Hit Singles: 1946 | 1947 | 1948 | 1949 | 1950 | 1951 | 1952 | 1953 | 1954 | 1955 | 1956 | 1957 | 1958 | 1959

Note: record charts were not compiled in Australia until 1958. For the years prior to 1958, the American record charts and other popular recorded music of each year is listed.

Traditional popular music such as the bebop era of jazz hit its peak and climaxed as early rock and roll music. Led by Elvis Presley, it was embraced by teenagers and the emerging youth culture as the first wave of the Baby Boom reached its teen years (1959). At the time, rock 'n' roll was generally dismissed or condemned by older generations. Other prominent rock 'n' roll musicians included Paul Anka, Chuck Berry, Bo Diddley, Buddy Holly, Jerry Lee Lewis, Little Richard.
The massive popularity and eventual worldwide scope of rock 'n' roll gave it an unprecedented social impact. Far beyond simply a musical style, rock and roll, as seen in movies and in the new medium of television, influenced lifestyles, fashion, attitudes, and language.
Rock 'n' roll music (also written as "rock and roll") emerged in the late 1940s and early 1950s as a mixing together of various popular musical genres of the time. These included the blues - particularly the electric forms being developed in Chicago, New Orleans, Texas, California and elsewhere - piano-based boogie woogie, and jump blues, which were collectively becoming known as rhythm and blues. Also in the melting pot, creating this new musical form, were country and western music (particularly Western swing), and gospel music.
Going back even further, rock 'n' roll can trace one lineage to the old Five Points, Manhattan district of mid-19th century New York City, the scene of the first fusion of heavily rhythmic African shuffles and sand dances with melody-driven European genres, particularly the Irish jig.
The term "rock and roll" was originally a nautical term which has been used by sailors for centuries. It refers to the rock (fore and aft motion) and roll (sideways motion) of a ship. The expression can be found in English literature going back to the 1600's, always referring to boats and ships. The term entered black spiritual music in the 1800's ("Rock my soul in the bosom of Abraham" etc), but with a religious meaning "to shake up, to disturb or to incite". It was used as a reference to a powerful spiritual experience in which participants felt God's power upon them. The term was first recorded as such on a phonograph in 1916, in a minstrel recording of black gospel on the Little Wonder record label called "The Camp Meeting Jubilee."
The religious meaning was used less and less as the term Rock 'n' roll became secular black slang for dancing or sex in the American South. The use of rock, roll, rock and roll, etc., with reference to sexual intercourse, is traditional in blues, which was the music form they listened to. The term was used as a double entendre, ostensibly referring to dancing, but with the subtextual meaning of sex, as in Roy Brown's "Good Rocking Tonight." Its use in this manner appears to have been derived from 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".
The term Rock and roll was first so used to describe the music form by Alan Freed, a Cleveland disc jockey, in 1951, it having appeared on record for the first time in 1922 on Trixie Smith's "My Man Rocks Me With One Steady Roll". It was used by Freed to describe the new music evolving at that time, that was characterized by the use of electric guitars, a strong rhythm with an accent on the offbeat, and youth-oriented lyrics.
This "new form" of music was born of several traditions: indigenous American jazz, rhythm and blues, swing, and the charismatic gospel style. Clearly, rock and roll had its major roots in the black culture of the time.  As Maurice Isserman and Michael Kazin note in America Divided: The Civil War of the 1960s, "popular music - especially rock and roll and the rhythm and blues from which it sprang - became a major arena of generational strife. The young people who listened to, danced to, and played rock and R & B were implicitly rejecting the notion that creativity obeyed a color line". 

The Rise of Rock 'n Roll
In 1950, over 90% of Australian households owned at least one radio and this medium served as the major form of entertainment. Radio programmes traditionally included drama, comedy and mystery serials and some music, but it was not long before popular music began to rule the airwaves. Those who sang these popular songs became known as "pop singers," both male - Dean Martin, Frank Sinatra, Perry Como - and female - Patti Page, Doris Day. Charts began to be kept and published by radio stations and record companies to advise audiences as to who was "top of the pops".
In 1954, these normally sedate popular music charts included the first, universally recognized rock 'n roll song.  The song was recorded by Bill Haley and the Comets and, fittingly, was entitled "Shake, Rattle, and Roll."
 
Included among the pioneers and now legends of rock and roll are:
Chuck Berry, "Johnny B. Goode" 
Little Richard, "Good Golly Miss Molly"
Eddie Cochran, "Summertime Blues"
Carl Perkins, "Blue Suede Shoes"

The rise of Elvis Presley has been well-documented. Essentially, Presley grew up poor and was steeped in the gospel music of his native Mississippi. In addition, the dominant musical influences of his time and place were "country" (with major recording studios in Memphis) and "rhythm and blues" (played locally by black artists). The results of Presley's emergence were two-fold. He is credited with "crossing over" and making rock and roll acceptable to white audiences and with being the first example of a national rock and roll "superstar." Presley achieved fame not only for his music but for his flamboyant (and sexual) style of performing on stage. So much so that Ed Sullivan, host of a highly rated CBS variety show and an arbiter of which performers reached the mainstream television audience, only permitted Presley to be shown from the waist up during his television appearance.

The Rockabilly Sound
The style of Elvis Presley was dubbed "rockabilly" because it represented a merger of blues and country. A number of artists were recorded by new independent record companies (e.g., Sun Records) located in Memphis and Nashville, Tennessee. Listen first to a forerunner of the "rockabilly" sound:
Hank Williams, Sr., "Hey, Good Looking"
Buddy Holly and the Crickets,  "Peggy Sue" and "Rave On"          
Every Brothers, "Bye Bye Love"   
Roy Orbison, "Dream Baby
Ricky Nelson, "Hello Mary Lou"

The Doo Wop Sound
Doo Wop was a sound that originated in the urban North and has often been described as the "street corner" music of the 1950s.  Its characteristics include an emphasis on harmony, a range of different voices or parts, and "nonsense syllables" used for the rhythmic background (like "do wop" or "sha na na na").

Rock and Roll Austrtalia-style
One of the great showmen in Australian history was Johnny O'Keefe. Born in Sydney his career started in the great rock'n'roll era of the 50's. Johnny injected enthusiasm directly into the arm of Australian showbusiness and started many of Australia's local talent on the road to success. His concerts were sellouts and his recordings were snapped up by the Australian public. Despite many setbacks his enthusiasm always shone through. He made many comebacks all of them successful, take for example 'She's my Baby' and 'So Tough'.
In the late 50's there were six Australian artists on the '2UE Top 40', an absolute thermometer of world class talent at this time. On the 12 September 1959, Johnny Rebb had 'Pathway to Paradise', Col Joye had 'Bye Bye Baby', Johnny O'keefe had 'Why Do They Doubt Our Love', Frank Ifield had 'True', Allan Dale had 'Crackin' Up' and Dig Richards was there singing 'I Wanna Love You'. These artists were true pioneers for the early Australian rock'n'roll scene and without them and others such as, Roland Storm, Vicky Forest, Barry Stanton, Lonnie Lee, The Delltones and Laurel Lee we would have only the Americans dominating the airwaves.