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 (dance) Rock and Roll (dance) Acrobatic Rock'n'Roll is a very athletic, competitive form of partner dance that originated from lindy hop. Unlike lindy hop, however, it is a choreographed dance designed for performance. It is danced by both couples (usually of mixed gender) and groups, either all-female or four to eight couples together. This is normally a very fast and physically demanding dance. During the development of the musical genre rock and roll, dances to go with the music were also created. From swing, which came into being around 1950, Lindy Hop emerged, the first partner dance ever to feature acrobatic