Rock and roll (often written as rock & roll or rock 'n' roll) is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s,[1][2] primarily from a combination of African-American genres such as blues, jump blues, jazz, and gospel music,[3] together with Western swing and country music.[4] Though elements of rock and roll can be heard in blues records from the 1920s[5] and in country records of the 1930s,[4] the genre did not acquire its name until the 1950s.[6][7]
The term "rock and roll" now has at least two different meanings, both in common usage: referring to the first wave of music that originated in the US in the 1950s and would later develop into the more encompassing international style known as "rock music", and as a term simply synonymous with the rock music and culture in the broad sense.[8] For the purpose of differentiation, this article deals with the first definition.
In the earliest rock and roll styles of the late 1940s and early 1950s, either the piano or saxophone was often the lead instrument, but these were generally replaced or supplemented by guitar in the middle to late 1950s.[9] The beat is essentially a blues rhythm with an accentuated backbeat, the latter almost always provided by a snare drum.[10] Classic rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars (one lead, one rhythm), a string bass or (after the mid-1950s) an electric bass guitar, and a drum kit.[9] Beyond simply a musical style, rock and roll, as seen in movies and on television, influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes, and language. It went on to spawn various sub-genres, often without the initially characteristic backbeat, that are now more commonly called simply "rock music" or "rock".

rock & roll 是一种流行音乐流派，它起源并发展于20世纪40年代后期到20世纪50年代早期的美国。它主要是把美国黑人的音乐流派例如蓝调，跳跃蓝调，爵士，福音音乐和和美国本土音乐例如西部摇摆和乡村音乐结合在了一起。尽管rock & roll 的音乐元素在20世纪20年代的布鲁斯音乐和20世纪30年代的乡村音乐中就能被听到，但是这种流派直到20世纪50年代才有了它自己的名字。
术语"rock & roll"现在至少有两种不同的意思，两种常用的意思：一种指发源于20世纪50年代美国的第一波音乐浪潮，这种音乐后来发展为包含更多内容的国际音乐风格——rock misic（摇滚乐）。它的另一层意思仅仅是作为一个和广义上的摇滚乐和摇滚文化具有相同意思的术语。由于目的的不同，这篇文章将它定义为前一种意思。
在20世纪40年代后期和20世纪50年代早期，最早的rock & roll 风格里，钢琴和萨克斯常常是主要的配器。但是到了20世纪50年代中期，他们普遍都被吉他所取代或者在演奏中补充了吉他。它的节奏原本是布鲁斯韵律辅以加重的基调强节奏，基调强节奏几乎都由小军鼓来提供。古典rock & roll 的演奏方式通常是用一到两把吉他（一把主音，一把节奏），一把弦贝司或者（二十世纪50十年代中期之后）一把电贝司，一套架子鼓来进行。rock & roll 除了仅仅作为一种音乐形式之外，它也常常可以在电影里和电视中看到，影响了人们的生活方式，时尚，生活态度，和语言。它继续衍生除了丰富的子流派，这些子流派通常都没有rock & roll 最初的基调强节奏的特征，它们现在通常仅仅被叫做rock music或者”rock“。

Terminology
The term "rock and roll" now has at least two different meanings, both in common usage. The American Heritage Dictionary[11] and the Merriam-Webster Dictionary[12] both define rock and roll as synonymous with rock music. Encyclopædia Britannica, on the other hand, regards it as the music that originated in the mid-1950s and later developed "into the more encompassing international style known as rock music".[13]
The phrase "rocking and rolling" originally described the movement of a ship on the ocean, but was used by the early twentieth century, both to describe the spiritual fervor of black church rituals[14] and as a sexual analogy. Various gospel, blues and swing recordings used the phrase before it became used more frequently – but still intermittently – in the 1940s, on recordings and in reviews of what became known as "rhythm and blues" music aimed at a black audience.[14]
In 1934, the song "Rock and Roll" by The Boswell Sisters had been in the film Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round. In 1942, Billboard magazine columnist Maurie Orodenker started to use the term "rock-and-roll" to describe upbeat recordings such as "Rock Me" by Sister Rosetta Tharpe.[15] By 1943, the "Rock and Roll Inn" in South Merchantville, New Jersey, was established as a music venue.[16] In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing this music style while popularizing the phrase to describe it.[17]

