Alan Freed Biography
15 December 1926, Johnstown, Pennsylvania, USA, d. 20 January 1965. Freed was one of several key individuals who helped to create the audience for rock 'n' roll. As an influential disc jockey, he made enemies among the music business establishment by championing the cause of black artists but his career ended tragically when he was found to be guilty of payola in 1962. The son of European immigrants, he played trombone in a high school band named the Sultans Of Swing. After US Army service, he secured his first radio job in 1946, playing classical records. He moved on to Akron, Ohio, to play contemporary pop material and in 1951 joined WJW Cleveland. There Freed hosted a show sponsored by local record store owner Leo Mintz, consisting of R&B originals rather than white pop cover versions. Entitled Moondog's Rock 'N' Roll Party, the show attracted large audiences of white teenagers who swamped a 1952 concert by the Moonglows, a group Freed had discovered and signed to his own short-lived Champagne label. A near riot at the Moondog Coronation Ball the same year resulted in pressure from the local authorities, and Freed moved to New York and WINS in 1953. He was stopped from using the Moondog title after litigation with the blind Manhattan street musician Moondog (Louis Hardin). Still a champion of black artists such as Chuck Berry and Fats Domino, Freed hosted major live shows at the Paramount Theatre and in 1956-58 appeared in the films Rock Around The Clock, Rock Rock Rock, Don't Knock The Rock and Go Johnny Go. However, with the rise of Bill Haley, Elvis Presley and Pat Boone (whose cover versions he frequently ignored), Freed's power as a disc jockey was weakened. In particular, he became a target of opponents of rock 'n' roll such as Columbia Records' A&R chief Mitch Miller, and when Freed refused to play Columbia releases he was fired by WINS. He then joined WABC and hosted a televised Dance Party show on WNEW-TV based on Dick Clark's American Bandstand. Freed's arrest on a charge of inciting a riot at a Boston concert left him ill prepared to deal with the accusations of payola levelled by a Congressional investigation in 1959. It emerged that independent labels had offered cash or publishing rights to Freed in return for the airplay they were denied by the prejudices of other radio stations. In 1962 Freed was found guilty of bribery and this was followed by charges of tax evasion. He died of uremic poisoning in January 1965.
Source: The Encyclopedia of Popular Music by Colin Larkin. Licensed from Muze.
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