Cleveland's Moondog Coronation Ball, Past and Present Cleveland Expert By Sandy Mitchell The first Moondog Coronation Ball, held on March 21, 1952, was America's first rock concert. The event, conceived and promoted by DJ Alan Freed , was a bit of a disaster, with over 20,000 fans trying to squeeze into a 10,000-seat venue. However, the concept survived and today Cleveland remembers the event with a new Moondog Coronation Ball and concert each March. The 2015 event will be held on April 4th at Quicken Loans Arena . The First Moondog Coronation Ball: The first Moondog Coronation Ball was held at the Cleveland Arena on March 21, 1952. The event was the brainchild of Cleveland DJ Alan Freed, the one who coined the phrase "Rock and Roll." Freed was one of the first "non-R&B" DJs to play music by performers, such as Fats Domino and Little Richard. He called his listeners Moondogs and he would howl into the microphone.

Tickets to the concert, believed to be the first rock and roll concert, sold frantically--and the promoters kept printing them. continue reading below our video Tipping Etiquette Around the World It was estimated that 20,000 tickets were sold to the 10,000-seat venue. So hectic was the scene that the local authorities shut down the event after just the first song. Moondog Today: Today, the Moondog is a more controlled concert, but still evokes the spirit of the 1950s. Half a dozen vintage rock and roll performers entertain concert-goers and many of the attendees dress in classic 1950s-style. WMJI radio has sponsored the event for several years. Performers: Scheduled to perform at the 2015 Moondog Coronation Ball will be the Smokey Robinson, Mark Lindsay, Randy Bachman and B.J Thomas. Tickets to the Moondog Coronation Ball: Tickets to the 2015 Moondog Coronation Ball go on sale now.

They are $68.75, $53.75, and $38.75 and are available by calling 888-894-9424 or at the Quicken Loans Arena Web site or box office. The Moondog in Cleveland Culture: In addition to being an annual concert, Moondog is the mascot of the Cleveland Cavaliers basketball team and a seasonal brew, crafted by Cleveland's Great Lakes Brewing Company . (updated 1-27-15) ALAN FREED Triumphs and Tragedies of the Legendary Alan Freed (Friday, September 27, 1991) - Rock radio pioneer Alan Freed's first career choice was journalism. He was doing a classical music show on WJW-AM in Cleveland in the early 1950s and had to be talked into hosting a show featuring a new sound - R&B. But Freed was an opportunist and quickly saw the commercial appeal of the music he is credited with naming: "Rock 'n' Roll." He became rock's first prominent spokesman, brought the rhythm and blues to millions of white teen-agers, and gave hundreds of artists their first recognition.

His career was destroyed in 1959 after he was convicted in New York on commercial bribery charges for accepting payoffs (payola) to play certain records. Ironically, New York was one of very few states that had such a law. There was no federal charge against payola until 1960. Freed died the day of Lyndon Johnson's inauguration, Jan. 20, 1965, broke and heartbroken. Nevertheless, he remains one of the most recognizable radio jocks in rock history, and was inducted into the Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. "Freed was a fascinating contradiction. He symbolized the triumphs and tragedies of rock 'n' roll," said author John A. Jackson, calling from his home in Amity Harbor, N.Y. Jackson's recent book, "Big Beat Heat - Alan Freed and the Early Years of Rock 'n' Roll" (Schirmer Books, $24.95) - will be part of a big Freed focus and display Sunday at Steve Petryszyn's 25th Cleveland Record/CD Convention, 5615 Chevrolet Blvd., Parma.

Jackson, a rock buff who teaches physical education in the Farmingdale, Long Island, school system, is convinced that Freed was not aware of the potential of black R&B when he took a disc jockey job at WJW in July 1951. "He took it just as a job. In fact, he turned down the (R&B) show sponsor, Leo Mintz of Record Rendezvous, at first. Freed wasn't sure he wanted to devote the whole show to that music. But he accepted the job a week later. He quickly realized the potential, loved the music and moved in on it." Soon, listeners heard Freed's trademark introduction, "Hello everybody, how y'all tonight?" Later, came the cowbell and thumping of a telephone book and "This is Alan Freed, king of the Moondoggers!" Jackson visited Ohio and interviewed Freed's Salem High School (Salem, O.) acquaintances, radio colleagues and relatives, though Freed's second and third wives, Jackie and Inga, declined to be interviewed. "Freed had a lot of charm. He was taller - over 6 feet - than his pictures make him out to be," Jackson said.

Freed's father, Charles Sydney Ford, was a Lithuanian-born Jew. His mother, Maude Palmer, was the youngest daughter of a Baptist coal miner from Wales. Freed, born Aldon James Freed in Windber, Pa., in 1921, started changing little facts about his life early on. This fine-tuning of his background and image bolstered Freed's self-image as an `underdog type' forced to overcome adversities before finding success, Jackson writes. Freed's employment application for WKBN radio station in Youngstown wouldn't pass a background check today. He added a year to his age, changed his name to Albert J. and inserted some fictitious acting, directing and music experience. Freed also tinkered with his link to the phrase "rock 'n' roll." The story goes that Freed and Mintz applied the old southern black term to the new rhythm and blues, but Jackson found that Freed gradually shoved Mintz out of the picture.

"In checking out his interviews, chronologically, I found that in his earliest one Freed credited the term `as being more Leo's idea than mine.' Then in '53 and '54 he was saying `Leo and I.' But by '57 he was saying it was his idea,' Jackson said. Jackson gives credit to Freed for making the strong, gutsy black versions of songs more popular than the white covers. "Maybellene," the 1955 song that Chuck Berry originally titled "Ida Red," later became the first song that overshadowed versions by white singers. It sold a million copies in the days when a big hit in black or "race" music was lucky to sell 10,000. "That was another sign of the growing popularity of rock 'n' roll," Jackson said. Freed was given writing credit on records for both "Maybellene" and the Moonglows' "Sincerely," (No. 20 in 1955). Jackson believes that Chess Records put Freed's name on the songs to get airplay, a common alternative to cash payments in those days. "But Freed pushed those songs because he believed in them.

