First use of the term "Rock and Roll" ?

[medjuck]

The new Mosaic Webb/Fitzgerald set includes "Rock It for Me" the bridge of which goes:

It's true that once upon a time
The opera was the thing,
But today the rage is rhythm and rhyme,
So won't you satisfy my soul

With the rock and roll?"

That's from 1937! Does anyone here know of an earlier use of the term?

Edited March 1, 2014 by medjuck

[Swinging Swede]

There is this from 1934:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6b5oWwFUhN0

[medjuck]

That's great!

[Big Beat Steve]

Wow, a subject matter you could carry on about forever.

No doubt this has been explored and written about by blues and "roots music" researchers before but where to find the sources and wuotations in a hurry?

Trixie Smith recorded "My Man Rocks Me ("With One Steady Roll") on September, 1922 for Black Swan. A pretty allusion to where the term originally came from.

And no doubt there are other cases in blues lyrics from roughly that period that "rock and roll" too.

[John L]

Yes, "rock always had that connotation in the blues. "Roll" often referred to piano rolls - boogie woogie. Of course, there is also "jelly roll."