术语解释
术语"rock & roll"现在至少有两种不同的意思，这两种意思在共同使用着。美国传统辞典和韦氏大辞典都把rock & roll 定义为rock music的同义词。另一方面，大英百科全书却把它当作发源于20世纪50年代美国的音乐形式，这种音乐后来发展为包含更多内容的国际音乐风格——rock misic（摇滚乐）。
短语"rocking and rolling" 最初被用来描述海洋中船的运动，但在二十世纪早期，它常用于描述两方面的意思，一方面描述黑人教堂仪式的精神激情，一方面又作为性的比喻。二十世纪四十年代，针对黑人观众的节奏布鲁斯乐（R&B）变得众所周知，在它的评论与录音里，"rock & roll"短语被频繁的使用，然而这仍然是断断续续的使用，在此之前，丰富的福音音乐，布鲁斯乐，摇摆乐唱片都使用过它。
在1934年，鲍斯维尔姐妹演唱的歌曲“Rock and Roll”出现在了电影”大西洋彼岸的旋转木马“里。1942年，Bill Board杂志的专栏作家 Maurie Orodenker开始使用这个术语来描述节奏欢快的歌曲，比如Sister Rosetta Tharpe的歌曲"Rock me"。到1943年，新泽西州的南默钱特维尔的”Rock and Roll 旅馆“被确立为一个音乐场所。在1951年，俄亥俄州克利夫兰市的DJ Alan Freed 开始玩这种音乐风格，同时，推广了这个短语来描述它。

Rock Me - Sister Rosetta Tharpe

Origins
The origins of rock and roll have been fiercely debated by commentators and historians of music.[18] There is general agreement that it arose in the Southern United States – a region which would produce most of the major early rock and roll acts – through the meeting of various influences that embodied a merging of the African musical tradition with European instrumentation.[19] The migration of many former slaves and their descendants to major urban centers like Memphis and north to New York City, Detroit, Chicago, Cleveland and Buffalo (See: Second Great Migration (African American)) meant that black and white residents were living in close proximity in larger numbers than ever before, and as a result heard each other's music and even began to emulate each other's fashions.[20][21] Radio stations that made white and black forms of music available to both groups, the development and spread of the gramophone record, and African American musical styles such asjazz and swing which were taken up by white musicians, aided this process of "cultural collision".[22]

关于rock & roll 的起源，乐评人和音乐史学家已经展开了激烈的辩论。普遍的观点是它发源于美国南部，一个产生了主流的早期rock & roll的大多数元素的地区。体现了非洲人的音乐传统和欧洲乐器混合。早期的奴隶和他们的子孙迁移到了主要城市的中心地带，比如孟菲斯，向北则迁移到纽约，底特律，芝加哥，克利夫兰和布法罗等市，（注意：第二次大迁移（美国黑人）意味着比从前多得多的黑人和白人居民生活得极为贴近，这种情况导致了双方开始听彼此的音乐，甚至开始模仿彼此的时尚，制作白人和黑人音乐形式的广播电台也被两方所接纳，黑胶唱片的发展和普及以及被白人音乐家们所接纳的黑人音乐风格，比如爵士乐，摇摆乐等，辅助了这个文化碰撞的进程。
这段话有一句翻译不甚准确。

The immediate roots of rock and roll lay in the rhythm and blues, then called "race music", and country music of the 1940s and 1950s.[18] Particularly significant influences were jazz, blues, gospel, country, and folk.[18] Commentators differ in their views of which of these forms were most important and the degree to which the new music was a re-branding of African American rhythm and blues for a white market, or a new hybrid of black and white forms.[23][24][25]

rock & roll 的直接根源是20世纪40年代和50年代的节奏布鲁斯，那时叫做“race music（黑人音乐），和乡村音乐。对它有特别重大影响的音乐有：爵士，布鲁斯，福音音乐，乡村乐，民谣，关于哪种音乐对于rock & roll 的影响最大，以及哪种新音乐在迎合白人市场的美国黑人节奏布鲁斯乐的重塑，或者白人音乐和黑人音乐形式的混合上地位更高，乐评人历来众说纷纭。

