I would go into it more, but then we would be fighting forever about the difference between rock n roll, rockabilly, country,white "folk music", country western, who made them etc. But chuck and other black blues and "country" artists made rock n roll wheter a song of his borrowed from a country song that catapulted him to stardom.
"Mabelline" was in 1955...Elvis recorded "That's All Right (Mama) in 1954 (borrowed from Blues). "Rock Around The Clock" by Bill Haley & His Comets was also in 1954...but WRITTEN in 1952 by Max Freeman and James Myers. They say Rock & Roll never would have happened without Big Joe Turner...but his first Rock track "Shake, Rattle, & Roll" was also in 1954. Seems to me Rock & Roll (both black and white) emerged at the same time.
"Rockabilly" is just the TYPE of Rock & Roll music performed in the 1950's.
"There is general agreement that it arose in the southern United States of America - the region which would produce most of the major early rock and roll acts - through the meeting of the different musical traditions which had developed from
transatlantic African slavery and largely European immigration in that region."
M. T. Bertrand, Race, Rock, and Elvis: Music in American Life (University of Illinois Press, 2000), pp. 21-2.
"The combination of elements of white and black music in rock and roll, inevitably provoked strong reactions within the US, with many condemning its breaking down of barriers based on color."
G. C. Altschuler, All shook up: how rock 'n' roll changed America (Oxford: Oxford University Press US, 2003), p. 35.
It's not a black or white thing. Rock & Roll came from both backgrounds. It's roots come from BOTH sides....and the first Rock & Roll hits were from black and white artists alike.
