I remember listening to Alan Freed on 850 WJW late at night as a kid growing up in Cleveland. My brother, 15 years old at the time was 9 years older than me and we shared a room. If we kept the volume way down low so my parents couldn't hear, we could listen to the whole show. The magic of the music, the enthusiasm of Freed combined with the glow of the tubes and the radio dial pilot light hooked me on radio right then and there. I have since enjoyed a 52 year (so far) career in radio as a DJ, then station owner. I am now past retirement age and still can't bring myself to leave the business I love so very much. Thank you Alan Freed!
The glowing orange lights I the back of the radio mare the vacuum tubes that transmit the audio waves. My late mother bought a General Electric radio with 2 dials, 1 for volume and the other for the radio stations. This was in 1961 and that radio lasted 30 years! I was with her at Woolworths dept. store on Main St. in Flushing, Queens, NYC!
I loved reading this!!! I also love radio....first spoke over the AM airwaves in 1960 at a small student-run station in Mayfield Heights, now doing 3 volunteer radio shows on both FM and the internet. I'm 76. And I still love cracking that mic!!
What a blast from the past!!! The Alan Freed Moondog Show on WJW Radio 850 AM on April 6, 1954. Even Freed promotes a Gospel Spiritual Revival event at the Cleveland Arena on Palm Sunday that year. It just shows how he tried to unite the city across racial lines, unlike most mainstream broadcasters in that period. A true testament to why Alan Freed is in the RNRHOF. Music has always been a powerful force to bring people together, but more so in the Fifties.
and to this day...the...Payola thing was a set up by an older genoration who were stuck in a jazz time warp...when they kicked him out....crosby, miller, sinatra took over...but the saddest thing is....payola is rife today...and guess what.....no one does jack about it.....and the worst of all?..... KISS FM
"I'll Be True to You," by Fay Adams was the only song I recognized, although I first learned of the song by Bill Haley and the Comets. Interestingly this April 6, 1954 broadcast took place a week before Bill Haley and Comets recorded "Rock Around the Clock." Nice to have heard a few obscure recordings and the commercials and promos by Alan were great! For some 24 minutes at least, we've lived in Cleveland in 1954! Thanks for sharing!
I always thought rock around the clock was 1952. Elvis had recorded that’s alright mama, good rockin tonight, blue moon of Kentucky July 1954, he was just about to explode on the American nation
@@008overrated The closest Bill Haley came to Rock Around The Clock in 1952 was Rock The Joint, in which the exact same guitar break as heard on Rock Around The Clock was included note-for-note. Rock Around The Clock had still yet to be written in 1952. Danny Cedrone, a session guitarist, played that famous guitar break on both songs, a break of his own invention as far as anyone can tell.
This is awesome! I was born in Cleveland in 1954 and therefore didn't become aware of Rock-N-Roll until the sixties. (When British groups were singing Buddy Holly songs LOL) I had always heard about Alan Freed starting the whole thing in Cleveland but what a joy to be able to actually hear a real broadcast by the man himself! Freed was calling it Rock-N-Roll but listening to this reveals that Rock-N-Roll's roots are in Rhythm-N-Blues or Blues and Rhythm music as Mr Freed called it. Thanks.
HOT DAM, now I know why I love Rock and Roll so much.Alan Freed's first radio show on WJW in Cleveland was July 11 1951 which just happened to be on my 3rd birthday. Long live Rock and Roll. RockinRonny...St. Catharines Ont., Canada.
Smooth, tight presentation...with NO cart machines, just turntables and reel-to-reel sources! (Self-cueing broadcast cartridge tape machines hit the market in 1958.) Plus, many of these obscure R&B songs were actually very well arranged and played. Also, with so much "covering" of records by fellow R&B as well as Pop artists, Freed mentions the record label of each original version-probably also the label supplying him "promotional considerations." Payola was perfectly LEGAL until 1961-as long as you declared it as taxable income!
When Freed had his TV show, "Rock and Roll Dance Party" we would actually take class trips from Park Ridge NJ over to New York to be on his show. Unbelievable times.
Didn't that show get cancelled after Frankie Lymon, following singing his own song on the show, stuck around the studio for the rest of the show to dance to the other records, slow danced with a white girl, and the show got axed the next day?
What a cool dj Alan Freed was. He wouldn't just play the music, he would become one with the music. I loved his enthusiasm and the way he would talk and hoot with the music. No wonder blacks and whites loved him so. Blacks really liked him and that's saying something. When black folks like you, you got something. The reason everyone loved him was because he knew how to connect with people. Its almost as if he's talking directly to you. Bless him for bringing the races together through music!
Freed was the first guy to play real rhythm and blues recordings on a major, mass-oriented station (WJW, Cleveland) with a presentation aimed at all young people regardless of race. While there were always black-oriented stations who did this, they were generally low power, aimed exclusively at black adults and not heard outside of the city. Freed played the REAL stuff on a big signal, mass oriented station that reached the 'burbs and well beyond. The kids went wild, and the rest is history.
"adults" The black poet Al Young recalled that black _kids_ listened to LeRoy White's show "Rockin' With LeRoy," the show that Wild Bill Moore (who had a top 3 national hit on the black charts with "We're Gonna Rock" in 1948) recorded his tribute tune "Rocking With Leroy" to. Why does "Hole In The Wall" by Albennie Jones on Decca 1949 have the lyrics "Tell your folks you're gonna stay out late... We gonna rock and roll..."? Because the rock and roll sound was marketed to black teenagers (many of whose parents disapproved) in 1948-1949 -- and very successfully, which is why recordings like "Boogie At Midnight" by Roy Brown and "Rock The Joint" by Jimmy Preston were top ten R&B nationally in 1949.
Listened to him late at night thanks to skip when I was really young & supposed to be asleep. Didn't recognize a lot of his music because R&R and Rhythm & Blues hadn't come to my area yet. I think he was on WABC when I heard him. He got a raw deal.....my view.
Also on Nashville's 50,000 watt station WLAC, you had three white men who sounded black Gene Nobles, John R(ichbourg) and Bill "Hoss" Allen blasting blues R&B and Gospel to half the nation
I agree with with Neil Brown....Thank God for Alan Freed....The greatest DJ that ever lived! Imagine seeing his show at the Paramount theatre in Brooklyn! Custerflux....Let me know when you get that time machine friend....We'll all go see him at his height the the 1950's!!
when he was real big on wins we used to go to his house on holoween and him and his wife Jackie would give each kid a half dollar and one of those real big Hershey bars.he was great.beautiful house on long Island sound in stamford ct.lot of famous people from stamford ct.gods country.!!!!!!!!! but i,m not famous yet !!!!!!
What's so weird about this is that I grew listening to and collecting rock & roll from the 50's and 60's and I've listened to it nearly my whole life, yet there's almost nothing in this show that I've ever heard of before! It's like it's all from a parallel world or something.
Gil Bernal also played sax solos on a few early Coasters records before King Curtis became the de facto soloist (I believe it is Bernal on The Robins' "Riot in Cell Block Number Nine"), he was a versatile performer and was also in Spike Jones' later band, he can be seen in a very funny clip here on YT singing "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter" along with Freddy Morgan and Mousie Garner. My dad was an original Long Island Moondogger from when Freed was on WINS, evidently he had a request played/read by Freed one evening - what I wouldn't give for an aircheck of that!!! now THIS is radio! Alan Freed - one more reason to can the Cleveland jokes & accept the fact that it's a great place!
Incredible !!! If I ever find that time machine ... somebody remind me to bring a killer quality recording device with a really, really, really big hard drive. Are there any hi quality recordings of Alan's Moondog show? It's so damn good - it could probably pull a big audience today - just played back exactly as is.
