Origins of rock and roll "Rock and Roll" Harris. These songs were generally classed as "race music" or, from the late 1940s, "rhythm and blues", and were barely known by mainstream white audiences. However, in 1951, Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed began broadcasting rhythm, blues, and country music for a multi-racial audience. Freed, familiar with the music of earlier decades, used the phrase rock and roll to describe the music he aired over station WJW (850 AM); its use also is credited to Freed's sponsor, record store owner Leo Mintz, who encouraged Freed to play the music on the radio. Originally Freed used the name
TV Disc Jockey is not known if any of the live episodes were recorded, and the series is possibly lost ("Hit Parade", a Seven Network series which started 1957 in which hit recordings were danced to and lip-synced by the cast, does have preserved episodes, as do later 1950s variety series like "The Bobby Limb Show" (1959-1961) which featured live music). TV Disc Jockey TV Disc Jockey was an early Australian television music program which is notable as it later evolved to become the Australian version of "Bandstand". It aired on the Nine Network's TCN-9 from 1957 to 1958. The series originally consisted