She smiled to herself and bobbed her head along to “Ain’t that a Shame” by Fats Domino and Dave Bartholomew.

Some of the audience bobbed along with her, with their feet, with their heads, and some just closed their eyes and enjoyed the music of the 50s that filled Riley Auditorium with it’s “polyphonic beats” as she called them.

Lauren Onkey had the polite, interested crowd in Riley auditorium bobbing for 60 straight minutes, in fact, during her short presentation on the relationship between New Orleans and the birth of rock-and-roll— just one discussion in a series that Otterbein has been hosting based on this year’s common book “City of Refuge,” which takes place in Louisiana’s most famous city.

“I’m so partial to New Orleans music in my heart of hearts,” she said.

Onkey is vice president of education and public programs at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, and her slideshow of rock-and-roll’s very first hit-makers from their birthplace of New Orleans, full of facts and dates and accompanied by music snippets and video interviews she has conducted with artists, charmed the around 70 people who took an hour out of their Friday afternoons.

Topics of discussion based around J&M Records, which was born in New Orleans, and the artists who made it famous. According to Onkey, J&M produced 98 percent African American artists at the time, and as she played sections of their famous songs, she would often follow them up with the cover songs that then white artists would produce weeks later and play on more mainstream pop music stations.

“It comes from people who weren’t really seen as mainstream in entertainment, that is where rock-and-roll comes from,” Onkey, who was dressed in all black in a very Johnny Cash way, said.

Onkey used this idea to discuss then more serious themes of the time such as the racial tension in American that early rock-and-roll music and its artists only inflamed.

The highlight of the presentation came when Onkey came to artist Little Richard in history, and had everyone subtly seat-dancing to “Tutti Frutti,” which was recorded at J&M Records in New Orleans in 1955.

“He was the prettiest man of rock-and-roll and he would tell you so,” she said.

Questions after the speech centered around Onkey’s opinion on possible links between early rock-and-roll and other genres of music that were born around the same time. A loud, extended applause from the crowd ended the presentation.

“I thought it was really sweet, I didn’t have to come to this, but I thought it was really entertaining, I would have never thought of rock-and-roll and New Orleans together.” Amanda Seymour, junior business administration major said.

“I thought it went great, any time that we can get to tap into industry professionals … Lauren is a wealth of information,” said Michael Yonchak, a professor of music at Otterbein and the professor who helped coordinate Onkey’s visit with President Kathy Krendl in conjunction with the common book.

“We hope that this is the start of a long and prosperous relationship with the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame,” he said.