Origins of rock and roll that inspired Alan Freed to coin the phrase "rock and roll" to refer to the music he played. Freed first started playing the music in 1951, and by 1953 the phrase "rock and roll" was becoming used much more widely to market the music beyond its initial black audience. The practitioners of the music were young black artists, appealing to the post-war community's need for excitement, dancing and increasing social freedoms, but the music also became very attractive to white teenagers. As well as "rocking" rhythm and blues songs, such as the massively successful and influential "Rocket 88" recorded by
Rock and roll backbeat, that are now more commonly called simply "rock music" or "rock". The term "rock and roll" now has at least two different meanings, both in common usage. The "American Heritage Dictionary" and the "Merriam-Webster Dictionary" both define rock and roll as synonymous with rock music. "Encyclopædia Britannica", on the other hand, regards it as the music that originated in the mid-1950s and later developed "into the more encompassing international style known as rock music". The phrase "rocking and rolling" originally described the movement of a ship on the ocean, but was used by the early twentieth century, both to