Archive incroyable! Alan Freed, un pionnier. Le premier à construire des ponts, à abattre des murs. Jouer la vraie affaire à l'époque, fallait le faire! On lui doit l'expression Rock'n'roll.
THESE recordings of Freed are why the RNRHOF is located in Cleveland.Freed was constantly breaking new music on his shows. Historically,he was far ahead in airing the newest songs by the newest acts whether he was fuled by Payola or just good ears.There are persuasive arguments that he did have impeccable musical taste ,monetary incentives aside. Additionally,not much of what the average White listner would consider RockN Roll today existed in the years prior to 1956. One could not have programmed more than a few minutes of the extant output of Bill Haley or Elvis at this point in '54. In fact, there was NO Elvis product to be had yet. He was still about 90 days away from his first breakthrough. Freeds championing of indie label product would nowadays be called "College Radio". The records he plays here, good bad or otherwise are almost exclusively the output of small labels. many racing up RnB or "Race" charts ,others dying much as one would separate the wheat from the chaff. Some labels, like Herald and Specialty are legendary in the birth of this once revolutionary music. Later, once sufficient quantities of product existed,then he could mix in more songs[big hits] that later stood the test of time. But for a minute, by the lake,and a few other places via syndication one could hear the "BIg Bang",the birth of a new order or what Freed called "The Big Beat In Popular Music".
Freed could only play what his Cleveland audiences would accept! Otherwise there'd be no Alan Freed. The formula was Freed + Cleveland. It was instant cognitive resonance with the white listening audiences of a major Cleveland big wattage radio station that changed the history of white kids listening habits, and cultural habits, growing up in a very segregated America everywhere else at the time. Even the NYC market was not exempt from this segregation of talent on commercial airwaves. Cleveland broke that down along with Alan Freed. And together the world was changed by this open interracial lifestyle of those living in the little international port city on the lake. That's all it was.
Payola is such a joke. This man lost his reputation and integrity to political ambitions. Payola never went away, it simply adapted to the changing landscape-so sad.
me encuentro haciendo una tesis sobre la importancia del rock and roll en las relaciones internacionales y la investigación del origen del rock me ha llevado a escuchar videos como este. el panorama se vuelve mas amplio y sin duda es entrañable escuchar lo que fue las primeras menciones al rock and roll como ritmo y escuchar estas piezas que nos moldearían a las generaciones que crecimos con el rock como un modo de vida. sin duda una joya, una capsula de tiempo. por un momento, por 24 minutos nos encontramos en un punto crucial en la historia.
Leroy White's "Rocking With Leroy" show was around before Freed did similar (check out e.g. Chris Powell's recording of "Rock The Joint" and Wild Bill Moore's recording of his tribute tune "Rocking With Leroy"). _Billboard_ called Albennie Jones' "Hole In The Wall" a "rocker" and Jay McNeely's "Cherry Smash" an "instrumental rocker" in 1949, for instance, and _Cash Box_ mentioned the "rock and roll brand of boogie" in August, 1950.
Joseph Scott You're right...my hometown WLOU, Louisville went full-time R&B on October 21, 1951 as the fifth full-time R&B station in the US. So Freed wasn't first...but he sure got Rhythm and Blues into the mainstream later on in the game.
Yes, there were always small, inner city radio stations aimed at African-Americans which--like WLOU with only 500 watts--barely made it past the city limits. But WJW in Cleveland was a major, mass audience station with a strong signal. Freed took this music right into the suburbs and beyond. It was the first time that masses of young people heard real R & B by the real artists belted out full throttle presented by a guy who was equally jet propelled!
"It was the first time that masses of young people heard real R & B by..." Masses of young people who were black were listening to the new fad substyle of R&B, rock and roll, as of 1949. Recordings like "Rock The Joint" by Jimmy Preston, "We're Gonna Rock" by Wild Bill Moore, and "Boogie At Midnight" by Roy Brown were top ten on the national black charts during 1948-1949. Erline "Rock And Roll" Harris was going by that nickname in print in 1949 when she made the rock and roll recording "Jump And Shout."
Finally when they named the radio studio at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame The Alan Freed studio justice was finally done.Was their Payola in the fifties that Freed along with other jocks were caught for?For Sure but Alan only played what he liked and that's why today Alan Freed continues to be Mr.Rock & Roll.Every top 40 jock from the fifties and the sixties needs to thank Alan for what he did for our business..
Actually, there were many other white DJs that were pioneering that BEFORE Freed. In Los Angeles, Hunter Hancock was one of the very first to do so in 1948. In Memphis, you had Dewey Phillips, Robin Seymour in St. Louis. Freed WAS an opportunist who tried to copywrite the term 'rock and roll', claiming that he coined the term (he didn't). I'm writing a book that covers all of this. My research confirms my conclusions.
Sure the phrase rock and roll had been a Boswell Sisters song and there are plenty of examples of both rock and roll in r and b songs predating Freed, however it was Freed who attached the phrase to the type of music as a label. There was lots of good rockin' before Freed but it was not called rock-n-roll music. I think the name stuck one night when Bill Haley and the Comets were in Freed's studio promoting the record Rock This Joint. I think this would've been 1953. Most certainly Freed popularized using the term rock-n-roll to refer to a certain type of music.
"it was Freed who attached the phrase to the type of music as a label" Myth. E.g., Cash Box wrote about "the rock and roll brand of boogie" on Aug. 5, 1950, page 11.
I didn't say he was the only 1, but he was the most popular. Also, NY (& the east coast in general) was where the "action" was musically (always has been), so I'd venture to guess Freed had the largest listening audience among the other names you mentioned. That's cool that you're writing a book about that era.. tell me more about it. I've loved '50s r&b (especially the vocal groups) since the '70s- Grew up listening to the Nite Train/Doowop Shop (WCBS-FM) and Time Capsule Show (WFUV-FM)..
Freed was very, very important in plugging black and white rock and roll to as many people as possible and plugging black and white rock and roll as worthwhile. It's when people try to talk about what Freed did "first" that it's virtually never true at all.
The musical term "rock and roll" was used back into the early '30s. It was used by jazz musicians in the '40s as an expression of screwing. However, there were many R & B records that mentioned rock and roll as both sex and dancing, like Roy Brown's "Good Rockin' Tonight" in 1947. There are countless other examples. Alan Freed was an opportunist who saw a niche he could claim, and did so by jumping on the term. Bill Haley had used the term "rock and roll" in his music back in '52.
Legende American discjockey.allan freed _icone world culture and popculture.basic genre and stylle world music_50.and 60.years_jazz,swing,boogie_woogie,folk,country,Soul,funky,rhythm#blues,blues,rock n roll and big beat!rock n roll_dynamic and life modern popular world music 20.century.50.and 60.years _great štory world music.basic.rock n roll_beatifull Melody,Harmony,tonally,tempe and rhythm,vocals,lyrics and sound music.aestetics,poetics.miracle.allan _legende rádio USA.movies rock,rock,rock_beatifull.allan_propagation rock n roll music.allan_tragedy life.dead,ohio!im lesten rádio oldies _cinncinatti,Orlando and new york.good bye,allan!thanks your very múch,allan freed!Peter ragac,slovakia
Alan Freed was an underrated legend don't forget Dick Clark and Bob Crane came up around the same time plus in the case of Dick Clark and Bod Crane they had gone hollywood
HOW ANTI AMERICAN NOT TO LIKE THIS, I GUESS YOU DON'T STAND FOR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM EITHER? HUH? THE FATHER OF ROCK N ROLL!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU, SIR!!!!!!
Are we sure about the date here? At the beginning, Freed is talking about the Crickets and their affiliation with Norman Petty. As far as I know, the Crickets weren't even a band in 1954 and had no affiliation with Norman Petty.