He pushed other Berry records just as hard, even though he had no link to them," Jackson said. Jackson traces payola back to 1863 when the composer of "Tenting Tonight on the Old Camp Grounds" gave the leader of a group, The Hutchinson Singing Family, a portion of the song's royalties for singing it at their concerts. Gilbert and Sullivan paid performers to sing their songs, Jackson wrote, calling it "song plugging." But these examples didn't help Freed. The day in 1959 that TV quiz show whiz Charles Van Doren admitted he was given the correct answers beforehand on the show "Twenty-One," Freed was telling record distributors that he would only accept cash for playing records. But enough checks had passed between them to damage him, Jackson said. While working in New York, Freed refused to sign an ABC-TV affadavit saying that he had not received money for playing records, for holding back records until payment was received or for ownership or interest in music publishing or copyrights. The refusal to sign became irrelevant shortly afterward when Freed was fired. "One of the results of the payola scandal was the change in radio," Jackson added.

"WINS radio in New York dropped rock 'n' roll and played Frank Sinatra three days straight. Other stations dropped rock. Disc jockeys no longer could chose songs and play what they wanted. The station play list came in. And music became bland." For Freed, the scandal resulted in his increased drinking. He was already a chain smoker. A car accident in 1953 had severely damaged one of Freed's lungs, spleen and liver and necessitated 260 stitches to his face. He had fallen asleep at the wheel on Kinsman Rd. on the way to his home in Shaker Heights. Freed was also indicted for income tax evasion in 1964. He died before the case came up. The IRS attached his BMI royalties for up to 12 years and got a warrant to search his first wife's home, but no monies were found. Jackson visited Freed's grave at the Ferncliff Memorial Mausoleum in Hartsdale, N.Y.

The memorial plaque is simple: "Freed - Alan 1921-1965." Copyright (c)1991, The Plain Dealer By JANE SCOTT, PLAIN DEALER ROCK REPORTER King of the Moondoggers: Celebrating Alan Freed, The DJ Who Named Rock 'n' Roll In 1951, disc jockey Alan Freed walked into a small studio at Cleveland's WJW AM radio to play the blues-based music he eventually would be credited as naming "rock 'n' roll." There was little reason then to imagine that more than four decades later people would honor Freed's contribution and celebrate his influence on American popular culture. But such is the case on the museum's second level where - as part of the wing hailing radio's influence on rock - an exhibit has been devoted to Freed's pivotal role in playing the music. "There's no way you can present the full story of rock without devoting some chapters to Alan Freed," said James D. Henke, chief curator.

"He was playing and recognizing the depth of this music long before others did, and Cleveland was where he was doing so." The centerpiece of "The Big Beat: Alan Freed" exhibit is a continuously running film, narrated by Freed's former business manager, Jack Hook, detailing the disc jockey's life and controversial career as a radio personality. While spinning records at WJW, Freed defied tradition by openly playing the soulful songs by black artists who were to serve as the foundation for the music that was to become "rock 'n' roll." Freed combined his genuine love for the music with an exuberant sense of self-promotion, which culminated in his title as "King of the Moondoggers." His career was to take an ill-fated turn when he left Cleveland for a radio job in New York City. In 1959, Freed was implicated in a scheme in which disc jockeys received payments from record companies to play certain songs. The resulting scandal effectively destroyed Freed's influence in radio and he died in 1965, obscure and broke. He was 43. But Henke said for all of Freed's flaws, his place in rock history is unmistakable and significant.

"There's no doubt he deserves the prominent place he has been given in the hall," he said. Copyright (c)1995, The Plain Dealer By ROGER BROWN, PLAIN DEALER RADIO CRITIC Alan Freed It was on November 6, 1959, that the House of Representatives announced that a subcommittee led by Rep. Oren Harris was probing commercial bribery in the promotion of music. The proceedings were initiated because of a letter from the American Authors and Composers Guild stating that bribery is the "prime factor in selecting music for broadcasts and that the Federal Communications Commission and the Federal Trade Commission know of this but have failed to act upon it." The probe was wide scale and no one was left out. Both Freed and Dick Clark, who's American Bandstand was a hit show, were investigated, along with many others. Freed and Clark were asked by ABC to sign affidavits that they had not accepted payola. Clark did and also, as a result of the investigation, was forced to divest himself of some financial holdings he had in the music industry. Freed claimed that the money he received was for "Consultation" and not payola.

He refused to sign the affidavit which resulted in the termination of his contracts by ABC. Freed was eventually charged with 26 counts of Commercial Bribery and in December, 1962, plead guilty to 2 counts, he received a suspended sentence and a fine of $300.00. On the verge of bankruptcy, his career as a DJ was over. Though other DJs and promoters who were involved in the same schemes as Freed made it through the scandal unharmed, Freed's prominence made him a prime target. Freed left New York and moved to California. In Los Angeles, Freed got a job at KDAY, which ironically was owned by the same company that owned WINS. A disagreement with the station management over Freed being allowed to promote live rock 'n roll shows caused him to leave the station. He returned to New York where he hosted a live twist show. When the twist fad died down, he left New York and worked at WQAM in Miami, FL. His life at the top was over. Knowing he would never be able to go back to New York, Freed began to drink heavily, which led to his departure from the Miami station after 2 months.