In the 1930s jazz, and particularly swing, both in urban based dance bands and blues-influenced country swing, was among the first music to present African American sounds for a predominantly white audience.[24][26] The 1940s saw the increased use of blaring horns (including saxophones), shouted lyrics and boogie woogie beats in jazz based music. During and immediately after World War II, with shortages of fuel and limitations on audiences and available personnel, large jazz bands were less economical and tended to be replaced by smaller combos, using guitars, bass and drums.[18][27] In the same period, particularly on the West Coast and in the Midwest, the development of jump blues, with its guitar riffs, prominent beats and shouted lyrics, prefigured many later developments.[18] In the documentary film Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll, Keith Richards proposes that Chuck Berry developed his brand of rock and roll, by transposing the familiar two-note lead line of jump blues piano directly to the electric guitar, creating what is instantly recognizable as rock guitar. Similarly, country boogie and Chicago electric blues supplied many of the elements that would be seen as characteristic of rock and roll.[18]复习得好累。

在二十世纪三十年代，建立在城市舞团和受布鲁斯影响的乡村摇摆乐基础上的爵士乐，特别是摇摆乐，成为了把美国黑人的声音呈献给主流白人观众的第一批音乐。20世纪40年代，刺耳的喇叭（包括萨克斯），呐喊出的歌词，以及建立在爵士乐基础上的布吉伍吉节奏的运用开始增加。二战期间以及战后，由于燃料的缺乏，以及观众和有效人员的限制，大型爵士乐团由于经费短缺，逐渐被小型组合所取代，这些小组合使用吉他，贝司，和鼓作为配器。在同一时期，特别是在西海岸和中西部，跳跃布鲁斯以及它的吉他riff，突出的节奏，以及呐喊的歌词预示了许多后来的发展情况。在纪录片 Hail! Hail! Rock 'n' Roll中，Keith Richards提议Chuck Berry 发展他的rock and roll乐队，通过把相似的两个跳跃布鲁斯的钢琴音符用吉他变换弹奏出来，创造了能够很快辨识出来的摇滚吉他，与之相似，乡村布吉以及芝加哥电声蓝调提供了许多后来rock and roll 所特有的元素。

Rock and roll arrived at a time of considerable technological change, soon after the development of the electric guitar,amplifier and microphone, and the 45 rpm record.[18] There were also changes in the record industry, with the rise of independent labels like Atlantic, Sun and Chess servicing niche audiences and a similar rise of radio stations that played their music.[18] It was the realization that relatively affluent white teenagers were listening to this music that led to the development of what was to be defined as rock and roll as a distinct genre.[18]
这段明天翻译~

在电吉他，扩音器，麦克风，以及四十五转黑胶唱片开始发展之后，rock & roll 也到了该考虑进行技术性变革的时期。由于服务小众观众的独立厂牌，如Atlantic, Sun and Chess等的崛起以及播放这些厂牌出产的音乐的广播电台的崛起，致使唱片业也产生了一些变化。相对来说比较富裕的白人青年正在听一种音乐，这种音乐致使rock and roll 被界定为一种独特音乐流派的进程得以发展。

Because the development of rock and roll was an evolutionary process, no single record can be identified as unambiguously "the first" rock and roll record.[28] Contenders for the title of "first rock and roll record" include Goree Carter's "Rock Awhile" (1949);[29] Jimmy Preston's "Rock the Joint" (1949), which was later covered by Bill Haley & His Comets in 1952;[30]and "Rocket 88" by Jackie Brenston and his Delta Cats (backed by Ike Turner and his band The Kings of Rhythm), recorded bySam Phillips for Sun Records in March 1951.[31] In terms of its wide cultural impact across society in the US and elsewhere,Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock", recorded in April 1954 but not a commercial success until the following year, is generally recognized as an important milestone, but it was preceded by many recordings from earlier decades in which elements of rock and roll can be clearly discerned.[28][32][33] Other artists with early rock and roll hits included Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Fats Domino, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Gene Vincent.[31] Chuck Berry's 1955 classic "Maybellene" in particular features a distorted electric guitar solo with warm overtones created by his small valve amplifier.[34] However, the use of distortion was predated by Guitar Slim,[35] Willie Johnson ofHowlin' Wolf's band,[36] and Pat Hare; the latter two also made use of distorted power chords in the early 1950s.[32] In addition, Bo Diddley introduced a new beat and unique electric guitar style,[37] heavily influenced by African music and in turn influencing many later artists.[38][39][40]