He's talking about the Rhythm & Blues Vocal Group, The Crickets featuring Dean Barlow, and their affiliation with Joe Davis who owned the label the Crickets recorded for (Jay Dee) and was in the studio with Alan freed during this show.
Never mind. The Crickets mentioned here were the band that recorded with Otis Blackwell and not the more famous Buddy Holly Crickets. I had no idea the earlier Crickets existed.
There were many other DJ's across the country in the early and mid-'50s who also played this music- even WHITE DJ's. One example was Dewey Phillip's "Red, Hot and Blue Show" in Memphis in 1952. There was also 'Jumpin' George Oxford in San Fransisco, Hunter Hancock back in 1948-49 had a show playing this same type music in Los Angeles. There were also other jocks in Atlanta, New Orleans and Philly who were doing the same exact thing earlier or at the same time as Freed.
Right you are, but people like Jumpin' George Oxford were on stations like KSAN(AM) 1450 which was 250 watts from the inner city and barely reached 10 miles at night.
"Hunter Hancock back in 1948-49 had a show playing this same type music in Los Angeles" "Oxford... was 250 watts" Do you not want to talk about how Hancock was 5,000 watts?
Followed soot? Does that mean he chased after fine black particles, chiefly composed of carbon, produced by incomplete combustion of coal, oil, wood, or other fuels?
"show us some proof he didnt" "... the rock and roll brand of boogie..." -- _Cash Box_, 8/5/50, p. 11. "ERLINE 'ROCK AND ROLL' HARRIS JUMP AND SHOUT" -- ad in _Billboard_, 1950 www.google.com/search?q=%22erline+rock+and+roll+harris%22+%22jump+and+shout%22&source=lnms&tbm=bks&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiXk8v52ODXAhXph1QKHcBHA9AQ_AUIECgB&biw=1920&bih=911 th-cam.com/video/9HLjveMNbaw/w-d-xo.html
This is a historic recording however the music is terrible. I don't agree with the history on this. Freed only played music for kids. So it tendede to be party music of fast beat music. it was just a subsection of R/B. however the singers and songwriters were not successful. THE BIG BEAT is the better term. it means the songs have a faster beat. Thats only legitimate claim for rock/roll as a genre. Kids were the ones who liked the fast beat. Not adults. This is the discovery. kids love fast beats and buy all the records. to rock age came. The blacks wouldn't listen to American music but only thier own people. Americans would listen to black music. Just like these days. however having a segregated music circles allowed achievement and kids of all identities would listen to Freed. They heard fast beat music and regular songs in the black charts. It was however the fast beat stuff that was embraced. Then a few great songs came along and all American teenagers loved those songs and the style behind them. It seemed new but it was just great songs really.
You only got one thing wrong. The most important thing! It wasn't the big beat. That's racist not call it what it is, or was. It was THE BLACK BEAT!! And Americans weren't listening to black music either, as you say. They got it filtered through Pat Boone versions instead on their big watt white audience radio stations. Even as far away as London and Liverpool, Keith Richards and Ringo Starr where inspired by what was taped in only Cleveland, and played over Radio 4 on Sundays. It was that rare and special. Freed was able to play unadulterated PURE BLACK MUSIC on a BIG WATT STATION serving a major white demographic market. And the moms & dads in Cleveland didn't freak out about it as black music was commercially segregated to lower watt stations all over the country at the time. Even in Cleveland. Segregation or racism, what's the difference? It's really a lot of things. Cleveland's special white community, found only in America, helped breakdown the segregated social and racial barriers of black artists music everywhere. It happened in other cities briefly. But it never raised itself to the level it did in Cleveland's market. The community and society at large in metro-Cleveland and NE Ohio also helped the city to breakdown a lot of other racial barriers that were happening in other major cities as well. Even NYC. Cleveland was the first major US city to elect a black mayor. It had the first black manager in MLB history, etc., etc.. People can talk all they want about Freed, but from R&R to the Cleveland Orchestra, the people of Cleveland have got an EAR! And the world knows it on both counts. So if it weren't for all of these things, and the large white community and music culture in a major US city like Cleveland's, promoted by Erin Brew and Earl Scheib commercials, Freed would just be playing to dead radios. Or the way black music would be broadcast in other US cities where segregation, or racism, of popular music dictated social community programming, and dictated demographics and commercial ad rates on those stations. Or just low wattage black stations vs mega watt white commercial stations is all that America had at the time. This large prolonged programming over many years of successful ratings consistently with white Cleveland, Standard Brewing Co., "pop a cap" sponsored beer drinking, white audiences by exclusively black entertainment talent night after night, changed the demographics of power wattage radio stations advertising profits everywhere to this new music. And that hadn't even happen or started in places like NYC yet. This is the very future of American radio everywhere. The first pulse being belted out night after night, week after week, originating right here. And it made a happy night at the drive-in theater. When American radio went from swing to rock. And it is a historic racial and cultural shift in America. And it happened in Cleveland, b/c it could ONLY have happened in Cleveland. I blame Erin Brew Ten-O-Two!! Who else?!
longwinded and wrong on 100 points. It was freed who called it the BIG BEAT. It meant it was a fast beat. nothing to do with blacks as a group. lots of genres of music had fast beats but there was more in the blacks because their young people only listened to black music. they were prejudiced and still are. Americans didn't listen to R/B because it was no good. if it was then they did. blacks always got more representation amongst Americans. they never refused blacks in music. Its a myth.
"Nothing to do with blacks as a group?" Um, are you listening to the same music I'm listening to? Those are black artists you are completely dismissing with your focused tunnel vision on only the beat, and it's fast tempo, and dancing, too, in your analysis. That's the art side of it. The sociopolitical side of it was the reality that America was still deep in racism and segregation back then. WJW, Cleveland allowed blacks to get equal time on a large radio station. And that was the clear breakthrough that you are dismissing with only your focusing on the art form. And not including the artists themselves as the new inspirational figures for whites to have in their culture at a time blacks and whites were very separated in this country. We know Sidney Poitier had only one thing on his mind with those nuns in that movie. D'ya know what I mean? It was racism that was overcome. It wasn't just the acknowledgment of a new music form by blacks that whites had enjoyed. It was the acknowledgment of the artists themselves who were blacks! And on Cleveland radio. We lived in a two race society. We had black & white TV sets. But all the actors were white. Black people didn't exist. The big breakthrough in culture wasn't the music. It was finally recognizing who the music was really being made by. And who the artists really were. And they were black!
I'm Canadian but don't agree racism or segregation existed very much. A little bit in the south, both ways, but in reality the top forthy charts were always full of black singers. I do think blacks were refusing to listen to amertican music despite its greatness and commonness. The only thing about cleveland was aiming at a youth audience. mostly black youths. pretty quick however regular kids listened too the fast beat music. The party music. Yet it was in small numbers. Too little hit songs. I think Freed got mixed up. he confused a small part of r/B with r/B. Later he realized it was THE BIG BEAT. A fast beat that brought in youths of all types in these circles. Coincidentally Haley had his big hit. Remember it took a movie to promote it because music like this was so unknown. I think your judging hundreds of mllions of people based on minor details . The vast majority of americans never were unkind or unjust to fellow americans based on identity. Yes Brooklyn was segregated and the south and Chicago but they still are. The immigrant peoples insust on segregation. blacks are segr4egated today as in the past. Only true Americans, yankees and southerners now, really react to others based only on being countrymen. Obama ran on a ticket and was voted on a ticket claiming he deserved to be president because he was Africa, Clinton says the same about being a woman. More rock and roll needed. Not that they would listen.