He ended up in Palm Springs, CA., a broken man, trying hard to regain his popularity but still drinking. In 1964, the government filed tax evasion charges against him, alleging that he failed to pay taxes on the payments he received from record labels. He died before the case came to trial. The IRS did attach royalty payments from BMI records for 12 years to satisfy its judgement. On January 20, 1965, Freed passed away. The official cause of death was listed as Bleeding Esophageal Varices and Cirrhosis of the Liver. His body was transported back to New York where he was laid to rest in Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, NY. The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in Cleveland, Ohio was built there, in part, because it was the city where Freed began to play the music that is immortalized in it. As an honor to the man that gave us Rock 'n Roll, Freed was one of the original inductees to the Hall of Fame in 1986. In 1991 Freed received a star on Hollywood's Walk of Fame.

Alan Freed was the man who brought the world's attention to the great sounds of Rock 'n Roll. He appears to have used his influence to obtain personal gain that eventually would lead to his downfall. His pioneering ways changed the way music is broadcast today. No longer do DJs select their play lists. Programs directors and station management dictate what we hear. He was liked by many people and hated by a few, but he was a pivotal character in music history. Courtesy: About.COM Another Bio on Alan Freed submitted by a reader, April 22, 2001 One of the most important popularizers of rock and roll during the '50s, Alan Freed was the first disc jockey and concert producer of rock and roll. Often credited with coining the term rock and roll in 1951, ostensibly to avoid the stigma attached to R&B and so called race music, Freed opened the door to white acceptance of black music, eschewing white cover versions in favor of the R&B originals. Albert James Freed was born in Johnstown, Pennsylvania in 1922 of a Welsh mother and Lithuanian born father. In 1933 when Freed was twelve his family moved to Salem, Ohio.

He attended Salem High School during which time he formed a band known as the Sultans of Swing, in which he played trombone. His ambition was to one day to become a bandleader, but an ear infection ended that possibility. In college, he developed an interest in radio, and following World WarII he landed a job at a number of small stations. Among them were WKST (1942) in New Castle, Pennsylvania, sportscasting at WKBN (1942) and WAKR (1945) where he became a local favorite, playing hot jazz and pop recordings. Both of these stations were in Akron, Ohio. In 1949 Freed landed a job and moved to WXEL-TV in Cleveland. Leo Mintz, a local record store owner, saw an increasing number of white teenagers buying rhythm and blues records at his store. Based on these observations Mintz suggested to Freed that he should begin playing these records. On July 11, 1951, calling himself "Moondog," Freed went on the air and became among the first to program rhythm and blues for a white teenage audience. Other small stations followed eventually forcing the larger stations to join in.

Due to the prejudices of the times Freed began calling the rhythm and blues records he played Rock "n" Roll. What is ironic that term Freed was using to make rhythm and blues more acceptable to a white audience, was slang for sex in the black community. In 1951 a black vocal group The Dominoes recorded "Sixty Minute Man" which was a (#1 R&B and #17 pop) hit. The lyrics were highly suggestive and used rock and roll in the lyrics. Freed began using the term a month later and most likely was inspired by this song. Freed would name his show Moondog's Rock 'n' Roll Party. The shows success led to Freed's March 1952 Moondog Coronation Ball in Cleveland. Top black acts were booked for the show. Six thousand fans crashed gates in addition to the thousands already in 10,000 seat hall. Two thirds of the audience was white. In 1954 Freed moved his show to WINS radio in NY. Within months the show was #1. Freed began staging revues at Brooklyn Paramount where he often could be found on stage gyrating.

In 1955 he appeared in a number of rock and roll movies such as Don't Knock The Rock, Rock Around The Clock, and Rock, Rock, Rock. It was no surprise that these movies broadened the acceptance of rock and roll. The real surprise was Alan Freed in the flesh. In his mid-thirties Freed looked at least ten years older. Klutzy with little stage presence Freed looked completely out of place. To many teens Freed looked like the ultimate adult. In 1957 ABC-TV gave Freed his own nationally-televised rock & roll show, but an episode on which Frankie Lymon danced with a white girl enraged ABC's Southern affiliates and the show was cancelled. Freed's first real problems began when he put on a show at the Boston Arena (1958) that resulted in his being charged with incitement to riot. Though the charges were later dismissed, but WINS failed to renew Freed's contract. This incident forced him into into bankruptcy and would just be the beginning of Freed's legal problems. Freed moved to WABC radio, and also hosted a locally televised dance show. In 1959 the U.S.

House Oversight Committee, at the urging of ASCAP, began to look into deejays who took gifts from record companies in return for playing their records on their shows. Though a number of deejays and program directors were caught in the scandal, the committee decide to focus on Freed. Freed's broadcasts alliances quickly deserted him. In 1959, WABC in New York asked him to sign a statement confirming that he had never accepted payola. Freed refused "on principle" to sign and was fired. On Feb 8, 1960 a New York Grand Jury began looking into commercial information in the recording industry and on May 19, 1960 eight men were charged with receiving $116,580 in illegal gratuities. This probe would lead to Freed being charged with income tax evasion by the IRS. Freed was the only deejay subpoenaed by the Oversight Committee and refused to testify despite being given immunity. Trial began December, 1962 and ended with Freed pleading guilty to 29 counts of commercial bribery. Though he only received a $300 fine and 6 months suspended sentence his career would be over.

Forced to leave New York Freed work briefly at KDAY (owned by the same company that owned WINS) in 1960, in Los Angeles, but when management refused to let him promote live rock & 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. March 15, 1964 Freed was indicted by a federal grand jury for tax evasion. The IRS claimed that Freed owed $37,920 tax on unreported of $56,652 for the years 1957-59. Living in Palm Springs, California at the time, Freed was poor, unemployed and unemployable. Before he could answer the charges he entered a hospital suffering from uremia. Alan Freed died Jan 20, 1965 a penniless, broken man. He was 43.

