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Fable/Copyright
© 1974, 2006 by Jim O’Donnell He is the reason the
Rock 'n' Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland--not in Memphis or Liverpool. He
gave rock 'n' roll its name. He did what rock 'n' roll is supposed
to do: free the spirit. And he freed many. This a story about being
freed--and about Alan Freed, the rockcaster who twenty years ago first called rock ‘n’ roll rock ‘n’
roll.
Once upon a time, in the olden days of 1950, there existed a mythical kingdom called American Youth, and
its dwellers were clean and cut.
The Emperor of the kingdom did switch much from King Sinatra to King Crosby to
King Como to whosoever else the kingdom's parentage did deem worthy to rule.
Thereat, shackleth by mind to seer
Snooky Lanson's Hit Parade and Gruen watch commercials and soap operas of the magic sound box of Radio, the youthful dwellers
did live in what one prophet had memorably named a Make Believe Ballroom.
For, twas becoming the fact of America's
shekel culture, that he who did control the airways, controlled those who breathed them.
And it came to pass that
one day in not-that-olden 1954, a dweller named Alan Freed (of only 32 years in age) did sendeth deep dark vibrations across
the waves of the air of the American midwest town called Cleve Land, Ohio.
And lo! The heavens did rock and the
thunder did roll, and seer Alan Freed shouted: "ROCK ‘N’ ROLL! ROCK ‘N’ ROLL! ROCK ‘N’
ROLL!"
Wherefore the kingdom did crieth out: "Hail, hail, thine rock ‘n’ roll! Delivereth
us from yonder days of old!" And also they did crieth: "Hail, Emperor Freed! We doth fear not any longer!"
And so spoken, the kingdom at once began to be freed.
Whereat, those of the elderly world did become shocked
at the new Emperor's tappingeth a savage Freedian white vein.
"Ye should not be shocked at this," bespake
Emperor Freed. This Emperor, ye see, was a sharp cookie, if man was ever to undergo the sweet tooth.
He had foreseen
the light of the Black sound back in the March of 1952 when he did organize a stage show of popular Black singers, and 30,000
of the dedicated—mostly white—did try to fill a Cleve Land arena that would hold but 10,000. Said show destroyingeth
itself from within by chaos.
"Fear not!" Emperor Freed had spaken to the kingdom of American Youth. "I
shall multiply your shows a hundredfold at the Brooklyn FOX and the Paramount during Easter and Christmas weeks, and the ticket
lines shall formeth eight thick around street corners. And these shows shall runneth six and more a day and ye shall oft undergo
the miracle of the Fats Domino and Chuck Berry and others. Methinks ye must findeth hope! The dull Big Band nights of Asbury
Park Con¬vention Hall shall yet be undone!"
Wherefore by the intensity of its multitudinous following,
this less shackled Black music did trigger riots in theaterviewing rooms. And so Emperor Freed was not to be later at all
amazeth at winningeth over the whole Youth kingdom by spinngeth the sacred shaking rhythms through the magic sound boxes of
Cleve Land.
And it came to pass that the elderly of little faith in the Emperor's ability to rule did get jolted—50,000
watts worth—into hearkening to His Highness Freed chantingeth doggerel, gibberingeth "Go Man Go!" and "Yeah
Yeah Yeah!" while thumpingeth a phone book four beats to the bar, givingeth weather forecasts of "clear and sunny"
as if stuck in the hurricane's eye, and, withal, callingeth his job "Moondog's Rock and Roll Radio Party"—all
this from a battle station called WINS in a citadel of American Adulthood called New York City.
And it came to
pass that WINS twas victorious. And twas the mark of WINS style that Elvis Presley was its mainman, with a good Fie! on Pat
Boone, and so forth.
And soon lesser seers did hear their calling, seers called "Cat Man" and "Hound
Dog" and "Symphony Sid" and "Dr. Jive" and such. Thereat, they helped the Emperor to seedeth New
York's airwaves with lightning, so as the thunder would continueth to roll.
Twas not long, either, before the kingdom
of American Youth was Freed's in material symbol as well as in fact. The merchants of the land, called sponsors, did beseech
him daily to accept their pleas to favoreth their goods with a good word from his WINS throne.
