Alan Freed, disc jockey known as “Moondog,” was born 100 years ago today.
Freed became internationally known for promoting the mix of blues, country and rhythm and blues music on the radio in the United States and Europe under the name of rock and roll. His career was destroyed by the payola scandal that hit the broadcasting industry in the early 1960s.
Freed was born to a Russian-Jewish immigrant father, Charles S. Freed, and Welsh-American mother, Maude Palmer, in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. In 1933, Freed's family moved to Salem, Ohio where Freed attended Salem High School, graduating in 1940.
While he was in high school, Freed formed a band called the Sultans of Swing in which he played the trombone. His initial ambition was to be a bandleader. However, an ear infection put an end to this dream.
While attending Ohio State University, Freed became interested in radio. He served in the Army during World War II and worked as a DJ on WKBN Armed Forces Radio. Soon after World War II, Freed landed broadcasting jobs at smaller radio stations, including WKST (New Castle, PA); WKBN (Youngstown, OH) and WAKR (Akron, OH)
In 1945, at WAKR, Freed became a local favorite for playing hot jazz and pop recordings. He enjoyed listening to these new styles because he liked the rhythms and tunes.
Freed is commonly referred to as the "father of rock and roll" due to his promotion of the style of music. He introduced the phrase "rock and roll" in reference to the musical genre on mainstream radio in the early 1950s.
Freed helped bridge the gap of segregation among young teenage Americans, presenting music by African-American artists (rather than cover versions by white artists) on his radio program. He also arranged live concerts attended by racially mixed audiences.
Freed appeared in several motion pictures as himself. In the 1956 film, Rock, Rock, Rock, Freed tells the audience that "rock and roll is a river of music that has absorbed many streams: rhythm and blues, jazz, rag time, cowboy songs, country songs and folk songs. All have contributed to the big beat."
In 1945, Alan Freed became a local favorite in Akron, playing hot jazz and pop recordings. Radio Editor for Akron Beacon Journal, followed Freed and his "Request Review" nightly program of dance.
When he left the station, the non-compete clause in his contract limited its ability to find work elsewhere, and he was forced to take the graveyard shift at Cleveland's WJW radio where he eventually made history playing the music he called "rock and roll."
In the late 1940s, while working at WAKR, Freed met Cleveland record store owner Leo Mintz. Record Rendezvous was one of Cleveland's largest record stores, who had begun selling rhythm and blues records. Mintz told Freed that he had noticed increased interest in the records at his store, and encouraged him to play them on the radio.
In 1951, Freed moved to Cleveland. With the help of William Shipley, the RCA distributor in Northern Ohio, he was released from his non-compete and joined WJW radio on a midnight radio program sponsored by Main Line, the RCA Distributor and Record Rendezvous.
Mintz proposed buying airtime on Cleveland radio station WJW (850 AM) to be devoted entirely to R&B recordings with Freed as host. On July 11, 1951, Freed started playing rhythm and blues records on WJW.
Freed called his show "The Moondog House" and billed himself as "The King of the Moondoggers." He had been inspired by an offbeat instrumental called "Moondog Symphony" that had been recorded by New York street musician Louis T. Hardin, aka "Moondog."
Freed adopted the record as his show's theme music. His on-air manner was energetic, in contrast to many contemporary radio presenters of traditional pop music, who tended to sound more subdued and low-key in manner. He addressed his listeners for their common love for black music.
Later that year, Freed promoted dances and concerts featuring the music he was playing on the radio. He was one of the organizers of a five-act show called "The Moondog Coronation Ball" on March 21, 1952 at the Cleveland Arena. This event is known as the first rock and roll concert.
Crowds attended in numbers far beyond the arena's capacity, and the concert was shut down early due to overcrowding and a near-riot. Freed gained a priceless notoriety from the incident. WJW immediately increased the airtime allotted to Freed's program, and his popularity soared.
In those days, Cleveland was considered by the music industry to be a "breakout" city, where national trends first appeared in a regional market. Freed's popularity made the pop music business sit up and take notice. Soon, tapes of Freed's program began to air in the New York City area.
In 1954, following his success on the air in Cleveland, Freed moved to WINS (1010 AM) in New York City. The station eventually became an around-the-clock Top 40 rock and roll radio station, and would remain so until April 19, 1965 — long after Freed left and three months after he had died. It then became an all-news outlet.
While in New York, Life magazine credited Freed as the originator of the rock 'n roll craze. After departing from WINS, Freed was employed in New York by WABC (770 AM) around 1958, about two years before it evolved into one of America's great Top 40 stations by launching its "Musicradio" format.
At this time, WABC (unlike rocker WINS) was more of a full-service station which began implementing some music programming elements.
In 1957, Freed was given a weekly prime-time TV series, The Big Beat (which predated American Bandstand), on ABC, which was scheduled for a Summer run, with the understanding that if there were enough viewers, the show would continue into the 1957-58 television season.
Although the ratings for the first three episodes were strong, the show was suddenly canceled after the fourth episode. During that episode, Frankie Lymon of Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers, after performing his number, was seen dancing with a white girl from the studio audience.
Reportedly, the incident offended the management of ABC's local affiliates in the southern states, and led to the show's immediate cancellation despite its growing popularity.
Freed's career ended when it was shown that he had accepted payola (payments from record companies to play specific records), a practice that was highly controversial at the time.
There was also a conflict of interest. He had taken songwriting co-credits (most notably on Chuck Berry's "Maybellene"), which entitled him to receive part of a song's royalties. This could help increase play and his fee by heavily promoting the record on his own program.
In 1962, Freed pleaded guilty to two charges of commercial bribery, for which he received a fine and a suspended sentence. Freed's punishment from the payola scandal was not severe. However, the side effects of negative publicity were such that no prestigious station would employ him. He moved to the West Coast in 1960, where he worked at KDAY/1580 in Santa Monica.
In 1962, after KDAY refused to allow him to promote "rock and roll" stage shows, Freed moved to WQAM in Miami, Florida. That association lasted only two months. During 1964, he returned to the Los Angeles area and worked at KNOB/97.9.
He died in a Palm Springs hospital on January 20, 1965 from uremia and cirrhosis brought on by alcoholism. He was 43 years old.
Freed was initially buried in the Ferncliff Cemetery in Hartsdale, New York. His ashes were later moved to their present location in Cleveland, Ohio at the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame on March 21, 2002.
On January 23, 1986, Freed was part of the first group inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, which was built in Cleveland in recognition of Freed's involvement in the promotion of the genre. In 1988, he was also posthumously inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame. On December 10, 1991, Freed was given a star on the Hollywood Walk of Fame.