2012 Rock and Roll Hall of Fame Inductions: Moondog memories from Alan Freed's son, Lance Freed

on March 31, 2012 at 6:00 AM, updated February 27, 2013 at 1:09 PM
alan-freed-wjw.JPGAlan Freed at the WJW mic.

By Lance Freed, Special to The Plain Dealer

Cleveland, 1952:

The view from our apartment in Shaker Heights overlooked the tracks of the streetcar line along Van Aken Boulevard. At the busiest times of day, a bright yellow streetcar would pass by every five minutes, taking passengers to the Terminal Tower downtown.

Not far from the Terminal Tower was radio station WJW, where my father, DJ Alan Freed, aired his nightly "Moondog Show" from 11:15 p.m. till 2 a.m., filling the night time air with what was known variously as blues and rhythm, or "race" records. Back in 1952, he was the only white disc jockey playing music created by blacks on a white-owned station.

He opened each show with the sound of a howling dog. He liked to call himself "The King of the Moondoggers," ruler of "the Moondog Kingdom." While records were playing, he kept his microphone open. Depending on the tune and his mood, he might shout encouragement to the artist, or beat out the rhythm of the music on a telephone book. He sometimes added a cow bell to the festivities. He was the disc jockey as entertainer.

By early March of 1952, he had been broadcasting on WJW for seven months, and while it seemed the show was enormously popular, there were no Arbitron ratings in those days to measure his audience. Nobody had any idea how big the audience was -- or who was listening.

What his listeners heard was music that my father would begin calling "rock and roll." "Race" music was considered unacceptable to the wider, white public. Dad took the phrase from the records he was playing, with lyrics such as "Rock me baby, roll me baby, all night long." "Rock and roll" was a known euphemism for sex; records like "60 Minute Man" were considered risqu . But to the general public, "rock and roll" became the name for a mysterious new genre of music. Its full impact was still years away, but, night after night, my father, Alan Freed, was already rocking and rolling.

I was nearly five years old in 1952, and would sit at the dining room table with my father, my older sister, Alana, and our stepmother, Jackie. In order to join the family meal, Jackie would put two enormous pillows on a chair so I could reach my plate.

Over dinner, I could hear conversations between my father and Jackie about his radio show. He would get very excited when he spoke about a particular new song that he loved, or the letters and telegrams he would get. He used to dedicate the records he played to people who wrote in with requests: "From Johnny to Mildred, from Joe to Shirley . . remember the night we went to Euclid Beach? From Eddie to Tammi and from Ike to Gloria, please forgive me, as we play Paul Williams' newest on the Red Bird label . . 'Keep Coming Back!'"

I was at the dining room table one evening and I remember my father was very upset about selling tickets to some dance he was hosting. It was very close to the date of the dance and he said they had only sold 800 tickets. I was scared because they seemed so nervous and concerned. I remember wondering, why would anyone pay money to dance around a room with other people?

They were talking about the Moondog Coronation Ball. Dad and local record store owner Leo Mintz of Record Rendezvous planned the dance, and it was promoted by a booking agent, Lew Platt. They had booked an ice hockey arena, the Cleveland Arena, for the dance, with a capacity of about 10,000.

Suddenly, he was in good shape, with the majority of tickets sold at the last-minute. By the show date, Friday, March 21, some 9,000 tickets had been sold -- and all for a dance that featured few major stars. The performers were Paul Williams and the Hucklebuckers, Tammy Grimes and the Rockin' Highlanders, the Dominoes, Danny Cobb and Varetta Dilliard.

It's possible that they weren't the stars, after all. On his show, night after night, my father had promoted the dance show -- and himself. At the Coronation Ball, he said, he would crown himself "King of the Moondoggers." As my uncle Dave once told me, "Only your father could have hatched a plan to throw a dance and crown himself King!"

Thousands of people started lining up several hours before the dance that chilly Friday evening, snarling traffic around the Arena. Soon, many people would know about the Moondog Coronation Ball in Cleveland, for all the wrong reasons. It was a disaster.

