No one person started rock 'n' roll. It was a black and white alloy of Fats Domino, Lloyd Price, Ike Turner, Hank Williams, Joe Turner, Louis Jordan, Ray Charles, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly - and Elvis Presley.
Presley himself never claimed to have invented rock 'n' roll. He always talked about how much he was influenced by black gospel music and the blues, which he listened to on the radio growing up in Tupelo, Miss. His absorption of these black influences is what allowed him to have a black feel to his music when he entered the Sun Records recording studio 50 years ago.
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at the lack of African American reception. Talk to people today and you would think we were always into him. We weren't. When he came to America black people were not into him as well as white people. It took Clapton to introduce him to white and black audiences.
