Fromrock(move back and forth) +and +roll; originally a verb phrase common among African Americans, meaning "to have sexual intercourse"; it was aneuphemism that appeared in song titles since at least 1914 (Trixie Smith's "My Man Rocks Me With One Steady Roll").
As a name for a specific style of popular music from the early 1950s, popularized bydisc jockeyAlan Freed in reference to the euphemistic use in song titles.
2004, Robert Angell,Getting Into Films & Television, page56:
The dubbing theatre is a viewing theatre equipped for running the picture with a great many tracks interlocked to run synchronously. Once laced up, they can be run forwards or backwards remaining in synch; when it was first introduced this system was given the name 'rock and roll'.
2012, Colin Hart,Television Program Making, page196:
It is very rare that an entire commentary is recorded in one take. If you need to stop for some reason — the performance isn't quite right, there's a rustle of papers, etc — you can always go back on the recording and pick it up from the point at which it went wrong. This is known asrock and roll.
2014, K. G. Jackson, G. B. Townsend,TV & Video Engineer's Reference Book, pages38–7:
An alternative method is the use of ADR (automated dialogue replacement), which consists basically of a high speedrock and roll dubbing system and a programmable locating device.
When pronounced, the word "and" in this phrase, as in many others, is frequently reduced to a mere/ən/ or/n/ (i.e. pronounced "rok-an-roll" or "raw-kn-roll). When this occurs, it is often reflected in contracted spellings likerock 'n' roll (seealternative forms above).
Rock and roll is sometimes taken to encompass a particular style of music from roughly the mid-1940s to circa 1966. It is otherwise taken to be largely synonymous withrock music, which encompasses a much wider range of more modern styles.
Does everyone know what car they're going in? Then let'srock and roll!
1956 February, W. A. Tuplin, “Hot Work on a "Star"”, inRailway Magazine, page90:
He puts the brakes on here and there down the next four miles of curves, but then opens her out so that sherocks and rolls through Totnes at a mile a minute for a flying start on the worst bank of the whole trip, five steep miles up to Rattery Box and four not so steep past Brent up to Wrangaton.
2017, Ben J. Heijdra,Foundations of Modern Macroeconomics, 3rd edition, Oxford University Press, page484:
