I'm not 100% sure about this, but black soul music which supposedly begat jazz, blues, and rock-and-roll is largely inspired by the English, Scottish, and Irish folk musics of early America.     Applachian Folk music     African Music    It's sort of like: the African slaves combined their African music with the American folk music of that time, then that combination sort of evolved parallel, into blues, and then into jazz and rock'n'roll. BUT those styles would be very different or would not exist at all if not for the European influence.