Lords of the record
companies did falleth over each other in their knee-bending with the unshakable notion that the Emperor could have a record
brought to execution by simple disregard, if he was so disposed.
And all the while, younger princes in the royal
radio family did follow their majesty's style and taste.
Forsooth, the reach of Emperor Freed did seem to know
no bounds. Terse dictums did goeth out to all his kingdom and did get displayed on massive three-sided writing tablets called
Movie Marquees. These said “Thou Shalt Not Knock the Rock!” “Thou Shalt Rock Around the Clock!” “Thou
Shalt Rock Rock Rock!”
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And
the younger dwellers--getting happily surrounded more and more each listening hour with jukeboxes and TV-dancing kids and
Alan Freed Memory Lane record albums--did Rock Rock Rock around the clock, and did never knock the Rock. Suddenly, the olden 50's decade was not quite done when, lo and behold, some
higher-ups of the Adult Kingdom—in a ruling body called the House of Representatives Special Subcommittee on Legis¬lative
Oversight—grumbleth that Emperor Freed must presenteth himself before them and answereth to them.
For they
had a charge of "payola" to press, in that they did suspect he was playingeth certain of his records because certain
of the record companies were bulging his pockets with shekels for playing them.
"Even the Emperor of the
younger kingdom shall not live outside our laws," warneth the Adult Kingdom.
Now, the Emperor by this period
of 1959, was thereof professionally veteraneth to adversity. Alan was like Alger that way.
Yea, no sooner had
Alan begunneth his "Moondog Rock and Roll Party" then did a blind street musician of New York's Sixth Avenue sue
him 5,000 shekels for stealingeth his professional name.
And when Emperor Freed did come to New York, the province
of Harlem did want to know whereas he should not be foundeth guilty of stealingeth their culture for it seemed as if he had stoleneth
their music, as if by magical trickery. And they did clamor for a replacement on his program.
Then later, in near-modern
1958, the Emperor had fared not well, for he did get hastened into arrest in Boston and did get charged with incitingeth to
rioteth when some of his young subjects happeneth to take to attackingeth bystanders whilst comingeth from one of his rock
shows.
Wherefore, WINS management did quarrel with him over the incident, and Emperor Freed had hurried his throne
to WABC where his popularity with his kingdom did flourish.
But this! The charge that he did accept 30,000 shekels
in bribes from record companies did findeth its way into every public print in the land, and twas not the sort of clipping
one did cut out and have seteth in the den. (Let alone the crown.)
Worse was that the charges were not all falsely
founded. The Emperor did hold that he was not an evil king, that, in fact, what he did do was but the normal order of things
in royal radio's royal court.
"What they doth call payola in the disc jockey business," he did say to
his accusers, "they doth call lobbying in Washington."
Yet, when the Adult rulers in Washington were
finisheth with his trial, the public image of a D.J. was little more than a loudmouth Juvenile Delinquent standingeth on his
head.
Emperor Freed did plead guilty, in moderneth 1962, to some of the charges, and did get sentenced to six months
suspended and did get slapped with a 300-shekel fine.
He thereby losteth his rule of the airwaves, abdicating
his radio throne by sendingeth the sobs of real tears into the no-longer-so-magical sound boxes of the American Young, and
fadingeth out forever as "Shimmy Shimmy Ko-Ko-Bop" did start spinningeth on his turntable.
He'd had a
mansion of luxury on the Connecticut shore with means of broadcasting on days he did not cometh into his New York studio of
work, but now he did move to California, to try to leaveth his past.
But nay, the uglier parts did seem to traceth
him, and in hypermodern 1964, he did get changed with shekel income evasion.
A year later, January 20, 1965, he
did die of a kidney ailment in a Palm Springs hospital. He was 43 in years. His royal radio brethren did grieve.
And it came to pass that three moons after Emperor Freed was buried, WINS did start broadcastingeth the news, and nothing
but the news.
And thus is a story about Alan Freed, the rockcaster who twenty years ago first called rock ‘n’
roll rock ‘n’ roll.
Moral: Kingdoms are ruled by men who do not wait for he who is without sin to cast
the first rock—else the rock would never get cast.
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