<P> Most rock historians have cited Bill Haley's 1953 song "Crazy Man, Crazy" as the first rock and roll record to reach the Billboard charts . Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" released in 1954 was the first rock and roll record to achieve significant commercial success and was joined in 1955 by a number of other records that pioneered the genre . Along with "Rock Around the Clock", several rock critics have also pointed to Presley's "That's All Right" from 1954 as a candidate for the first rock and roll record . </P> <P> The 1992 book What Was the First Rock'n'Roll Record by Jim Dawson and Steve Propes discusses 50 contenders, from Illinois Jacquet's "Blues, Part 2" (1944) to Elvis Presley's "Heartbreak Hotel" (1956), without reaching a definitive conclusion . In their introduction, the authors claim that since the modern definition of rock' n' roll was set by disc jockey Alan Freed's use of the term in his groundbreaking The Rock and Roll Show on New York's WINS in late 1954, as well as at his Rock and Roll Jubilee Balls at St. Nicholas Arena in January 1955, they chose to judge their candidates according to the music Freed spotlighted: R&B combos, black vocal groups, honking saxophonists, blues belters, and several white artists playing in the authentic R&B style (Bill Haley, Elvis Presley). The artists who appeared at Freed's earliest shows included orchestra leader Buddy Johnson, the Clovers, Fats Domino, Big Joe Turner, the Moonglows, Clyde McPhatter and the Drifters, and the Harptones . That, say Dawson and Propes, was the first music being called rock' n' roll during that short time when the term caught on all over America . Because the honking tenor saxophone was the driving force at those shows and on many of the records Freed was playing, the authors began their list with a 1944 squealing and squawking live performance by Illinois Jacquet with Jazz at the Philharmonic in Los Angeles in mid-1944 . That record, "Blues, Part 2," was released as Stinson 6024 and is still in print as a CD on the Verve label . Several notable jazz greats accompanied Jacquet on "Blues" including Paul Leslie and Slim Nadine (the monikers employed by Les Paul and Nat "King" Cole, respectively, in order to appear at the JATP concert incognito). </P> <P> In 2004, Elvis Presley's "That's All Right Mama" and Bill Haley's "Rock Around the Clock" both celebrated their 50th anniversaries . Rolling Stone felt that Presley's song was the first rock and roll recording . At the time Presley recorded the song, Big Joe Turner's "Shake, Rattle & Roll", later covered by Haley, was already at the top of the Billboard R&B charts . The Guardian felt that while there were rock'n'roll records before Presley's, his recording was the moment when all the strands came together in "perfect embodiment". Presley himself is quoted as saying: "A lot of people seem to think I started this business, but rock' n' roll was here a long time before I came along ." </P> <P> Also formative in the sound of rock and roll were Little Richard and Chuck Berry . From the early 1950s, Little Richard combined gospel with New Orleans R&B, heavy backbeat, pounding piano and wailing vocals . Ray Charles referred to Little Richard as being the artist that started a new kind of music, which was a funky style of rock'n'roll that he was performing onstage for a few years before appearing on record in 1955 as "Tutti Frutti ." Chuck Berry, with "Maybellene" (recorded on May 21, 1955, and which reached #1 on the R&B chart and #5 on the US pop chart), "Roll over Beethoven" (1956), "Rock and Roll Music" (1957) and "Johnny B. Goode" (1958), refined and developed the major elements that made rock and roll distinctive, focusing on teen life and introducing guitar intros and lead breaks that would be a major influence on subsequent rock music . Early rock and roll used the twelve - bar blues chord progression and shared with boogie woogie the four beats (usually broken down into eight eighth - notes / quavers) to a bar . Rock and roll however has a greater emphasis on the backbeat than boogie woogie . Bo Diddley's 1955 hit "Bo Diddley", with its B - side "I'm A Man", introduced a new beat and unique guitar style that inspired many artists without either side using the 12 - bar pattern--they instead played variations on a single chord each . His more insistent, driving rhythms, hard - edged electric guitar sound, African rhythms, and signature clave beat (a simple, five - accent rhythm), have remained cornerstones of rock and pop . </P>

Who set the standard for early 1950s rock & roll guitar playing