Freed truly loved rock and roll, claimed to have never have played a record he didn't like and never forgot where the music came from. However, he was a flawed man who claimed songwriting credits that weren't his, paid performers on his tours very little and associated with questionable individuals. Alan Freed was inducted in to The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986. Bill Haley & The Comets Fans: Click for D4Haley International - "Gems by Gregoire" Marshall Lytle, The Comets ... Myself and Johnny Grande one other remaining member's of Bill Haley's group called the Saddlemen, (before the group was called the Comets) were in Cleveland on the Alan Freed Moondog show in 1952. We were promoting our record called "Rock The Joint." That nite Alan Freed turned the mike switch on while our record played and started yelling "ROCK & ROLL EVERYBODY!" The phone started ringing and the audience said play that ROCK & ROLL song again ... and he did, again and again and again. I think that was the night that Rock & Roll was born.

--Marshall Lytle, of The Original Saddlemen AND THE COMETS, Still Rockin Around The Clock. QUOTE: Chuck Berry, 1983 - "When Alan Freed started his exploitations, and he saw 'em dancin' and rockin' on the floor, doin' the barrelhouse roll, you know, so it was rock 'n' roll music. That's where the 'brand' came from. But Louis Jordan was playin' it long before me, Fats, any of us." Wolfman Jack - Biography - IMDb Wolfman Jack Jump to: Overview (4) | Mini Bio (1) | Spouse (1) | Trade Mark (1) | Trivia (13) Overview (4) 5' 9½" (1.77 m) Mini Bio (1) Wolfman Jack was born on January 21, 1938 in Brooklyn, New York, USA as Robert Weston Smith. He was an actor, known for American Graffiti (1973), Motel Hell (1980) and Diana Ross: Red Hot Rhythm and Blues (1987). He was married to Lucy Lamb.

He died on July 1, 1995 in Belvedere, North Carolina, USA. Spouse (1) ( 5 May 1961 - 1 July 1995) (his death) (2 children) Trade Mark (1) Wolf howl and gravelly voice Trivia (13) He made his final syndicated radio broadcast from a Planet Hollywood restaurant in Washington, DC, on Friday Night, June 30, 1995. Wolfman Jack was an ordained minister in the Universal Life Church, where he was officially known as and nicknamed "Reverend Jack". Wolfman Jack worked as a disc jockey from 1964 to 1966 for the (then) 250,000 watt radio station XERF (1570 AM) in Ciudad Acuña, Coahuila, Mexico, just across the river from Del Rio, Texas, USA, which is among borders of Texas and Mexico.

He died almost immediately after returning home from a promotional tour for his autobiography, "Have Mercy." He entered his house, hugged his wife, said "Oh, it is so good to be home!" and literally died in his wife's arms. "Wolfman Jack" was inducted into the Radio Hall of Fame in 1996. Hit #106 on the Billboard Singles Charts in 1972 with "I Ain't Never Seen a White Man" (Wooden Nickel 0108) He is referred to in the songs, "Ramble on Rose", by Grateful Dead , "Clap For the Wolfman" by The Guess Who , and "Wolfman Jack" by Todd Rundgren . Career began on KCIJ-AM, a daytime station in Shreveport, Louisiana. For the last two years of his life, Wolfman Jack did a live weekly show from WXTR-FM in Washington, DC, which was carried on 50 affiliate stations around the United States. A final tribute show aired one week after Wolfman's death on over 100 radio stations. Once appeared in a commercial for Clearasil.

He was a fan of disc jockey Alan Freed who helped to turn African-American rhythm and blues into Caucasian rock and roll music. Freed originally called himself the Moondog after New York City street musician Moondog. Freed both adopted this name and used a recorded howl to give his early broadcasts a unique character. The Wolfman's adaptation of the Moondog theme was to call himself Wolfman Jack and add his own sound effects. The character was based in part on the manner and style of bluesman Howling Wolf. He created the nickname Wolfman Jack and attempted to mask his true identity to create public interest in his radio character. Began his radio career in 1960 at WYOU in Newport News, Virginia, and later moved to KCIJ in Shreveport, Louisiana, where he first came up with the idea of the Wolfman Jack character. See also Biography | Alan Freed by Ben Fong-Torres A dog bays. A chugga-chugga rhythm begins. The dog howls again. A liquid metronome begins ticking…From the near distance, a voice, casual, conversational, materializes. The volume increases as he asks, “All ready to rock? Atta boy.

We’re gonna have a ball. Saturday night again…” Then, facing the microphone full-on, with the rhythm and the dog still going behind him, the announcer speaks, at a quickening clip: “Hello, everybody. How y’all? This is Alan Freed, the old King of the Moondoggers, and a hearty welcome to all our thousands of friends in northern Ohio, Ontario, Canada, western New York, western Pennsylvania, West Virginia. Along about eleven-thirty, we’ll be joining the Moondog network…Good old Erin Brew, formula ten-oh-two, northern Ohio’s largest-selling beer, makes it possible for us to be with you a whole extra half hour on Saturday nights. Pop the cap, have a good ball. Enjoy Erin brew, ten-oh-two, and the Moondog Show!” It’s the Alan Freed show, and, here in 1953, he is 32, and he is a disc jockey in Cleveland. He introduces a jumping jazz tune, “C-Jam Blues,” and, immediately, he’s adding his own lines over the horns and xylophone. “Aw, go!” he exclaims, just before the sax solo.

