June 15, 2016

Disk jockey Alan Freed is widely credited with coining the term “rock and roll” to describe the uptempo black R&B records he played as early as 1951 on Cleveland radio station WJW. Freed is commonly referred to as the "father of rock 'n' roll" due to his promotion of the style of music, and his introduction of the phrase "rock and roll", in reference to the musical genre, on mainstream radio in the early 1950s. In 1952, Freed was one of the people who put together the Moondog Coronation Ball, a Cleveland concert that is now considered the first-ever rock and roll concert. His career was destroyed by the payola scandal that hit the broadcasting industry in the early 1960s.