For those of us born too late to experience the birth of rock 'n' roll first-hand, an unlikely parallel might be drawn to the Internet. It has been written that no one planned the Internet; it just happened. And the same could be said of rock 'n' roll. No one planned rock 'n' roll, and it overtook the musical culture of America and then the world, with a sudden impact that revolutionized popular music as surely as the Internet is revolutionizing telecommunications.

It has often been said that rock 'n' roll was the result of cross-breeding between rhythm & blues and country & western music. That's a large part of the equation, of course, but hardly the entire picture. Gospel music, swing jazz, blues combos, country swing bands, Tin Pan Alley publishers — they were just some of the other key building blocks of the music.

Few would dispute that rock 'n' roll owes most of its origins to the musical traditions of America's Black population. From Africa, Blacks brought a strong oral musical tradition of music for storytelling, recreation, and work. Continued and modified in the United States under incredibly harsh conditions, these elements would provide the backbone of blues music. As segregated as American society has been, there has been constant personal interchange and cultural exchange between races throughout the nation's history. The White southern population of the United States had its own musical conventions: Anglo-Saxon folk songs, Appalachian music, and religious music for the church. African-Americans absorbed influences from Whites in their use of stringed instruments and harmonies. The development of jazz around the turn of the 20th century introduced larger bands and stronger rhythmic elements.

Just as technological developments affected the pace and complexity of life in the early 20th century, so did it accelerate the growth of popular music. The phonograph record enabled artists to reach and influence a large audience of listeners and fellow musicians. Huge numbers of Blacks from the south migrated to urban communities, where music and dancing took place in considerably more crowded and hectic environments. And to be heard in these venues, musicians eventually had no choice but to use electronic amplification and, eventually, electric instruments.

As early as the 1930s, strong intimations of rock 'n' roll can be found in rhythmic, increasingly riff-driven swing jazz music, as well as blues-influenced country recordings by the Delmore Brothers, Bob Wills, Jimmie Rodgers, the Maddox Brothers and others. Charlie Christian pioneered the use of the electric guitar in the early 1940s, at the same time as jazz musicians like Lionel Hampton were putting out hits like "Flyin' Home". As the '40s progressed, jazz musicians like Illinois Jacquet, Louis Jordan, Jay McShann and others upped the R & B quotient with honking saxes, "shouter" vocals, and pounding boogie-woogie piano.

Big bands became increasingly less economically viable after the Second World War, and smaller combos became more in vogue. They still had to play just as loudly as ever, though, and riffs, electric guitars, "shouting" R & B vocals, and prominent beats were usually the ticket. So it was that jump blues came into style, paced by Louis Jordan and singers like Wynonie Harris, Tiny Bradshaw and Roy Brown.

Jump blues itself wasn't far removed from rock 'n' roll, and there were several other major changes afoot as the '50s began. The Delmore Brothers recorded frenetic country-boogie that anticipated the spirit of rockabilly. Vocal groups took the smooth popular stylings of Black harmony ensembles like the Mills Brothers and the Ink Spots and added a more pronounced R & B and gospel feel. After Delta musicians like Muddy Waters amplified their guitars and added rhythm sections, a fullbodied electric blues band sound was born in Chicago, Memphis, and other urban centers. Fats Domino, Lloyd Price and others pioneered the keyboard-and-horn driven grooves of New Orleans R & B. Les Paul took electric guitar wattage to new heights with his innovative multi-track recordings.

There were also major rumblings in the music industry and American society itself. Independent companies like Atlantic, King, Sun, Chess, and numerous others recorded R & B and hillbilly music, catering to audiences that the major labels deemed too specialized and uncouth to service. Young White listeners began tuning in radio stations that played music for these supposed minority tastes. And the increasingly affluent economy meant that these young listeners had more time and money than ever to spend on records.

These disparate strands began to collide and merge as the '50s progressed. There are a great number of opinions as to what could be called the first "rock 'n' roll" record; indeed, an entire book (the fine What Was the First Rock 'n' Roll Record?) has been written on the subject. Certainly, early sides by Jackie Brenston, Bill Haley, Lloyd Price, Hank Ballard, Fats Domino and others have strong claims. Whatever it was, and whenever it became a style, by 1954 there were several records in the Top 30 that couldn't, from a latter-day vantage point, be called anything but rock 'n' roll: Bill Haley's primitive rockabilly ("Shake, Rattle, and Roll"), the saucy R & B of Hank Ballard ("Work with Me Annie"). The music needed a name, and several theories have been advanced as to how the term "rock 'n' roll" came about. Influential Cleveland and New York DJ Alan Freed's claim to have originated the phrase is probably the most widely circulated, though rocking and rolling had long been a euphemism, especially in the Black community, for dancing, partying, and more private pleasures.

In 1955, Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" became the first number one rock 'n' roll hit; Little Richard and Chuck Berry had their first national smashes that year. In early 1956, Elvis Presley's number one hit "Heartbreak Hotel" ended any doubt that rock 'n' roll would fade.

An emerging regional sensation, Elvis pioneered rockabilly on his legendary recordings for Sun records in 1954 and 1955 by marrying the feels of the blues and country boogie with his hard-driving rhythms and frenetic vocals. His jump to a major label — and assimilation of slightly more pop-oriented values into his recordings that didn't diminish his genius in the slightest (at least at first) — made rock 'n' roll an international phenomenon. His massive success, and the success of the countless rock 'n' rollers who followed, marked the success of rock 'n' roll in the evolution of music history.