+Robert Byers -There was a deeper more overt racism everywhere in the US at the time this was recorded. As in any country at the time, in fact. In the US just less so between whites and blacks in the north than in the south. But still there. Things have changed a lot since then. Cleveland has always had better race relations than in other cities. Cleveland's had it's share of recent black shootings by police. Where are the riots? Protests, yes. But no negative race defining riots. Not that Cleveland hasn't had it's bad times either. But overall it's the unique cultural community and economy employed nearly everyone who wanted to work. And at decent wages. That mixed with the highest professionals in medicine ( cardio, neurosurgery, etc.), law (Jones, Day, etc.), aviation, aerospace, and leading headquarters for more major Fortune 500 companies than NYC or Chicago, had created a utopian, comfortable major mid-western metro city, and suburban environment for this rude music's tolerance and acceptance most places in the country didn't enjoy the openness to, or even knew that it could be possible. And/or in places like Detroit or Chicago where there were already vast musical influences coming from blacks that was readily accessible to northern Midwestern whites. It wasn't just in Cleveland where blacks were accepted into mainstream American popular music. It was in all those places, too You're correct on that point. But it was in CLEVELAND where ROCK&ROLL came from! That's the point here! And the point is how and why did it happen in Cleveland? The point's not about Chicago's black Jazz influences or those awesome black Philly street vocal groups, and black Detroit Motown talent, and their audiences, and all their great songs, too. That's not the subject here. Rock & roll is the subject. And everything about it. And you're missing the deep point. What else other than R&R has brought so many American whites and blacks together out of a heavily segregated country? And come together in America? Nothing has outside of brotherly Christianity in America! NOTHING outside of Jesus. So John Lennon was reflecting that point, too, in his bigger than Jesus remark. Rock and roll is bigger than anything racism can or could make a good point for doing any longer. It broke down barriers first that needed to be broken down. Rock & roll is an amazing thing in that light. It's more than just a "fast" beat! That's naive. But it's okay if that's all anybody gets from it. It's not just all that there is to it. The major point with this recording is R&R came from Cleveland first. And for a reason you have not grasped yet in your comment. IT WAS THE MUSIC OF THE STREETS IN CLEVELAND! Of everyday simple Cleveland life. Nothing special. Just another day living in Cleveland. It rains. You turn on the wipers. They go click, click, click. And you listen to R&R on your car radio waiting for the slow moving traffic, and the red light stopping you in the Lake Erie rain, to move again. It's just another day in Cleveland. It's nothing special to be living in Cleveland at that time, right? But oh, that it was! Because you have on your radio in the rain, with your warm fresh box of donuts on the seat next to you by your side, the aroma filling the car, something no one else has in the country. It was special for them, b/c they were living in an American mind set of the future of all America. Walking the streets in the minds of Clevelanders that Americans everywhere would soon have to face about it's own racism all over this country. And with this music as a catalyst for that mind searching. And that means looking in the mirror across America with this music made by blacks, and being listened to in Cleveland in the hearts and the minds, and souls, of the people who listened to it day in and day out. Racism sucks when you wanna have fun! Clevelanders did it without feeling special about it. Or even knowing they were special doing it at the time. It's just Clevelanders being who they are. They were who they were in Cleveland. Isn't everybody like this, they thought? No, not unless you'd leave Cleveland would you know how fortunate you are, black or white when you drove through the country listening to other radio stations. And seeing their segregated communities. These people who first accepted black R&R music were the future of modern race relations in America. Nothing short of it. Ask the first black mayor of Cleveland, too. It's Cleveland. And Cleveland Rocks & Rolls! Thinking twice about racism and segregation is what R&R forced you to do if you liked it back then. Some still don't like the form. To loud and fast, y'know? And still black originated music. Not for them and their tastes. And what is it (racism) good for? Good for nothing really! That is what was decided in Cleveland long ago in this country during legalized segregation and racism when R&R's black artists came along. Hey man, it was rough on everybody, black or white. And it was the way racism was dealt with by the day-to-day, hour by hour, working-class and professional families listening habits of only Cleveland audiences on their radios. That's the point!! It was their non-racist lifestyles in Cleveland! Not just Freed. Freed needed them as much as they needed a daring young DJ who put it together to get away with playing it for them on a major white radio station - in Cleveland first. If their kids wanted to listen to that "black" music on the radio, and bring it into the house on records, SO WHAT?!!! Is what Clevelanders had to say about it. It was about teaching racism to their kids in Cleveland, this music. They weren't going to do it the way it was being done in American families at the time. Or keep racism going at the dinner table. Racism was not big in Cleveland. It was there. But not enough to stop R&R. What you call beat music was first very clearly defined in the US by American white families as black music. Not "beat" music. That's advertising. Racism was institutionalized by local governments laws back then. Blacks and white were segregated in our country. And it was taught in the American family. And in some churches as well. Still is if you look for it. And the race in this music, black, came before anyone white would consider anything else about it at the time. And it was dismissed by them for that sole (not soul) reason alone. It was "black music." They'll need to hear it when Pat Boone records a cover of it. What white guys have to do covers of black Rap artists music these days? But that didn't happen in Cleveland. It wasn't just because everybody liked the "big beat" you're stuck on so much. It was the acceptance of blacks into whites homes through music. The "big beat" moniker came later on. And that's just 50s marketing propaganda to whites. That's all that is. And it's still working on you! XD PS There's no surf in Cleveland. But that's yet another story... Where are the black surf music bands? XD
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I remember listening to Alan Freed on 850 WJW late at night as a kid growing up in Cleveland. My brother, 15 years old at the time was 9 years older than me and we shared a room. If we kept the volume way down low so my parents couldn't hear, we could listen to the whole show. The magic of the music, the enthusiasm of Freed combined with the glow of the tubes and the radio dial pilot light hooked me on radio right then and there. I have since enjoyed a 52 year (so far) career in radio as a DJ, then station owner. I am now past retirement age and still can't bring myself to leave the business I love so very much. Thank you Alan Freed!
The glowing orange lights I the back of the radio mare the vacuum tubes that transmit the audio waves. My late mother bought a General Electric radio with 2 dials, 1 for volume and the other for the radio stations. This was in 1961 and that radio lasted 30 years! I was with her at Woolworths dept. store on Main St. in Flushing, Queens, NYC!
I loved reading this!!! I also love radio....first spoke over the AM airwaves in 1960 at a small student-run station in Mayfield Heights, now doing 3 volunteer radio shows on both FM and the internet. I'm 76. And I still love cracking that mic!!
Alan Freed was a dear Friend of mine, Rest in Rock and Roll Heaven my Brother 🎼♥️🎼‼️
What a blast from the past!!! The Alan Freed Moondog Show on WJW Radio 850 AM on April 6, 1954. Even Freed promotes a Gospel Spiritual Revival event at the Cleveland Arena on Palm Sunday that year. It just shows how he tried to unite the city across racial lines, unlike most mainstream broadcasters in that period. A true testament to why Alan Freed is in the RNRHOF. Music has always been a powerful force to bring people together, but more so in the Fifties.
Alan Freed remains a hero to many of us. God bless him.
and to this day...the...Payola thing was a set up by an older genoration who were stuck in a jazz time warp...when they kicked him out....crosby, miller, sinatra took over...but the saddest thing is....payola is rife today...and guess what.....no one does jack about it.....and the worst of all?..... KISS FM
"I'll Be True to You," by Fay Adams was the only song I recognized, although I first learned of the song by Bill Haley and the Comets. Interestingly this April 6, 1954 broadcast took place a week before Bill Haley and Comets recorded "Rock Around the Clock." Nice to have heard a few obscure recordings and the commercials and promos by Alan were great! For some 24 minutes at least, we've lived in Cleveland in 1954! Thanks for sharing!
