Origins of rock and roll but it was used by the early 20th century, both to describe a spiritual fervor and as a sexual analogy. Various gospel, blues and swing recordings used the phrase before it became used more frequently – but still intermittently – in the late 1930s and 1940s, principally on recordings and in reviews of what became known as "rhythm and blues" music aimed at black audiences. In 1951, Cleveland-based disc jockey Alan Freed began playing this music style while popularizing the term "rock and roll" to describe it. Various recordings that date back to the 1940s have been named as the
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