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Okay, I admit it: I was a bit disingenuous with the title of this piece. Strictly speaking, this is not the first rock & roll song. It isn't even about rock & roll dancing and it doesn't have a rock & roll beat -far from it. This is actually a song from the swing era.
But it is the first known rock & roll record, in the sense that the title of the song is "Rock And Roll" and the phrase "rock and roll" is sung over and over. And over.
And this isn't even the Boswell Sisters' best work. In fact it was the B side of their recording "You Oughta Be In Pictures" which later became the unofficial anthem of the American film industry after Rudy Vallee covered it and turned it into a bona fide hit. But the song does have a place in rock & roll history, if only as a footnote.
Here is the scene from the movie Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round where the Boswell Sisters are part of the entertainment on a cruise ship, singing about how they'll somehow be dancing and romancing "in the rolling and the rocking of the sea":
The film itself belongs to that genre of musical-comedy-whodunnits that were popular at the time. The story revolves around the murder of a gangster on a cruise ship, and features Jack Benny as the director of a company of entertainers on said cruise. Is the movie worth watching? It is, if only for the chance to see Jack Benny before he was funny:
Okay, I admit it: I was a bit disingenuous with the title of this piece. Strictly speaking, this is not the first rock & roll song. It isn't even about rock & roll dancing and it doesn't have a rock & roll beat -far from it. This is actually a song from the swing era.
But it is the first known rock & roll record, in the sense that the title of the song is "Rock And Roll" and the phrase "rock and roll" is sung over and over. And over.
And this isn't even the Boswell Sisters' best work. In fact it was the B side of their recording "You Oughta Be In Pictures" which later became the unofficial anthem of the American film industry after Rudy Vallee covered it and turned it into a bona fide hit. But the song does have a place in rock & roll history, if only as a footnote.
Here is the scene from the movie Transatlantic Merry-Go-Round where the Boswell Sisters are part of the entertainment on a cruise ship, singing about how they'll somehow be dancing and romancing "in the rolling and the rocking of the sea":
You are such a gorgeous doofus, my love!
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