I always thought rock around the clock was 1952. Elvis had recorded that’s alright mama, good rockin tonight, blue moon of Kentucky July 1954, he was just about to explode on the American nation
@@008overrated The closest Bill Haley came to Rock Around The Clock in 1952 was Rock The Joint, in which the exact same guitar break as heard on Rock Around The Clock was included note-for-note. Rock Around The Clock had still yet to be written in 1952. Danny Cedrone, a session guitarist, played that famous guitar break on both songs, a break of his own invention as far as anyone can tell.
This is awesome! I was born in Cleveland in 1954 and therefore didn't become aware of Rock-N-Roll until the sixties. (When British groups were singing Buddy Holly songs LOL) I had always heard about Alan Freed starting the whole thing in Cleveland but what a joy to be able to actually hear a real broadcast by the man himself! Freed was calling it Rock-N-Roll but listening to this reveals that Rock-N-Roll's roots are in Rhythm-N-Blues or Blues and Rhythm music as Mr Freed called it. Thanks.
Thank god for Alan Freed,keep rockin.
HOT DAM, now I know why I love Rock and Roll so much.Alan Freed's first radio show on WJW in Cleveland was July 11 1951 which just happened to be on my 3rd birthday. Long live Rock and Roll. RockinRonny...St. Catharines Ont., Canada.
Rock and roll, where are you now that we need you?
Smooth, tight presentation...with NO cart machines, just turntables and reel-to-reel sources! (Self-cueing broadcast cartridge tape machines hit the market in 1958.) Plus, many of these obscure R&B songs were actually very well arranged and played. Also, with so much "covering" of records by fellow R&B as well as Pop artists, Freed mentions the record label of each original version-probably also the label supplying him "promotional considerations." Payola was perfectly LEGAL until 1961-as long as you declared it as taxable income!
Did he ride his own board here?
When Freed had his TV show, "Rock and Roll Dance Party" we would actually take class trips from Park Ridge NJ over to New York to be on his show. Unbelievable times.
Didn't that show get cancelled after Frankie Lymon, following singing his own song on the show, stuck around the studio for the rest of the show to dance to the other records, slow danced with a white girl, and the show got axed the next day?
What a cool dj Alan Freed was. He wouldn't just play the music, he would become one with the music. I loved his enthusiasm and the way he would talk and hoot with the music. No wonder blacks and whites loved him so. Blacks really liked him and that's saying something. When black folks like you, you got something. The reason everyone loved him was because he knew how to connect with people. Its almost as if he's talking directly to you. Bless him for bringing the races together through music!
The true Father of Rock and Roll, a man dripping guts and determination. Rest in peace Alan, we owe it all to you.
The Kitty Noble track @4:30 "Can't See Nobody But You" kicks ass
it's been on repeat for me, kicks so much ass
Freed was the first guy to play real rhythm and blues recordings on a major, mass-oriented station (WJW, Cleveland) with a presentation aimed at all young people regardless of race. While there were always black-oriented stations who did this, they were generally low power, aimed exclusively at black adults and not heard outside of the city. Freed played the REAL stuff on a big signal, mass oriented station that reached the 'burbs and well beyond. The kids went wild, and the rest is history.
"adults" The black poet Al Young recalled that black _kids_ listened to LeRoy White's show "Rockin' With LeRoy," the show that Wild Bill Moore (who had a top 3 national hit on the black charts with "We're Gonna Rock" in 1948) recorded his tribute tune "Rocking With Leroy" to. Why does "Hole In The Wall" by Albennie Jones on Decca 1949 have the lyrics "Tell your folks you're gonna stay out late... We gonna rock and roll..."? Because the rock and roll sound was marketed to black teenagers (many of whose parents disapproved) in 1948-1949 -- and very successfully, which is why recordings like "Boogie At Midnight" by Roy Brown and "Rock The Joint" by Jimmy Preston were top ten R&B nationally in 1949.
Listened to him late at night thanks to skip when I was really young & supposed to be asleep. Didn't recognize a lot of his music because R&R and Rhythm & Blues hadn't come to my area yet. I think he was on WABC when I heard him. He got a raw deal.....my view.
You forgot Dewey Philips and his 'Rythmn and Blues' on 'HBQ in Memphis.
Dewey's show was called Red Hot and Blue...
Also on Nashville's 50,000 watt station WLAC, you had three white men who sounded black Gene Nobles, John R(ichbourg) and Bill "Hoss" Allen blasting blues R&B and Gospel to half the nation
Time machine, that throws me back to 1954. wow !!
Thanks 🙏 😊 for sharing this treasure!
Goodnight Mister DJ... Wherever You Are!!!...
Tank you *very* much for posting!
I agree with with Neil Brown....Thank God for Alan Freed....The greatest DJ that ever lived!
Imagine seeing his show at the Paramount theatre in Brooklyn!
Custerflux....Let me know when you get that time machine friend....We'll all go see him at his height the the 1950's!!
Once I get the damn thing working - I'll definitely make a point of stopping by Karl … 😉
when he was real big on wins we used to go to his house on holoween and him and his wife Jackie would give each kid a half dollar and one of those real big Hershey bars.he was great.beautiful house on long Island sound in stamford ct.lot of famous people from stamford ct.gods country.!!!!!!!!! but i,m not famous yet !!!!!!
he is really the king of r.n.r.thank god for Mr freed .
What's so weird about this is that I grew listening to and collecting rock & roll from the 50's and 60's and I've listened to it nearly my whole life, yet there's almost nothing in this show that I've ever heard of before! It's like it's all from a parallel world or something.
Gil Bernal also played sax solos on a few early Coasters records before King Curtis became the de facto soloist (I believe it is Bernal on The Robins' "Riot in Cell Block Number Nine"), he was a versatile performer and was also in Spike Jones' later band, he can be seen in a very funny clip here on YT singing "I'm Gonna Sit Right Down and Write Myself a Letter" along with Freddy Morgan and Mousie Garner. My dad was an original Long Island Moondogger from when Freed was on WINS, evidently he had a request played/read by Freed one evening - what I wouldn't give for an aircheck of that!!! now THIS is radio! Alan Freed - one more reason to can the Cleveland jokes & accept the fact that it's a great place!
Man I think I used to have this one back in the day...great to hear it again...
On July 11 1951 Alan Freed first started on WJW in Cleveland, That just happened to be my 3rd birthday. How about that eh ? RockinRonny.
Incredible !!! If I ever find that time machine ... somebody remind me to bring a killer quality recording device with a really, really, really big hard drive. Are there any hi quality recordings of Alan's Moondog show? It's so damn good - it could probably pull a big audience today - just played back exactly as is.
Nah. The kids don't care.
@@brandonquinto4852 we do
Archive incroyable! Alan Freed, un pionnier. Le premier à construire des ponts, à abattre des murs. Jouer la vraie affaire à l'époque, fallait le faire! On lui doit l'expression Rock'n'roll.
I guess this is the only place where I can find the original version of "Make Me a Present of You"
THESE recordings of Freed are why the RNRHOF is located in Cleveland.Freed was constantly breaking new music on his shows. Historically,he was far ahead in airing the newest songs by the newest acts whether he was fuled by Payola or just good ears.There are persuasive arguments that he did have impeccable musical taste ,monetary incentives aside.
Additionally,not much of what the average White listner would consider RockN Roll today existed in the years prior to 1956. One could not have programmed more than a few minutes of the extant output of Bill Haley or Elvis at this point in '54. In fact, there was NO Elvis product to be had yet. He was still about 90 days away from his first breakthrough.
Freeds championing of indie label product would nowadays be called "College Radio". The records he plays here, good bad or otherwise are almost exclusively the output of small labels. many racing up RnB or "Race" charts ,others dying much as one would separate the wheat from the chaff. Some labels, like Herald and Specialty are legendary in the birth of this once revolutionary music.