“Ho, now!” Freed is shouting, singing, moaning, and pounding on a thick telephone book, purposely leaving the microphone on. He guides the Duke Ellington tune to its end. “That goes back a good many years; a good many tunes have been written ‘round that riff.” Freed then slides into a sincere pitch for good old Erin Brew. It was in Cleveland that Freed became a star, and it was in New York City that he became “The King of the rock ‘n’ rollers,” drawing thousands of devoted listeners every night. One of them was Roger Steffens, a music historian who not only listened to Freed over WINS in New York in the early Fifties, but taped him, so that he could hear him again and again. “Alan Freed was like the uncle I never had.” In the midst of adult caterwauling about rock and roll, says Steffens, “He was our champion. He really understood kids, and he seemed like a real decent person.” He was. But he struck different people in different ways. Fans saw him as a hero who exposed them to new music and ideas.

Detractors saw him as a dangerous Pied Piper leading the youth of America on the road to juvenile delinquency. And to think that he’d gone to school to become a mechanical engineer. He was born Albert James Freed on December 15, 1921 near Johnston, Pennsylvania, and, at age 12, moved with his family to Salem, Ohio. In high school, he played trombone and formed a band, the Sultans of Swing. He loved bandleaders like Artie Shaw and Benny Goodman. But, traveling great distances to see and hear them, he realized that he wouldn’t make it as a musician. At Ohio State, planned on studying mechanical engineering. But, one day, after seeing the campus radio station in action, he fell in love with radio. He started in 1942 at a small station in Pennsylvania, did some sports casting in Youngstown, Ohio, and, in 1945, became a DJ in Akron, playing jazz and pop recordings on WAKR. He became a local celebrity, but after a salary dispute with the station’s owner, he moved to Cleveland for a job on television.

It was there, in 1951, that a friend, a record shop owner named Leo Mintz, connected him with WJW radio. Mintz was selling a lot of rhythm & blues records at his store, which was near Cleveland’s inner city ghetto. Soon, Mintz’s Record Rendezvous shop was sponsoring a program of R&B music, hosted by Freed. Initially hesitant, Freed soon embraced the music and its young fans. As his “Moondog Show”’s popularity increased, he decided to stage a dance with R&B stars. “The Moondog Coronation Ball” on March 21, 1952 was a smash—literally. The 10,000-capacity Cleveland Arena was sold out, but another 20,000 people showed up, and many tried to crash the gates. The dance had to be cancelled, but it is widely considered by historians as the first ever rock and roll concert. Freed’s popularity continued to grow, and on September 8, 1954, he signed a deal to join WINS in New York.

In Cleveland, he had begun to use the term “rock and roll” to describe his show, if not the music he was playing. Soon after arriving in New York, he lost his “Moondog” nickname after a threatened lawsuit from a street character with the same name. He then decided to call his late-night show “Rock ‘n’ Roll Party.” Since then, Freed has been widely credited with coining the phrase to describe R&B and the pop music that it inspired. While it’s been noted that “rock and roll” was a well-known slang term, meaning sex, in black neighborhoods, Freed got the credit—and more. In the July 1957 issue of Pageant, a mainstream magazine, a writer said of Freed: “He coined the phrase ‘rock and roll,’ and not only sparked the trend but fanned it into flame.” He did it by way of his show, and by concerts he staged in New York and elsewhere, events that began to draw white as well as black youth. For this, he was called a race-mixer and worse. The recording industry’s establishment feared his championing of the independent labels that dominated rhythm & blues, blues, and jazz music. Freed began making enemies.

Soon, parents groups, church leaders, and the press who deemed much of the music obscene and got much of it banned from radio. The New York Daily News called the music “an inciter of juvenile delinquency” and pointed to Freed as a chief offender. But neither Freed nor the music could be stopped. WINS added a second show to his schedule; he began getting co-writing credits (and royalties) on songs that he would play; in July, 1957, he began hosting The Big Beat, a Friday evening TV show on the ABC network featuring a mix of pop and R&B acts. He taped a weekly, 30-minute show for Radio Luxembourg, a pirate station operating off the British Isles. Beginning in 1956, he starred in a series of musical films such as Mr. Rock and Roll and Don’t Knock the Rock, in which he portrayed himself, quite accurately, as a champion of kids and a defender of rock and roll. As Matt Dorff, who turned John A.

Jackson’s excellent biography of Freed, Big Beat Heat, into a TV movie in 1999, noted, “He was also colorblind – he loved the beat, he loved the people who made the music, and the fact that they were black made no difference to him.” It did to many others. ABC cancelled his TV dance show after its second show, on which Frankie Lymon, lead singer of the Teenagers (“Goody Goody”) was seen dancing with a white girl, drawing protests from the network’s southern affiliates. Freed fanned more flames with his concerts at the Paramount theaters in Manhattan and Brooklyn, featuring mostly rhythm and blues artists and drawing both black and white music fans. Despite pressure from law enforcement agencies, he expanded his territory, leading tours that headlined Chuck Berry and Jerry Lewis and that visited dozens of cities. One such caravan arrived in Boston on the third of May 1958. Joe Smith, a popular DJ there, promoted the concert at the Boston Arena with Freed. “There was a little to-do afterwards, and Alan made a mistake,” Smith said. “Boston was a very jumpy town; very strict and Catholic and church-managed.