Besides the 9,000 or so people who held tickets, thousands more -- the estimates from police and the newspapers ranged from 10,000 to 12,000 -- filled the surrounding streets, hoping to gain admission and join the party.

moondog1.JPGView full sizeThe scene at the 1952 Moondog Coronation Ball at the Cleveland Arena, just before things got out of hand.

Just as Paul Williams and his Hucklebuckers completed their first song, many in the crowd outside decided they were going in. They broke through the gates and crashed open the doors and -- amidst the sound of breaking glass and screaming teenagers and young adults-- they pushed their way in, overwhelming the police. The fire department was called and all available police were summoned in an attempt to control the crowd. The dance was halted, the lights turned up, and a subdued crowd left the arena.

The next day, WJW fired my father. Terrible things were said and written about him. He took the blows, but begged station management to allow him one final broadcast, so that he could apologize to the people of Cleveland and all the Moondoggers who had attended the dance.

He expressed shock at the turnout.

"If you wish to lay the blame on me for what happened last night, you're certainly, perfectly willing to do so," he said, having trouble finding the right words, for once. While he apologized for what had happened, he asked for his listeners' support.

"I would like to have your expressions of loyalty to the old Moondog here," he said, sounding more weary than royal. "I'd like to have you do this for me tonight when you call in your requests to our 'Moondog Show' . . I would like to have you tell Dean (who was answering the telephone) that you are with the Moondog, and if you're not with the Moondog, you can tell Dean that, too. Because if enough of you can show faith tonight, through your telephone calls, through your telegrams, through your cards and letters over the weekend, to tell us that you are sticking with the Moondog through thick and thin, even though as I understand they are going to arrest me for overloading the arena last night, I would tell you that it'll be worth your while because I will see to it that everything is definitely made all right again.

He said he would try to give ticket holders a chance to see another show -- this time with reserved seating. But if not enough people showed support, he said, this would be his final broadcast.

Thousands of callers overwhelmed the station; many people took the rapid transit, drove, or walked to WJW's offices to show their support, and that was followed the next day by thousands of telegrams asking the station management to keep the show on the air. Before that night's last broadcast was over, the station's management told my father that due to the overwhelming positive response they would not only keep "The Moondog Show" on the air, but they would expand the program. He would do an additional hour from 5 till 6 p.m. six nights a week and follow that with the regular "Moondog Show" from 11:30 till 2 a.m. on weeknights and from 11:30 till 3 a.m. on Saturdays.

When I look back over the years, I can say with confidence that March 21, 1952 marked the birth of rock n' roll. A retrospective article in the New York Times in 1999 described the Coronation Ball as being considered "the first rock concert." Another newspaper noted that it was "the first rock and roll riot." And, as music historian and DJ Norm N. Nite put it, "In the circle of rock historians, it has been universally accepted that the beginnings of rock and roll was on that date."

To me, it was more than a concert, or a riot. It was a key event in civil rights history, breaking down the barriers of segregation through music and bringing people of diverse racial and economic backgrounds together.

As word spread about the Moondog Coronation Ball, and its aftermath, just about everyone in the radio business started asking the same questions: Who was this guy, Alan Freed? What music was he playing that had that kind of power?

Just a few weeks after the aborted dance, my father and a friend, Glen Moore, drove to New York City. My father met with a number of radio station executives who were all interested in having him in the largest radio market in the country. But he had just signed an exclusive two year extension with WJW. His dreams of broadcasting in NewYork had to be put on hold.

In 1995, the $92 million Rock and Roll Hall of Fame was opened in Cleveland. It stands as a living, breathing symbol to the world that Rock and Roll was born in that city - by way of Alan Freed and the dance he promoted there on March 21, 1952. I wish my father was around to see how the world has gone on to embrace the music and has built a lasting monument only a few blocks from the old Cleveland Arena.

Rock ' n' Roll.

The wild, raucous response to the still unnamed sound back in 1952 created a watershed event that still resounds around the world, and somewhere, if we listen hard enough, you can almost hear him:

"This is Alan Freed, the old King of the Moondoggers, welcoming you to another session of the great blues and rhythm records all over the Moondog Kingdom, as Erin Brew, 10-oh-2! brings you the Moondog Show!"