Later, once sufficient quantities of product existed,then he could mix in more songs[big hits] that later stood the test of time. But for a minute, by the lake,and a few other places via syndication one could hear the "BIg Bang",the birth of a new order or what Freed called "The Big Beat In Popular Music".
Freed could only play what his Cleveland audiences would accept! Otherwise there'd be no Alan Freed. The formula was Freed + Cleveland.
It was instant cognitive resonance with the white listening audiences of a major Cleveland big wattage radio station that changed the history of white kids listening habits, and cultural habits, growing up in a very segregated America everywhere else at the time. Even the NYC market was not exempt from this segregation of talent on commercial airwaves. Cleveland broke that down along with Alan Freed. And together the world was changed by this open interracial lifestyle of those living in the little international port city on the lake. That's all it was.
Payola is such a joke. This man lost his reputation and integrity to political ambitions. Payola never went away, it simply adapted to the changing landscape-so sad.
Alan Freed - Legend ! ! !
Crazy to think Elvis recorded That’s alright mama and Blue Moon of Kentucky on July 5th of this year 1954. Just 3 months after this program aired .
Alan Freed coined the term "Rock 'n' Roll". That makes him just right.
me encuentro haciendo una tesis sobre la importancia del rock and roll en las relaciones internacionales y la investigación del origen del rock me ha llevado a escuchar videos como este. el panorama se vuelve mas amplio y sin duda es entrañable escuchar lo que fue las primeras menciones al rock and roll como ritmo y escuchar estas piezas que nos moldearían a las generaciones que crecimos con el rock como un modo de vida.
sin duda una joya, una capsula de tiempo.
por un momento, por 24 minutos nos encontramos en un punto crucial en la historia.
DESDE CHILE, SUDAMERICA
ESTA ES LA CUNA DEL ROCK AND ROLL. ¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡¡VIVA EL ROCK AND ROLL CLASICO!!!!!!!!!!
a lot of these records are not hits in fact they have been lost in history
Leroy White's "Rocking With Leroy" show was around before Freed did similar (check out e.g. Chris Powell's recording of "Rock The Joint" and Wild Bill Moore's recording of his tribute tune "Rocking With Leroy"). _Billboard_ called Albennie Jones' "Hole In The Wall" a "rocker" and Jay McNeely's "Cherry Smash" an "instrumental rocker" in 1949, for instance, and _Cash Box_ mentioned the "rock and roll brand of boogie" in August, 1950.
Joseph Scott You're right...my hometown WLOU, Louisville went full-time R&B on October 21, 1951 as the fifth full-time R&B station in the US. So Freed wasn't first...but he sure got Rhythm and Blues into the mainstream later on in the game.
Yes, there were always small, inner city radio stations aimed at African-Americans which--like WLOU with only 500 watts--barely made it past the city limits. But WJW in Cleveland was a major, mass audience station with a strong signal. Freed took this music right into the suburbs and beyond. It was the first time that masses of young people heard real R & B by the real artists belted out full throttle presented by a guy who was equally jet propelled!
"It was the first time that masses of young people heard real R & B by..." Masses of young people who were black were listening to the new fad substyle of R&B, rock and roll, as of 1949. Recordings like "Rock The Joint" by Jimmy Preston, "We're Gonna Rock" by Wild Bill Moore, and "Boogie At Midnight" by Roy Brown were top ten on the national black charts during 1948-1949. Erline "Rock And Roll" Harris was going by that nickname in print in 1949 when she made the rock and roll recording "Jump And Shout."
wow! awesome! makes me wanna park my 57 ford and play this! (I was born in 81)
Finally when they named the radio studio at The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame The Alan Freed studio justice was finally done.Was their Payola in the fifties that Freed along with other jocks were caught for?For Sure but Alan only played what he liked and that's why today Alan Freed continues to be Mr.Rock & Roll.Every top 40 jock from the fifties and the sixties needs to thank Alan for what he did for our business..
Wonderful!
The version of "One O'Clock Jump" came out there years before a similar version by Lambert, Hendricks and Ross.
Actually, there were many other white DJs that were pioneering that BEFORE Freed. In Los Angeles, Hunter Hancock was one of the very first to do so in 1948. In Memphis, you had Dewey Phillips, Robin Seymour in St. Louis. Freed WAS an opportunist who tried to copywrite the term 'rock and roll', claiming that he coined the term (he didn't). I'm writing a book that covers all of this. My research confirms my conclusions.
what is your book? I would like to buy it (if so where can I get it)
Erin Brew Ten-O-Two, boy, that stuff is really here!
The infancy of rock 'n roll!
thank you Allen freed
Cleveland rocks
With out this fellow, just what would we have ended up with?,...God bless Alan Freed
And Freed's AUDIENCE in CLEVELAND, OHIO!!!
Freed was great !!
Sure the phrase rock and roll had been a Boswell Sisters song and there are plenty of examples of both rock and roll in r and b songs predating Freed, however it was Freed who attached the phrase to the type of music as a label. There was lots of good rockin' before Freed but it was not called rock-n-roll music. I think the name stuck one night when Bill Haley and the Comets were in Freed's studio promoting the record Rock This Joint. I think this would've been 1953. Most certainly Freed popularized using the term rock-n-roll to refer to a certain type of music.
"it was Freed who attached the phrase to the type of music as a label" Myth. E.g., Cash Box wrote about "the rock and roll brand of boogie" on Aug. 5, 1950, page 11.
Long live the Real Father of the Oldies, Porky Chedwick..
I didn't say he was the only 1, but he was the most popular. Also, NY (& the east coast in general) was where the "action" was musically (always has been), so I'd venture to guess Freed had the largest listening audience among the other names you mentioned. That's cool that you're writing a book about that era.. tell me more about it. I've loved '50s r&b (especially the vocal groups) since the '70s- Grew up listening to the Nite Train/Doowop Shop (WCBS-FM) and Time Capsule Show (WFUV-FM)..
Freed was very, very important in plugging black and white rock and roll to as many people as possible and plugging black and white rock and roll as worthwhile. It's when people try to talk about what Freed did "first" that it's virtually never true at all.
Please, a name for the second song, what a wonderful blues is this?
Kitty Noble - Can't See Nobody But You
@@anyoutubeaccount thaaaaaank youuuuuuuuuuu!!!!!
Ladies and gentlemen...Alan Freed!!
BOSS JUST BOSS!!!!!
All we hear now is radio ga-ga.
The musical term "rock and roll" was used back into the early '30s. It was used by jazz musicians in the '40s as an expression of screwing. However, there were many R & B records that mentioned rock and roll as both sex and dancing, like Roy Brown's "Good Rockin' Tonight" in 1947. There are countless other examples. Alan Freed was an opportunist who saw a niche he could claim, and did so by jumping on the term. Bill Haley had used the term "rock and roll" in his music back in '52.
I don't think believe that Freed claimed to have invented the term, but he certainly was the main person who popularized it.
Legende American discjockey.allan freed _icone world culture and popculture.basic genre and stylle world music_50.and 60.years_jazz,swing,boogie_woogie,folk,country,Soul,funky,rhythm#blues,blues,rock n roll and big beat!rock n roll_dynamic and life modern popular world music 20.century.50.and 60.years _great štory world music.basic.rock n roll_beatifull Melody,Harmony,tonally,tempe and rhythm,vocals,lyrics and sound music.aestetics,poetics.miracle.allan _legende rádio USA.movies rock,rock,rock_beatifull.allan_propagation rock n roll music.allan_tragedy life.dead,ohio!im lesten rádio oldies _cinncinatti,Orlando and new york.good bye,allan!thanks your very múch,allan freed!Peter ragac,slovakia
Como se llama el disco cuando empiesa la trompeta . Quien es el artista
THIS IS ROCK & ROLL BEFORE ELVIS!! GODDAMN YOU, CLEVELAND!!!
