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
Rock and Roll Is Dead in Finland, New Zealand and Spain, reaching numbers 10, eight, and five, respectively. In Canada, the song reached number 16. Elsewhere, the song reached the top 40 in Australia, the Netherlands, and Switzerland. The music video for "Rock and Roll Is Dead" was storyboarded by Andrew Trovaioli and directed by Ruven Afanador. The video shows Kravitz performing the song with his band, as well as Kravitz with visual artistic related backgrounds. Kravitz was nominated for a Grammy Award for Best Male Rock Vocal Performance for this song in 1996, becoming Kravitz's third nomination in the mentioned category. Rock and Roll