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Rock "n" Roll
Alan Freed Biography
The disc jockey credited with naming "Rock and
Roll" was born Albert
James Freed on December 15, 1921, near Johnstown, PA. In 1933 the Freed
family moved to Salem, Ohio. In high school Freed formed a band known as
the Sultans of Swing in which he played trombone. In 1942 Freed landed
his first broadcasting job, at WKST, New Castle, PA. He took a sports
casting position at WKBN-Youngstown, OH. The following year. In 1945 he
moved to WAKR, Akron, OH. and became a local favorite, playing hot jazz
and pop recordings.
In 1949 Freed moved to WXEL-TV in Cleveland. Record store owner Leo
Mintz convinced him to emcee a program of rhythm and blues records over
WJW radio, and on July 11, 1951, calling himself "Moondog" Freed went on
the air. At his Moondog Coronation Ball in the 10,000-capacity
Cleveland Arena in March 1952, upwards of 20,000 fans, almost all black,
crashed the gates, causing the dance to be cancelled. This is considered
to be the first Rock concert. It also marked the point at which
Freed's audience began to include an increasing number of whites - who
subsequently heard Freed refer to rhythm and blues as Rock and Roll.
In September 1954 Freed was hired by WINS radio in New York. The
following January he held a landmark dance there, promoting black
performers as rock and roll artists. Within a month, the music industry
was advertising Rock and Roll records in the trade papers.
Within weeks, he was the dominant force on radio there, attracting a
huge, racially mixed, youthful audience and, although he inspired many
imitators, Alan Freed almost single-handedly brought radio back from the
near dead. Freed also emceed a string of legendary stage shows at the
Brooklyn and New York Paramount Theatres; was heard nationally via CBS
radio; and starred in several rock and roll movies.
In 1957 ABC-TV gave Freed his own nationally-televised rock and roll
show, but an episode on which Frankie Lymon danced with a white girl
enraged ABC's Southern affiliates and the show was cancelled. Violence
occurred outside the Boston Arena after a Freed stage show, local
authorities indicted him for inciting to riot. The charges were
eventually dropped, but WINS failed to renew Freed's contract. Known for
his rapid-fire delivery, for his endless dedications, like those from
February 1955 that you should be hearing now, and sometimes pounding on
a telephone book or ringing a cowbell to keep the beat, Freed
continually referred to our then brand new, youth-oriented music as the
Big Beat in Popular Music. He has always been given the credit he
deserves for doing more than anyone to promote and popularize the music
that changed the world, music that he truly loved, our music.
He did it through his 1957 nationally broadcast, albeit
short-lived (it was cancelled days before the national debut of
"American Bandstand"2), TV show on the ABC network, "The Big Beat,"
later broadcast locally in New York on WNEW-TV, through his live rock
'n' roll stage shows, some that traveled to other cities and others that
attracted lots of tourists in New York City, but mainly through five
movies released in 1956-1959, beginning with Rock Around the Clock, in
all of which he played himself, the only adult who understood the
teenagers and their new music.
It was only much later that he was also widely recognized for his
enormous role in what was soon to become the civil rights movement in
our country. He was not just a hero and champion to the youth of
America, both black and white, but he also opened doors to scores, maybe
hundreds, of black performers and songwriters who, mainly because of
Freed, now had opportunities to share their talents with the world and
to make a decent living in the recorded music business. Freed was most
closely associated with 1010 WINS, which he made the king of the New
York airwaves beginning in 1954 but was there only 4 years during which
time he accomplished almost all he ever would. His career was fraught
with legal and other difficulties including a 1958 arrest in Boston for
inciting a riot with one of his live rock n roll stage shows. The charge that was subsequently dropped.
It nevertheless resulted in
his being fired that year from WINS. Ultimately, relentless
persecution from the so-called -payola- hearings in congress, which
caused him to be fired again in 1959 for standing up for his principles
in that regard, this time by 770 WABC. At the time, the
pejoratively-termed payola was, in fact, a perfectly legal, common
industry practice, always done openly, until 1960. But despite all
these obstacles, he remained still optimistic when, on November 21,
1959, he said what would be his final New York on-air radio farewell to
his loyal music business supporters and fans upon leaving WABC. Freed
said, ironically, This is not goodbye; it's just goodnight, and we'll
see you soon. His last appearance on New York TV-WNEW was six days
later on November 27, 1959. The 50s were over. Freed moved to WABC
radio, and also hosted a locally televised dance show. When the
broadcasting payola scandal erupted in November 1959, Freed claimed
payments he'd received from record companies were for consultation,
not as an inducement to play their records. He was fired from his radio
and television programs.
Freed was hired by Los Angeles' KDAY radio, owned by the same company
that owned WINS in 1960, but when management refused to let him promote
live rock and roll shows Freed left the station and returned to
Manhattan to emcee a live twist revue. When the twist craze cooled he
hooked on as a disc jockey at WQAM-Miami, FL. Realizing that his dream
of returning to New York radio was just that, Freed's drinking
increased. The Miami job lasted only two months. In December 1962, in
New York, Freed pleaded guilty to two counts of commercial bribery and
was fined three hundred dollars.
Living in Palm Springs, CA, and drinking heavily, the one-time king of
rock and roll was a broken man. He died there on January 20, 1965,
ostensibly of bleeding esophageal varices and cirrhosis of the liver.
Those closest to him swear he died of a broken heart. In 1986 Freed was
among the original inductees to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in
Cleveland. In 1991 a comprehensive biography, Big Beat Heat: Alan Freed
and the Early Years of Rock and Roll was published. That same year, Freed
received a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.
