Cleveland played a pivotal role in the birth of rock and roll.
In the early 1950s, radio DJ Alan Freed worked at Cleveland station WJW, where he was one of the first to play rhythm and blues records by Black artists for a general audience and famously coined the term 鈥渞ock and roll.鈥�
He also helped organize the Moondog Coronation Ball in 1952, widely considered the first rock concert.
Cleveland continued championing rock music for decades, eventually earning its place as the home of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which opened in 1995.