Music history of the United States in the 1950s blues and gospel music; with country and western and Pop. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music for a multi-racial audience, and is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music, though the terms "rocking" and "rolling" were being used in boogie-woogie and religious music for decades before that. The 1950s saw the growth in popularity of the electric guitar (developed and popularized by Les Paul). Paul's hit records like "How High the Moon," and "The World Is Waiting for the Sunrise," helped lead to the development of
The Rock and Roll Trio won three straight appearances in April and May 1956, which gained them a slot on the finalists' tour in September 1956. A newspaper clip on the day after their third win on the Ted Mack Show referred to them as "the Rock and Roll Boys from Memphis". Between their second and third appearances, they were spotted by Bill Randle, who was a disc-jockey on WERE, Cleveland. Randle telephoned his friend Henry Jerome, who was a band leader at the Hotel Edison at the time, and he told Jerome to watch the trio's next appearance on television. Jerome was impressed by