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
The History of Rock and Roll collage of number one hits from the Rock & Roll era, through, ironically (as it is not a rock record), Debby Boone's "You Light Up My Life" (which just happened to be topping the Billboard Hot 100 singles chart at the time). The History of Rock and Roll The History of Rock & Roll is a US radio documentary on rock and roll music, originally syndicated in 1969. One of the lengthiest documentaries of any medium (48 hours in the 1969 version, 52 hours each for the 1978 and 1981 versions), "The History of Rock & Roll" is a definitive