Well, really, it's a lot more complicated than that. Rock and roll was born out of a fusion of a tradition of African slave music (rhythm and blues type stuff) with the restlessness and rebellion of the Baby Boomer generation, who grew up in the prosperous American 50s to parents who were of the WWII era.
There is a lot of controversy around what the first rock and roll song truly is. It is mostly agreed that rock and roll developed out of the rhythm and blues of the 1940s and 1950s. At the time, "rhythm and blues" was a catchall term for any music produced by African Americans, although someone categorized it as "rocking, jazzy urban music with a strong insistent beat." It developed out of the tradition of jazz and blues, and was also influenced by the boogie woogie rhythms that had sprung up in the 40s. Boogie woogie is a form of piano-based blues that is associated with dancing. There is a long laundry list of characteristics that it supposedly has, but I thought this "typical bassline" was more informative.
The term "rock and roll" had been used as slang by the blues and R&B communities to refer both to dancing and to sex. Around 1951, Cleveland radio DJ Alan Freed first coined the term to describe the kind of music he was playing. Around this time, a lot of black R&B artists were playing music that was indistinguishable from early rock and roll.
The articles don't really give a sense of just how revolutionary this must have been. This was the 50s, after all, and almost everything about rock and roll was controversial or naughty (this was pre-Civil Rights America, it was the music of black people, it was covertly all about sex and dancing and it was probably all considered degenerate and immoral).
One of the candidates for "first rock and roll song" is Bill Haley's Rock Around the Clock, recorded in 1954. Haley used to be a country music performer who switched to this newly emerging rock and roll style. His band ("Bill Haley and His Comets") is considered the first white band to bring the rock and roll style to national attention, and many people consider them to be just as influential in their time as the Beatles would be in the 60s.
Fats Domino also has a contender for first rock and roll song. Domino popularized boogie woogie and, along with Ray Charles, helped to bring blues to attention. Also, the Notorious BIG must have been channeling him, especially with that finger bling:
But undoubtedly, this is the era of Elvis. An untrained musician who nevertheless knew a huge number of songs by ear and could sing just about anything, he was born in Mississippi and later moved to Memphis where he got into the Beale Street blues scene. He was also a fan of country, gospel, and R&B music of the time. His particular brand of music became known as "rockabilly," which is a portmanteau of "rock" and "hillbilly," meaning a fusion of country and R&B music with a strong back beat.
In the 1950s, he started generating some radio and recording interest and developed his pelvis-gyrating, leg moving style during his live performances, at which he routinely caused a huge stir amongst girls in the audience. He is, indeed, quite a doll. Just look at that face:
In 1955 he signed with Paramount Pictures and thus began his successful film career; although his films were disliked by critics, they always did well at the box office. In 1956 he signed with RCA Records and began a string of controversial and popular national television appearances, including an infamous performance on the Milton Berle show, during which his dancing style was described by outraged older viewers as obscene and vulgar. It generated such a stir that he was booked for the Ed Sullivan show, on which they appearently censored him by only showing him from the waist up. The bottom half of him was too hot to air.
In 1957, he was drafted into the army and went off to his post in Germany. His mother died the following year. When he returned from the army, he continued with his acting career, but by 1968 he had failed to place a Billboard 100 hit for six years. He had a "comeback" TV special on NBC, which catapulted him into national fame again and led to a string of US tours, which continued up until his death in 1977. By then he had become a parody of his former self; he was battling weight and other health problems and was addicted to pills and alcohol.
However, his legacy is hard to understate. He was the first big rock and roll superstar, and a symbol of the rebelliousness that it would forever be associated with. Adults disliked his black-influenced music and his dancing style; they saw him as a sex pervert and an immoral influence even as young people saw him as a sex symbol. Although many blacks considered him to have ripped off of their style, he did bring the black style of music to national attention and opened the door for many black performers. He would go on to inspire an entire generation of musicians -- everyone from the Beatles, who were all Elvis fans, to Cher, to Bob Dylan. He would basically show the world that it was possible for a performer to have a powerful and lasting impact on an audience.
In 1959, Buddy Holly, Richie Valens, and "The Big Bopper" Richardson are killed in a plane crash. This is dubbed "The Day the Music Died" in the song "American Pie." Thus, we close out the 1950s.
50s music hasn't really aged well over the years -- it sounds dated and is relegated to "oldies" status, but music from the Beatles era still sounds passably modern enough to still be enjoyed today.
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