And him just bringing the show pissed off a lot of people anyhow. We hired extra cops, and at some point the cops said, ‘You gotta turn the lights on, they’re getting crazy here,’ and so they turned the lights on, and Alan said, ‘It looks like the police don’t want you to have a good time here. Come on, let’s have a party.’ And kids started coming out of the seats and surged toward the stage. It was a kind of a messy evening.” After the concert, fights broke out in the subway, and Freed wound up being indicted on charges of “inciting to riot during a rock and roll show.” The rest of Freed’s tour got cancelled. Back in New York, he and WINS, unhappy with each other over various issues, including Freed’s numerous outside activities, parted ways. Within a month – by June 2nd, he resurfaced on WABC, ABC’s New York station. He also agreed to do another television show called Big Beat, on WABD, a DuMont station that later would become WNEW-TV. One of WINS management’s concerns about Freed had to do with payola.

The practice of disc jockeys receiving cash and gifts from record promoters for playing their records was not illegal outside New York and Pennsylvania. While many DJ’s routinely accepted payola (and reported it on their income taxes), Freed was a big target. In late 1959, while a House subcommittee on legislative oversight, which had conducted hearings on TV quiz shows, turned its attention to payola, the New York District Attorney’s office announced grand jury hearings on misdemeanor commercial bribery charges against disc jockeys. Broadcasting companies, whose operating licenses might be at stake, put pressure on their on-air employees, asking them to sign an affidavit denying any involvement in payola. Freed, now on the air on WABC, refused to sign the ABC affidavit, telling the station manager that he had received various gifts and didn’t want to perjure himself. ABC fired him on September 21st. Freed would also lose his “Big Beat” TV show on WNEW, and he did his last program on November 23rd, 1959. The Congressional subcommittee hearings began in early 1960.

Before Freed took the stand, several disc jockeys confessed to taking money and gifts for promoting records. Freed appeared in late April. Although carefully prepared by his attorney, and aware that his testimony might be used against him in criminal cases being pursued by the New York District Attorney, Freed gave the congressmen a detailed accounting of his connections with record distributors, and named record companies that paid him for “consultation.” No longer employed in New York, Freed moved to Los Angeles, where his friend and former WINS Program Director, Mel Leeds, had landed a job as Program Director of KDAY, an R&B station. Just days after starting on KDAY, he would have to return to New York, where District Attorney Joseph Stone’s grand jury had handed down what amounted to indictments for misdemeanor commercial bribery charges that, investigators claimed, dated back at least ten years. On May 19, 1960, Freed and seven other radio figures were arrested and booked at a police station in Manhattan and charged with receiving a total of $116,850 in payola. Despite his legal woes, Freed sounded as energetic as ever on the air in Los Angeles.

Having signed an agreement with KDAY to steer clear of anything close to payola, he pushed records strictly out of passion, and helped break several hits, including Kathy Young’s “A Thousand Stars.” Freed, said his daughter Alana, “was really plugging along. He had a great show.” But the show closed after KDAY refused to allow Freed to promote a Hollywood Bowl concert he was staging. Fired by KDAY, Freed next had to cope with his trial on the commercial bribery charges. Wary, weary, and increasing his use of alcohol, Freed agreed to plead guilty to two of 99 counts, and, in spring of 1963, paid a fine of $300. Behind that number, however, were insurmountable legal bills and, just around the corner, Federal charges of income tax evasion. By the time those hit, in spring of 1964, Freed was too weak to fight. Living in Palm Springs, he entered a local hospital for gastrointestinal intestinal bleeding, resulting from cirrhosis of the liver, on New Year’s Day, 1965. Twenty days later, on January 20th, he was dead as the result of kidney failure.

He was 43. He left behind a family that included three wives and four children. He married Betty Lou Bean on August 22, 1943 and had two children, Alana and Lance. A year after they divorced on December 2nd, 1949, Freed married Marjorie J. (“Jackie”) Hess on August 12th, 1950; they had two children, Sieglinde and Alan, Jr. The marriage ended on July 2nd, 1958, and Freed married Inga L. Boling on August 13th, 1959. His grandchildren include Alana’s sons Brian and Greg, and, from Lance Freed and Judith Fisher Freed, daughters Hannah Freed Northenor , Isabel Freed , Sarah Bean Freed , and Nettie Rose Freed . Lance Freed went into the music business, and achieved considerable prominence as head of Herb Alpert and Jerry Moss’ music publishing company. Nettie Rose Freed is an accomplished songwriter. Judith Fisher Freed , meantime, is the keeper of the flame.

She built the Alan Freed Web site, and, on March 21, 2002, she delivered an urn containing his ashes to the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum in Cleveland. Freed was inducted into the first class of the Hall, in January 23, 1986, alongside such pioneers and greats as Elvis Presley, Little Richard, Chuck Berry, Buddy Holly, James Brown, Ray Charles and Sam Cooke. Over the years, he has continued to be recognized for his contributions. In December 10, 1991, he received a star on the Walk of Fame in Hollywood. His story – or a Hollywood version of it, anyway — was told twice: in American Hot Wax in 1978 and in Mr. Rock and Roll, aired on NBC in 1999. Far more accurate was a biography, Big Beat Heat, written by John A. Jackson and published in 1991. On February, 26, 2002, Freed was honored at the Grammy Awards with the Trustees Award , which is presented to people who “have made significant contributions … to the field of recording.” He did indeed.

And at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame dinner in 1986, in the magazine-styled program given to guests, a profile of Freed gave him the last word, written by him on one of his oldies albums: “I hope you’ll take my hand as we stroll together down our musical Memory Lane. ‘The Big Beat in American Music’ was here a hundred years ago – it will be here a thousand years after we are all gone. SO – LET’S ROCK ‘N’ ROLL!” __________ Ben Fong-Torres, a former editor and writer for Rolling Stone, is the author of The Hits Just Keep on Coming: The History of Top 40 Radio. He was also a DJ on KSAN, the pioneer FM rock station in San Francisco, and writes a radio column in the San Francisco Chronicle (SFGate.com). Visitors are welcome at . Greg Johnson reviews Moondog: The Viking of 6th Avenue | Counter-Currents Publishing Counter-Currents Publishing Moondog: The Viking of 6th Avenue Los Angeles: Process Media, 2007 Louis Thomas Hardin, Jr.

