The Moondog: Alan Freed, the Payola Scandal, and the First Rock and Roll Riot

On a Friday night in Cleveland in March 1952, a crowd twice the size of the building broke down the doors of the Cleveland Arena to hear Black rhythm-and-blues bands play. The Moondog Coronation Ball — often called the first rock and roll concert — was ended by the fire department before a single act finished a set.The disc jockey behind it was Alan Freed, who spent the next decade playing race records for white teenagers on a fifty-thousand-watt signal, named the music rock and roll, and routed around the segregated shelf system the recording industry had built in the 1920s.Then came the payola hearings. Everybody took the money. Only one man was destroyed for it.This episode is about Alan Freed, Dick Clark, the Frankie Lymon broadcast that killed a network television show, and the three-name writer credit on Chuck Berry's "Maybellene" — Berry, Fratto, Freed — that kept earning for three decades after Freed was gone, until Berry went to court to take his song back.Music in this episode"Guitar Rag" — Sylvester Weaver (OKeh, 1923). Public domain. Series theme."The Hucklebuck" — Paul Williams and His Hucklebuckers (Savoy, 1949)"Sincerely" — The Moonglows (Chess, 1954)"Why Do Fools Fall in Love" — Frankie Lymon and the Teenagers (Gee, 1956)"Maybellene" — Chuck Berry (Chess, 1955)All excerpts are used as direct commentary on the specific recordings discussed.Groundwater draws from Race Records: The Lie That Split American Music — and the Blues That Ran Underneath by Thomas Stubbs.Next episode: the shelves come down for real — not on the radio, but in the rooms. Four recording studios. A storefront on Union Avenue in Memphis where a truck driver walked in to make a record for his mother. An address on South Michigan Avenue in Chicago where the Rolling Stones went on pilgrimage. A converted movie theater with a sloping floor. And a cinder-block building in Alabama where Aretha Franklin found out who the tightest rhythm section in the South actually was. The Rooms Where the Walls Came Down. (00:00) - Episode 7: The Moondog: Alan Freed, the Payola Scandal, and the First Rock and Roll Riot (03:26) - Act One: One Audience (05:02) - Act Two: The Record Rendezvous (06:24) - Act Three: 50,000 Watts (08:42) - Act Four: The Warning Shot (10:13) - Act Five: The Affidavit (14:11) - Act Six: The Credit Line