Rock music roll, which originated in the United States during the late 1940s and early 1950s, and quickly spread to much of the rest of the world. Its immediate origins lay in a melding of various black musical genres of the time, including rhythm and blues and gospel music, with country and western. In 1951, Cleveland, Ohio disc jockey Alan Freed began playing rhythm and blues music (then termed "race music") for a multi-racial audience, and is credited with first using the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music. Debate surrounds which record should be considered the first rock and roll
Rock and Roll Is Dead Rock and Roll Is Dead "Rock and Roll Is Dead" is the first single released from the 1995 Lenny Kravitz album "Circus". It reached the top 20 in Canada, Finland, New Zealand, and Spain, but it underperformed in the United States, peaking at number 75 on the "Billboard" Hot 100. "Rock and Roll Is Dead" is an uptempo rock song. Kravitz on the meaning of "Rock and Roll Is Dead": The same year that "Rock and Roll Is Dead" was released, Prince released a B-side called "Rock 'N' Roll Is Alive (And It Lives in Minneapolis)" for the single "Gold"