Back in the day, American slaves communicated secret codes past their white masters with music.
And in 1951, when Alan Freed coined the phrase “rock and roll,” he was doing the same thing.
In blues and jazz, the words mean “having great sex”, Good Rockin’ Tonight, 1948, and My Man Rocks Me With One Steady Roll, 1922.
These coded lyrics were unfamiliar to the white broadcasters and gave Freed a way to cross the color barrier.
They introduced white kids to rhythm and blues, where they soon learned how to Rock Around The Clock.
