For the people who try saying the terminology Rock and Roll is of Black slang origins.....think again.:D       The word rock  had a long history in the English language as a metaphor for to shake up, to disturb or to incite. Shakespeare used it in his play Venus and Adonis when he wrote My throbbing heart shall rock thee day and night. The verb Roll was a medieval metaphor which meant having sex. Writers for hundreds of years have used the phrases They had a roll in the hay or I rolled her in the clover. In an old English sea chantey we can find the lyrics:   Oh do, me Johnny Bowker . . .  Come Rock'n'Roll me over       Also in 1934 the all White, female vocal group: The Boswell Sisters, made a song called Rock and Roll. It refers to the rolling rocking rhythm of the sea.    Ella Fitzgerald, the famous Black female singer, copied her style after the Boswell Sisters. :D     In her youth, she wanted to be a dancer, although she loved listening to jazz recordings by  Louis Armstrong ,  Bing Crosby   and  The Boswell Sisters . She idolized the lead singer  Connee Boswell , later saying, My mother brought home one of her records, and I fell in love with it....I tried so hard to sound just like her. [5]        Connee herself is widely considered one of the greatest jazz female vocalists and was a major influence on Ella Fitzgerald.    Boswell Sisters   http://singers.com/groupimages/boswell.jpg   http://singers.com/jazz/vintage/boswell.html