...and see how it gets rewarded today!!
I'll Be True To You....Some other artist other than Bill Haley and his Saddlemen in 1954. Don't know who it is though.
Marie Adams..
😊
Alan Freed was an underrated legend don't forget Dick Clark and Bob Crane came up around the same time plus in the case of Dick Clark and Bod Crane they had gone hollywood
What's Alan's intro theme instrumental before Gil Bernal?
his theme song was blues for the moondog....
@@filmcashew Freed called it Blues for The Moondog, but it was actually Blues For The Red Boy by Todd Rhodes on the King Record Label.
HOW ANTI AMERICAN NOT TO LIKE THIS, I GUESS YOU DON'T STAND FOR THE NATIONAL ANTHEM EITHER? HUH? THE FATHER OF ROCK N ROLL!!!!!!!!!! THANK YOU, SIR!!!!!!
Are we sure about the date here? At the beginning, Freed is talking about the Crickets and their affiliation with Norman Petty. As far as I know, the Crickets weren't even a band in 1954 and had no affiliation with Norman Petty.
He's talking about the Rhythm & Blues Vocal Group, The Crickets featuring Dean Barlow, and their affiliation with Joe Davis who owned the label the Crickets recorded for (Jay Dee) and was in the studio with Alan freed during this show.
Alan Freed ruined for something so fucking stupid. Can't believe it still.
E R I N B R E W
Arron Brew 1002
Never mind. The Crickets mentioned here were the band that recorded with Otis Blackwell and not the more famous Buddy Holly Crickets. I had no idea the earlier Crickets existed.
Alastor? Is that you??? (Plz tell me someone gets this)
@joy122793 No he didn't. That term had been around far back than him.
The Boswell Sisters, I believe, recorded a song w/ the term "Rock & Roll" in it or it was the actual title, back in the early 1930's.
Anyone know the song at 0:54?
Blues For A Red Boy by Todd Rhodes on the King Record Label
naa rock and roll was not coined by freed at all it pre dates freeds popularity by a good 20 plus years it was a jazz term as he stated
I don't mean to be depressing but is that the same Collinwood School that burned down in the early l900s and a lot of people got killed in the fire?
There were many other DJ's across the country in the early and mid-'50s who also played this music- even WHITE DJ's. One example was Dewey Phillip's "Red, Hot and Blue Show" in Memphis in 1952. There was also 'Jumpin' George Oxford in San Fransisco, Hunter Hancock back in 1948-49 had a show playing this same type music in Los Angeles. There were also other jocks in Atlanta, New Orleans and Philly who were doing the same exact thing earlier or at the same time as Freed.
Right you are, but people like Jumpin' George Oxford were on stations like KSAN(AM) 1450 which was 250 watts from the inner city and barely reached 10 miles at night.
"Hunter Hancock back in 1948-49 had a show playing this same type music in Los Angeles" "Oxford... was 250 watts" Do you not want to talk about how Hancock was 5,000 watts?
Mums and Dads back then told their childern not to listen to that devils music. Youth.
Alan Freed had it all, but because he took bribes from record promoters to play certain records, his career spectacularly "crashed and burned".
Followed soot? Does that mean he chased after fine black particles, chiefly composed of carbon, produced by incomplete combustion of coal, oil, wood, or other fuels?
howard wasnt about the music
i believe youre wrong,Alan Freed did coin that term i always heard.show us some proof he didnt
"show us some proof he didnt" "... the rock and roll brand of boogie..." -- _Cash Box_, 8/5/50, p. 11. "ERLINE 'ROCK AND ROLL' HARRIS JUMP AND SHOUT" -- ad in _Billboard_, 1950
www.google.com/search?q=%22erline+rock+and+roll+harris%22+%22jump+and+shout%22&source=lnms&tbm=bks&sa=X&ved=0ahUKEwiXk8v52ODXAhXph1QKHcBHA9AQ_AUIECgB&biw=1920&bih=911
th-cam.com/video/9HLjveMNbaw/w-d-xo.html
Played great music, brought the black sound to the white audience, so ahead of his time
This is a historic recording however the music is terrible.
I don't agree with the history on this. Freed only played music for kids. So it tendede to be party music of fast beat music. it was just a subsection of R/B.
however the singers and songwriters were not successful.
THE BIG BEAT is the better term. it means the songs have a faster beat.
Thats only legitimate claim for rock/roll as a genre.
Kids were the ones who liked the fast beat. Not adults.
This is the discovery. kids love fast beats and buy all the records. to rock age came.
The blacks wouldn't listen to American music but only thier own people. Americans would listen to black music. Just like these days. however having a segregated music circles allowed achievement and kids of all identities would listen to Freed. They heard fast beat music and regular songs in the black charts. It was however the fast beat stuff that was embraced. Then a few great songs came along and all American teenagers loved those songs and the style behind them. It seemed new but it was just great songs really.
You only got one thing wrong. The most important thing! It wasn't the big beat. That's racist not call it what it is, or was. It was THE BLACK BEAT!! And Americans weren't listening to black music either, as you say. They got it filtered through Pat Boone versions instead on their big watt white audience radio stations.
Even as far away as London and Liverpool, Keith Richards and Ringo Starr where inspired by what was taped in only Cleveland, and played over Radio 4 on Sundays. It was that rare and special.
Freed was able to play unadulterated PURE BLACK MUSIC on a BIG WATT STATION serving a major white demographic market. And the moms & dads in Cleveland didn't freak out about it as black music was commercially segregated to lower watt stations all over the country at the time. Even in Cleveland.
Segregation or racism, what's the difference?
It's really a lot of things. Cleveland's special white community, found only in America, helped breakdown the segregated social and racial barriers of black artists music everywhere. It happened in other cities briefly. But it never raised itself to the level it did in Cleveland's market.
The community and society at large in metro-Cleveland and NE Ohio also helped the city to breakdown a lot of other racial barriers that were happening in other major cities as well. Even NYC.
Cleveland was the first major US city to elect a black mayor. It had the first black manager in MLB history, etc., etc..
People can talk all they want about Freed, but from R&R to the Cleveland Orchestra, the people of Cleveland have got an EAR! And the world knows it on both counts.
So if it weren't for all of these things, and the large white community and music culture in a major US city like Cleveland's, promoted by Erin Brew and Earl Scheib commercials, Freed would just be playing to dead radios. Or the way black music would be broadcast in other US cities where segregation, or racism, of popular music dictated social community programming, and dictated demographics and commercial ad rates on those stations. Or just low wattage black stations vs mega watt white commercial stations is all that America had at the time.
This large prolonged programming over many years of successful ratings consistently with white Cleveland, Standard Brewing Co., "pop a cap" sponsored beer drinking, white audiences by exclusively black entertainment talent night after night, changed the demographics of power wattage radio stations advertising profits everywhere to this new music. And that hadn't even happen or started in places like NYC yet. This is the very future of American radio everywhere. The first pulse being belted out night after night, week after week, originating right here. And it made a happy night at the drive-in theater. When American radio went from swing to rock. And it is a historic racial and cultural shift in America.
And it happened in Cleveland, b/c it could ONLY have happened in Cleveland.
I blame Erin Brew Ten-O-Two!! Who else?!
longwinded and wrong on 100 points.
It was freed who called it the BIG BEAT. It meant it was a fast beat. nothing to do with blacks as a group.
lots of genres of music had fast beats but there was more in the blacks because their young people only listened to black music. they were prejudiced and still are.
Americans didn't listen to R/B because it was no good. if it was then they did. blacks always got more representation amongst Americans. they never refused blacks in music. Its a myth.