(1916–1999), known as Moondog, was an American composer, musician, poet, pamphleteer, and capital “p” Personality. Hardin stepped onto history’s stage in 1943 as a blind street musician and beggar in Manhattan. In 1947, the year he began to seriously compose music, he took the name Moondog after Lindy, the dog on his family’s farm in Hurley, Missouri who always howled at the moon. Robert Scotto’s Moondog: The Viking of 6th Avenue is an authorized biography based on extensive interviews and other documents that Moondog made available. It is a well-written, highly entertaining, and sometimes downright inspiring tale of a creative genius who triumphed over adversities that would have destroyed lesser men. Moondog had a striking appearance: tall and handsome, with long hair and a beard, he wore unusual clothing of his own manufacture and design. Many found him a “Christ-like” figure, which he found intensely annoying, as he had rejected Christianity in his late teens. Eventually, he quashed the Jesus comparisons by creating a Viking costume complete with horned helmet and spear.

Moondog had an intensely charismatic personality. But he first became known because of his unusual appearance and constant presence on the streets of Manhattan, where he played his music, recited his poems (which resemble Nietzsche’s aphorisms, Zen koans, and nursery rhymes), and just talked with passers-by. Columnists looking for an item or reporters looking for a story began to mention him in the papers, which caused more people to seek him out. Soon he was the darling of various avant-garde musical and artistic circles, probably for mostly the wrong reasons. Here is a brief appearance in The Moving Finger (1963), a “Beatnik flick” from YouTube: Given this, I was quite surprised to learn that Moondog was an enormously prolific composer of classical music, an ambition that was first conceived at the age of 17. Moreover, the following year, he read Beowulf and listened to broadcasts of Wagner’s Ring cycle, which ignited the desire to create large-scale dramatic works based on Nordic myth and saga—an ambition that he began to realize in Germany with his two immense works, Thor and The Creation, which have only been performed in part. Moondog’s love of counterpoint is evident in his recordings.

He fell in love with counterpoint when he first heard Bach’s Two-Part Invention in C-minor. One of his major later works, Overtone Tree, is a symphony in one movement that is “one thousand bars long and it has so many contrapuntal parts that you need four conductors to make it happen” (p. 261). Inspired by Mozart, Moondog began composing symphonies while a resident composer in Salzburg in 1983. By the time he returned to Salzburg the next year to premiere the first three, he had written 17 more. Eventually, he planned five books of 25 symphonies each, one in each key. He completed more than 200 before he died. And he composed far more than just symphonies. Most of this prodigious output has never been performed or recorded. In fact, much of it is still in Braille. It will be many decades before the world has a sense of Moondog’s musical accomplishments. Although Moondog was championed by avant-garde elements, his music is deeply conservative.

He said, “I’m a dyed-in-the-wool classicist, and I’m tonal.” “I would rather listen to rock’n’roll than Schoenberg because rock music is tonal and simple harmonically, as is mine” (p. 188). Moondog’s regular, spritely rhythms, simple harmonies, and counterpoint most closely resemble Renaissance and Baroque music. Thus the “jazz” label is highly misleading. Moondog’s compositions have proved quite amenable to big band adaptations. He also wrote concert band and march music. But Moondog was far removed from avant-garde and improvisational jazz. Even his apparent “improvisations” were based on completely worked out scores. Scotto’s biography reveals that Moondog was a reactionary in more than just music, although many of these points are developed in only the most cursory and tantalizing fashion. For instance, after young Louis Hardin was blinded, he abandoned his Christian faith. It was the classic problem of evil. How could a God who is good, all-knowing, and all-powerful allow him to be blinded and left in agony?

Once he put Christianity behind him, young Louis embraced “a new outlook on the world based on the so-called laws of nature and one’s relation to them” (p. 78). Scotto says nothing about the inspirations of this worldview, but there is definitely a Nietzschean flavor to such aphorisms as “One thing about life, be it said, it feeds upon itself over and over, and of itself is fed.” Eventually, this nature-centered worldview came to include Nordic neo-paganism. Moondog came to believe that Western civilization was fundamentally sick. The cause of the sickness was Christianity. The only cure was for Europeans to reconnect with our primordial pagan roots. And for Moondog, those roots were Nordic. His Viking garb was not, therefore, merely a costume but an affirmation of faith and identity. He was, as Scotto says, a “Viking foot-soldier and bard, reasserting archaic values in the most cosmopolitan and urbanized of civlizations” (p. 160). Moondog was not merely a literary or philosophical pagan. He earnestly worshiped the Norse gods. Yes, I do believe in the Norse gods. . . .

The way I go about worshiping the Norse gods is very much like a Moslem who would worship Allah: he can do it in a desert or anywhere . . . . If you want to think up when you think of the deity, you raise up your head, you just salute the invisible; it can happen any time; if you feel like communicating with something beyond humanity, you just do it. (p. 181) Although Moondog most resembled Odin, it was Thor who was the focus of his devotion. In the late 1950s, Moondog bought some land and built a rough-hewn cabin in upstate New York. (Yes, he was a homeless man with major label contracts and a vacation cottage.) There he built a pyramidal stone altar to Thor. (Scotto’s biography reprints Moondog’s poems “Thor” in Appendix E and “The Song of Creation” in Appendix F.) Scotto makes clear that Moondog became quite well-versed in Indo-European history, Nordic mythology and sagas, and the history of the Vikings. He was annoyed that Western educations favor Greek and Latin classics over the Germanic.

