At the start of the 1950s, most records rotated at 78 rpm; they were either 10″ (holding about 3 minutes of music per side) or 12″ (about 5 minutes of music); they were brittle and generally coated in shellac. By the decade’s end, 78s had fallen out of favor, replaced by so-called 45s, or singles, and albums, Long Playing records (LPs) which rotated at 33 1/3 rpm.

         The light vocal pop which dominated the airwaves and charts the latter half of the ’40s continued into the early ’50s with artists such as Patti Page, Tony Bennett, Nat King Cole, and Perry Como particularly prevalent; but, as always, a new style of “outsider” music was brewing which drew from blues, jazz, gospel, country, folk, and, especially, R&B sources. Sailors had once used the term rock ‘n’ roll (or rock & roll) in describing how a sailing ship moves at sea, but by the 1920s blues artists had picked up the term as a sexual metaphor. When white Cleveland deejay Alan Freed began using rock & roll to refer to the mostly new, black music he was playing in the early to mid-’50s to his racially mixed audience, the music and the term began to catch on.

         There is some debate about what was the first true rock & roll record with many arguing for Ike Turner’s and Jackie Brenston’s 1951 recording of “Rocket 88”; but there is little doubt that “Rock Around the Clock” by Bill Haley and His Comets was the powerful popular breakthrough in 1955 that opened the floodgates for the likes of Little Richard, Chuck Berry, and Elvis Presley. 

         -Steve Williams (6/5/23) – Greatest Recording Artists Blog Post #16