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

Podcast: Groundwater: The Blues Beneath American Music · Thomas Stubbs

Opublikowano: 2026-08-13

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...