Originally Posted by chilcutt

In particular, I am interested in how Rock and Roll came into existance.
It is my understanding that R&R evolved from the blues.

The Africans created the Blues because they tried but failed to copy European music.

From what I understand, no matter what the music-jazz, blues, rhythym and blues, rock, whatever-it is basically all the same music, because it all comes from the same source.
All this music comes from the circumstance that when the Africans were shipped to America, they super-imposed the African five-note scale on the European diatonic scale, which buggers up the third and sevenths, and thats what makes were called blue notes.

I believe change in music is always based on failure: As far as I have been able to determine, nobody who set deliberately set out to invent a new kind of music ever succeeded.