Who was the true King of Rock 'n' Roll (if there was one)

It was a joke photo, a joke photo, I swear.

God, I feel like Larry David right now. 

So moving on from our dearly beloved, I think I should probably explain why I struggle to pick a true king of rock and roll. Whilst I wholeheartedly agree with bluesythug on Chuck Berry having the defining musical qualities of the genre, I don't think that's enough. I think you need a societal impact, and of course Berry did have that but i'd argue Elvis Presley and Little Richard were much stronger catalysts for social change. The biggest key player in the birth of rock and roll probably isn't a specific artist but american disc jockey Alan Freed who played countless black R&B hits on his station for a primarily white audience and was one of the first to use the term rock and roll to describe such songs. Of the songs he played, there's quite a bit of debate regarding which ones are of the more traditional rhythm and blues variety, and which ones evolved the genre into a countrified, teen-marketed and rebellious sound that came to define rock and roll. Bill Hayley was probably the first major artist that everyone could agree played rock and roll music and his attempts at rock and roll were generally pretty good, with lots of energy, rhythm, and fun. However his persona was a little bit white bread. Not to insufferable degrees or anything, he was likeable and a good singer technically but there's no doubt he was pretty far removed from the black roots of the genre. This is where Elvis comes in. Much like Eminem to hip-hop or Stevie Ray Vaughan to the blues, Elvis was a white guy with an enormously purist feel to his music. Bill Hayley was great and all but this was the real deal, and the likes of Pat Boone (your old grandfather trying to be cool essentially) and countless teen idols to come along later only further proved the point that Elvis was balls to the wall. He had his own sound that was unique to him but he didn't sacrifice the authenticity of the music. This broke down a lot of barriers for black kids and white kids to be buying the same records and socialising as much as they were allowed to. I think this one of the major reasons young white kids got interested in rock and roll and began delving into the black artists, like Berry. Little Richard may have not of broken down as many barriers but he was still politically progressive. At the time black people were expected to be polite and subservient, despite slavery having been abolished long beforehand. Berry was super talented and had charisma but his voice was fairly chilled out. He expressed himself with his guitar playing. All of a sudden you turn a record and you hear a guy shredding his larynx and hitting high notes in a display of raucous energy never seen by a singer before. "A womp bop a lu bop a whop bam bu" screams out of your speakers and history is forever changed. Little Richard wasn't the first black performer to be accepted, african americans had lessened the effect of prejudice against themselves via entering the entertainment industry for a long time. However Little Richard was the first black performer to not give a shit what you thought of him. Nothing about him was subtle and that was extremely exciting and quite revolutionary. Not to mention Little Richard didn't only have to suffer through racism but homophobia. I'm not sure if he was out of the closet in his heyday but he certainly might as well have been, wearing make up on stage and writing songs with rather innuendo laden titles ("Tutti Frutti"?, "Slippin' and Slidin'"? These might seem like i've got a dirty mind and am reading too much into them, but in the 50s for an effinately dressed black man to sing songs that could possibly be even interpreted as homosexually oriented was a huge deal).

So there's why I think Berry, Elvis and Richard are all tied.

Ha ha, yeah Bill Hayley was controversial for sure. I'm not denying that. However if you asked a young black kid or anyone with a vast knowledge of rock and roll if Bill Hayley was outrageous they'd probably laugh at you and walk away, even at the time. Granted I wasn't there but it seems to me he mostly offended and shocked upper class rich white people, the kind of people who hated rock and roll in general.

LMAO WTF!