When he moved to Europe, he felt he was returning to his spiritual homeland. He stopped in Iceland on the way, and later he made pilgrimages to the Externsteine, the Teutoburger Wald, and other historical sites. Moondog also had strong racial feelings. He was particularly opposed to miscegenation between whites and blacks. Yes, even though he had cordial relationships with such black musicians as Charlie Parker and Duke Ellington. It is thus ironic that Moondog’s second wife, Mary Whiting, was half-Japanese. (They were married for about eight years and had a daughter.) In fairness to Moondog, however, as a blind man, his racial feelings were based less on appearances than on qualities of personality. Spiritually speaking, Moondog felt that Mary was a soul-mate. As a child, Louis Hardin had extensive exposure to American Indians in Wyoming. He felt a deep spiritual affinity for them and even incorporated their rhythms in his music. In 1949, Moondog left New York for a cross-country hobo odyssey. When he arrived in New Mexico, he sought to recapture his childhood fascination with the Indians by visiting the Navaho.

But no meeting of the minds was possible. Moondog was fleeing modernity toward an integral, traditional form of civilization. But the Navaho were fleeing that civilization to embrace modernity. Nor could he bridge the racial gap. His flirtation with the Noble Savage ended when a group of Navaho children led him out to an island in a busy highway and stranded him there. In the end, Moondog realized that his fascination with American Indian culture was merely his own blood calling him back to authentic European folkways. Moondog was, moreover, quite frankly anti-Semitic, an outlook that dates back at least to his early 20s. Scotto claims that Moondog lost friends because of anti-Semitic verses, but he does not quote them. He tells us almost nothing of the origins or nature of these opinions. At one point, he absurdly suggests that it was a product of “middle-class” prejudice (this of a man who was free-spirited enough to embrace the life of a blind beggar and hobo). Elsewhere, Scotto suggests that Moondog’s views of Jews were merely a corollary of his assertion of his Nordic identity. This is more plausible, but no source material is quoted.

Both explanations, of course, make no reference to typically Jewish behavior and personality traits. Moondog, moreover, had extensive interactions with Jews in New York: Leonard Bernstein, Steve Reich, Alan Ginsberg, Benny Goodman, etc. Some of these interactions were clearly positive, but surely not all of them. For instance, Philip Glass invited Moondog to live with him for a year in the 1960s and wrote a Foreword to Scotto’s book in which he quite graciously credits Moondog as an influence. On the other hand, in the 1950s, Jewish disc-jockey Alan Freed, who specialized in packaging black music for white teenagers, took the name Moondog. In 1956, Moondog sued him for copyright infringement. It was a long, bitter battle, particularly for a blind homeless man, but in the end, Goliath beat David, and Freed had to pay $6,000 in damages. (At one point, Arturo Toscanini took the stand as a character witness for Moondog.) Scotto also mentions in passing that Moondog was very concerned with environmentalism and animal rights. A pattern is emerging here.

Scotto’s book is an excellent first biography of Moondog. But the questions it raises point to the necessity of a second biography, an intellectual biography that explores the nature, inspirations, and development of Moondog’s worldview. Scotto’s biographical materials, which have been deposited in the Oral History of American Music Collection at Yale University, need to be gone over again with new eyes. Another useful project would be an anthology of Moondog’s writings, which includes not only poetry but also pamphlets and essays on such topics as the Viking discovery of America and the evils of the Federal Reserve System. Again: a pattern. Apparently Moondog—the big, gentle beast—was quite successful with women. He was married twice, fathered two daughters (the second out of wedlock), and had numerous relationships. Some women found his touching aggressive, but in his defense, that was the only way he could “see.” Still, his chosen lifestyle did not offer much to accommodate the female nesting instinct, so his relationships tended to be transient. In a couple of places, Scotto seems to hint that Moondog was bisexual.

It does not seem particularly important, one way or the other, but why hint around about such an issue as if we were living in the 19th century? * * * It is hard not to find Moondog’s life inspirational. He was a creative genius who triumphed over enormous obstacles. Some of those obstacles were surely self-imposed, as his critics and second-guessers point out. Moondog was not forced to live on the streets. Many people were willing to take care of him. He chose to live on the streets because he had a strong need for independence, and he was willing to pay the price. Yet even so, he demonstrated just how much one can do with how little—just how far the power of personality and genius can take you—how one can live a spiritually rich and creative life while blind and in poverty on the streets of New York. It is ironic that young Louis Hardin concluded that the accident that blinded him was a refutation of Providence. On Scotto’s account, he had a terrible childhood. His parents were not exactly cruel. They were just self-absorbed flakes. Young Louis found it difficult to trust others and make friends. He lacked focus and self-confidence.

He showed no sign of special intelligence or ability. He apparently did not receive much of an education. Then he was plunged into darkness and agony. His life was shattered. The visible world was gone. He was forced inward, to gather his forces. He had to put his life back together and return to the world using his senses of hearing and touch. He emerged a remarkably transformed man. He discovered talents that lay hidden, an independence of mind and action that he did not know he possessed. The shy, retiring, unfocused boy had become a man with the self-confidence to travel blind across the United States. One wonders if, were it not for the accident, Louis would have instead become like his younger sister, who simply drifted through life then just went missing, presumed dead. If so, then maybe there was something Providential about the accident, although perhaps the happy end was due not to God but to Hardin himself. Fate made Louis Hardin, Jr. into a blind man, and Hardin made the blind man into Moondog. Related Related If you enjoyed this piece, and wish to encourage more like it, give a tip through Paypal .

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Question: What American DJ was nicknamed Moondog?
Answer: Alan Freed