Claim: AC/DC has dubbed their music as a genre of music.

Rock and roll -LRB- often written as rock & roll or rock 'n' roll -RRB- is a genre of popular music that originated and evolved in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s , from African American musical styles such as gospel , jump blues , jazz , boogie woogie , and rhythm and blues , along with country music . While elements of rock and roll can be heard in blues records from the 1920s and in country records of the 1930s , the genre did not acquire its name until 1954 .   According to Greg Kot , `` rock and roll '' refers to a style of popular music originating in the U.S. in the 1950s prior to its development by the mid-1960s into `` the more encompassing international style known as rock music , though the latter also continued to be known as rock and roll . '' For the purpose of differentiation , this article deals with the first definition .   In the earliest rock and roll styles of the late 1940s and early 1950s , either the piano or saxophone was often the lead instrument , but these were generally replaced or supplemented by guitar in the middle to late 1950s . The beat is essentially a blues rhythm with an accentuated backbeat , the latter almost always provided by a snare drum . Classic rock and roll is usually played with one or two electric guitars -LRB- one lead , one rhythm -RRB- , a double bass or string bass or -LRB- after the mid-1950s -RRB- an electric bass guitar , and a drum kit .   Beyond simply a musical style , rock and roll , as seen in movies and on television , influenced lifestyles , fashion , attitudes , and language . In addition , rock and roll may have contributed to the civil rights movement because both African-American and white American teens enjoyed the music . It went on to spawn various genres , often without the initially characteristic backbeat , that are now more commonly called simply `` rock music '' or `` rock '' .