"Nothing to do with blacks as a group?" Um, are you listening to the same music I'm listening to? Those are black artists you are completely dismissing with your focused tunnel vision on only the beat, and it's fast tempo, and dancing, too, in your analysis. That's the art side of it. The sociopolitical side of it was the reality that America was still deep in racism and segregation back then. WJW, Cleveland allowed blacks to get equal time on a large radio station. And that was the clear breakthrough that you are dismissing with only your focusing on the art form. And not including the artists themselves as the new inspirational figures for whites to have in their culture at a time blacks and whites were very separated in this country.
We know Sidney Poitier had only one thing on his mind with those nuns in that movie. D'ya know what I mean? It was racism that was overcome.
It wasn't just the acknowledgment of a new music form by blacks that whites had enjoyed. It was the acknowledgment of the artists themselves who were blacks! And on Cleveland radio.
We lived in a two race society. We had black & white TV sets. But all the actors were white. Black people didn't exist. The big breakthrough in culture wasn't the music. It was finally recognizing who the music was really being made by. And who the artists really were. And they were black!
I'm Canadian but don't agree racism or segregation existed very much. A little bit in the south, both ways, but in reality the top forthy charts were always full of black singers.
I do think blacks were refusing to listen to amertican music despite its greatness and commonness.
The only thing about cleveland was aiming at a youth audience. mostly black youths. pretty quick however regular kids listened too the fast beat music. The party music.
Yet it was in small numbers. Too little hit songs.
I think Freed got mixed up. he confused a small part of r/B with r/B.
Later he realized it was THE BIG BEAT. A fast beat that brought in youths of all types in these circles.
Coincidentally Haley had his big hit. Remember it took a movie to promote it because music like this was so unknown.
I think your judging hundreds of mllions of people based on minor details .
The vast majority of americans never were unkind or unjust to fellow americans based on identity.
Yes Brooklyn was segregated and the south and Chicago but they still are.
The immigrant peoples insust on segregation. blacks are segr4egated today as in the past.
Only true Americans, yankees and southerners now, really react to others based only on being countrymen.
Obama ran on a ticket and was voted on a ticket claiming he deserved to be president because he was Africa, Clinton says the same about being a woman.
More rock and roll needed. Not that they would listen.
+Robert Byers -There was a deeper more overt racism everywhere in the US at the time this was recorded. As in any country at the time, in fact. In the US just less so between whites and blacks in the north than in the south. But still there. Things have changed a lot since then.
Cleveland has always had better race relations than in other cities. Cleveland's had it's share of recent black shootings by police. Where are the riots? Protests, yes. But no negative race defining riots.
Not that Cleveland hasn't had it's bad times either. But overall it's the unique cultural community and economy employed nearly everyone who wanted to work. And at decent wages. That mixed with the highest professionals in medicine ( cardio, neurosurgery, etc.), law (Jones, Day, etc.), aviation, aerospace, and leading headquarters for more major Fortune 500 companies than NYC or Chicago, had created a utopian, comfortable major mid-western metro city, and suburban environment for this rude music's tolerance and acceptance most places in the country didn't enjoy the openness to, or even knew that it could be possible.
And/or in places like Detroit or Chicago where there were already vast musical influences coming from blacks that was readily accessible to northern Midwestern whites.
It wasn't just in Cleveland where blacks were accepted into mainstream American popular music. It was in all those places, too You're correct on that point.
But it was in CLEVELAND where ROCK&ROLL came from! That's the point here!
And the point is how and why did it happen in Cleveland? The point's not about Chicago's black Jazz influences or those awesome black Philly street vocal groups, and black Detroit Motown talent, and their audiences, and all their great songs, too. That's not the subject here.
Rock & roll is the subject. And everything about it. And you're missing the deep point.
What else other than R&R has brought so many American whites and blacks together out of a heavily segregated country? And come together in America? Nothing has outside of brotherly Christianity in America! NOTHING outside of Jesus. So John Lennon was reflecting that point, too, in his bigger than Jesus remark.
Rock and roll is bigger than anything racism can or could make a good point for doing any longer. It broke down barriers first that needed to be broken down. Rock & roll is an amazing thing in that light. It's more than just a "fast" beat! That's naive. But it's okay if that's all anybody gets from it. It's not just all that there is to it.
The major point with this recording is R&R came from Cleveland first. And for a reason you have not grasped yet in your comment. IT WAS THE MUSIC OF THE STREETS IN CLEVELAND! Of everyday simple Cleveland life. Nothing special. Just another day living in Cleveland. It rains. You turn on the wipers. They go click, click, click. And you listen to R&R on your car radio waiting for the slow moving traffic, and the red light stopping you in the Lake Erie rain, to move again. It's just another day in Cleveland.
It's nothing special to be living in Cleveland at that time, right?
But oh, that it was!
Because you have on your radio in the rain, with your warm fresh box of donuts on the seat next to you by your side, the aroma filling the car, something no one else has in the country.
It was special for them, b/c they were living in an American mind set of the future of all America. Walking the streets in the minds of Clevelanders that Americans everywhere would soon have to face about it's own racism all over this country. And with this music as a catalyst for that mind searching.
And that means looking in the mirror across America with this music made by blacks, and being listened to in Cleveland in the hearts and the minds, and souls, of the people who listened to it day in and day out. Racism sucks when you wanna have fun!
Clevelanders did it without feeling special about it. Or even knowing they were special doing it at the time. It's just Clevelanders being who they are. They were who they were in Cleveland. Isn't everybody like this, they thought?
No, not unless you'd leave Cleveland would you know how fortunate you are, black or white when you drove through the country listening to other radio stations. And seeing their segregated communities.
These people who first accepted black R&R music were the future of modern race relations in America. Nothing short of it. Ask the first black mayor of Cleveland, too. It's Cleveland. And Cleveland Rocks & Rolls!
Thinking twice about racism and segregation is what R&R forced you to do if you liked it back then. Some still don't like the form. To loud and fast, y'know? And still black originated music. Not for them and their tastes.
And what is it (racism) good for? Good for nothing really! That is what was decided in Cleveland long ago in this country during legalized segregation and racism when R&R's black artists came along.
Hey man, it was rough on everybody, black or white.
And it was the way racism was dealt with by the day-to-day, hour by hour, working-class and professional families listening habits of only Cleveland audiences on their radios. That's the point!!
It was their non-racist lifestyles in Cleveland! Not just Freed.
Freed needed them as much as they needed a daring young DJ who put it together to get away with playing it for them on a major white radio station - in Cleveland first.
If their kids wanted to listen to that "black" music on the radio, and bring it into the house on records, SO WHAT?!!! Is what Clevelanders had to say about it. It was about teaching racism to their kids in Cleveland, this music. They weren't going to do it the way it was being done in American families at the time. Or keep racism going at the dinner table. Racism was not big in Cleveland. It was there. But not enough to stop R&R.
What you call beat music was first very clearly defined in the US by American white families as black music. Not "beat" music. That's advertising.
Racism was institutionalized by local governments laws back then. Blacks and white were segregated in our country. And it was taught in the American family. And in some churches as well. Still is if you look for it.
And the race in this music, black, came before anyone white would consider anything else about it at the time. And it was dismissed by them for that sole (not soul) reason alone. It was "black music."
They'll need to hear it when Pat Boone records a cover of it. What white guys have to do covers of black Rap artists music these days?
But that didn't happen in Cleveland. It wasn't just because everybody liked the "big beat" you're stuck on so much. It was the acceptance of blacks into whites homes through music. The "big beat" moniker came later on. And that's just 50s marketing propaganda to whites. That's all that is. And it's still working on you! XD
PS There's no surf in Cleveland. But that's yet another story... Where are the black surf music bands? XD