel record to cross over and become a hit on the "race records" chart, the term then used for what later became the R&B chart, and reached #2 on the Billboard "race" chart in April 1945.
"This Train", also known as "This Train Is Bound for Glory", is a traditional African-American gospel song first recorded in 1922. Although its origins are unknown, the song was relatively popular during the 1920s as a religious tune, and it became a gospel hit in the late 1930s for singer-guitarist Sister Rosetta Tharpe. After switching from acoustic to electric guitar, Tharpe released a more secular version of the song in the early 1950s.
"Denomination Blues" is a gospel blues song composed by Washington Phillips (1880–1954), and recorded by him in 1927.
Gayle Wald is a professor of English and American Studies at George Washington University and a Guggenheim Fellow. From 1994-95 she was Visiting Assistant Professor of English and American Studies at Trinity College in Hartford, Connecticut.
Yolanda Claire Quartey, known professionally as Yola or Yola Carter, is an English singer-songwriter, musician, and actress. Her debut studio album Walk Through Fire (2019) received critical acclaim and earned her four Grammy Award nominations, including Best New Artist. Her follow-up, Stand for Myself (2021), received similar acclaim and earned her two more Grammy nominations. Yola made her acting debut in 2022, portraying "the Godmother of rock and roll" Sister Rosetta Tharpe in Baz Luhrman's biopic Elvis, and later made her Broadway debut in 2024 when she began playing Persephone in Anaïs Mitchell's musical Hadestown.
TV Gospel Time was an American Sunday morning television gospel music show that ran for three years on NBC network from 1962 to 1965. The show was based out of Chicago, with running time of 30 minutes. TV Gospel Time was the first television show designed to appeal to black audiences, according to Billboard Music Week October 20, 1962, when it launched in six television markets, New York, Washington DC, Augusta, Charleston, Columbus, and Baltimore. The number of cities carrying the show had grown to 20 by January 1963, and 50 markets by 1965. TV Gospel Time was the first television broadcast dedicated to gospel music airing one year before a similar gospel theme broadcast Jubilee Showcase started to air also from Chicago, on ABC network in 1963. TV Gospel Time was also the first TV broadcast of music performed exclusively by black musicians.
