Alan Freed
Alan Freed was born on Dec.15,1926 in Johnstown Pennsylvania, he
started his career at WKST in New Castle Penn., with stints at WKBN and
WAKR in Ohio before moving on to WJW in Cleveland.
In 1951 he hosted a show sponsored by a local record store owner Leo
Mintz , it was here that he coined the phrase "Rock 'N' Roll", trying to
lessen the opposition to R&B or "race music" by white audiences. He
called the show "Moondog's Rock 'N' Roll Party", and it was here that he
started playing the original versions of R&B songs rather than the white
cover versions that were preferred by most stations of the era. He made
lots of enemies by doing this, but at the same time endeared himself to the
younger audience.
His trademark introduction was "Hello everybody, how y'all" and later to the
sound of the cowbell "This is Alan Freed, King of the Moondoggers".
In 1952 Freed staged a live concert at the Cleveland Arena
(capacity 10,000) and more than 20,000 showed up and caused the show
to be cancelled.
Here is Alan, March 22 1952 the day after the concert.
In 1954 he was hired by WINS in N.Y., while here he continued to promote
live shows and one in 1958 at the Boston Arena resulted in his being
charged with inciting a riot, the charges were later dropped.
It seems Alan Freed was always faced with controversy, he was given
the opportunity to host a T.V. dance show similar to Dick Clark's "American
Bandstand" but when Frankie Lymon danced with a white girl on air, it
caused the cancellation of the show
Then came the Payola scandal, he refused to sign a statement that
he had never taken money to play records, he was charged with 26 counts
of commercial bribery and was found guilty.
