Happy Birthday Rock and Roll! Today is the official 50th anniversary of rock and roll. It was on this day in 1954 that Bill Haley and the Comets recorded "Rock Around the Clock" the song most often regarded as the first rock and roll recording http://www.emediawire.com/releases/2004/4/emw117635.htm
excellent. i love rock and roll, anything by Jerry Lee Lewis, Fats Domino, Little Richard....etc etc. gotta go, feel like dancin.
Some other contenders (for "first rock and roll song"): http://oldies.about.com/library/weekly/aa062302a.htm I don't know if it's really rock and roll, but definitely try to hear Big Mama Thornton's version of "Hound Dog". Blows Elvis' version right out of the water!
In my music history class at school they teach us that Arthur Smith's song "Guitar Boogie", recorded in '48, I think, was the first rock recording. But it's hard to define exactly where rock grew out of old jazz and R&B styles... a lot of those early recordings sound like hybrids of a few different styles.
