Rock and roll of the 1950s didn't appear out of thin air. It is an amalgamation of earlier popular styles. It most importantly owes a debt to the blues. The blues had emerged from the Deep South in the late 19th century out of slave field hollers and chants. Rock and roll borrowed the instrumentation, rhythm and call-and-response vocal style of the blues. Most rock and roll songs of the 1950s feature the 12 bar form, the standard i-iv-iv chord progresion and a backbeat (emphasis on the even beats of 2 and 4). Another form of American folk music, country, had an impact on rock and roll. Rockabilly, popularized by Elvis Presley, merged the blues with country music. Other famous rockabilly acts include Buddy Holly and The Crickets and Roy Orbison.
As rock and roll had primarily evolved out of the blues, an African-American style of music, it made sense that the first true rock and roll records of the 1950s were made by black artists. Record companies and radio stations, however, referred to black musicians as "R&B" musicians and their white counterparts as "rock and roll" musicians. White rock and roll musicians played cover versions of popular R&B songs, one famous example being Pat Boone's cover of Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti." In a Washington Post interview, Little Richard was quoted as saying that he "was pushed into a rhythm and blues corner to keep out of rockers' way, because that's where the money is." Black musicians, like Chuck Berry, admitted to singing in a different style in order to engage white audiences. Toward the end of the decade, rock and roll had lost most of its blues influence and teen idols like Fabian and Paul Anka had taken over.
In the 1950s rock and roll established itself as the genre for the youth. After World War II, teenagers and young adults saw an increase in their pocket money and leisure time. Companies began marketing music toward teens and young adults, which lead to a youth culture boom in the media. Radio stations started to play rock and roll records due to pressure from the influential teen audience. "Rock Around The Clock," arguably the first rock and roll record, was featured as the theme to the 1955 movie, "The Blackboard Jungle," and was so popular it led to riots at movie theatres where the film was shown. The song sparked a wave of others hits by artists like Elvis Presley, Carl Perkins and Fats Domino that helped make rock and roll the music industry mammoth it became.