November 21, 1959: The "Payola" Scandal

November 21, 1959: Alan Freed is fired by New York radio station WABC. More than any other disc jockey, he was a symbol of rock and roll. Now, more than any other disc jockey, he becomes a symbol of "the Payola Scandal."

Aware of their rising status in the new era of rock and roll, disc jockeys established flat rate deals with labels and record distributors. A typical deal for a mid-level DJ was $50 a week, per record, to ensure a minimum amount of spins -- about $506 in 2022 money. More influential jocks commanded percentages of grosses for local concerts, lavish trips, free records by the boxful, plus all the time-honored swag. Some even opened their own record stores. As Cleveland DJ Joe Finan later described the decade, "It was a blur of booze, broads and bribes."

As payola escalated, the weekly "trade publications" Variety and Billboard did lengthy features, calling for reform and government intervention. To its credit, Billboard wrote, "The cancer of payola cannot be pinned on rock 'n' roll." Though they may have been thinking about their own skin: Rock and roll (or "rock 'n' roll") meant big sales, and thus big money, for them, too.

ASCAP (the American Society of Composers, Authors, and Publishers) were also vocal in their opposition to payola, using it as a means to lambaste their competitor, BMI (Broadcast Music, Inc.). At the time, the larger ASCAP represented the old guard of mostly white composers from the Tin Pan Alley days. BMI was associated with the young, racially mixed writers of R&B and rock and roll, as well as indie labels such as Aladdin, King and Chess. By the mid-1950s, BMI single releases outnumbered ASCAP's by almost 2 to 1. The older organization cried foul, accusing BMI of promoting payola.

Fingers pointed and words flew over payola, but it wasn't until the TV quiz show scandals of 1958 that the government got seriously involved. Once the "Do you now, or have you ever... ?" questions began, the jig was up.

With the threat of losing their licenses, some radio stations took the precaution of firing disc jockeys who might put them at risk. In November 1959, in closed and open sessions before the U.S. House of Representatives' Oversight Committee, 335 disc jockeys from around the country admitted to having received over $263,000 in "consulting fees." That figure was only the tip of the payola iceberg: Before the hearings, Phil Lind, a DJ at Chicago station WAIT, had confessed that he had once taken $22,000 to play a single record.

The trial heated up when the two most influential jocks in the country took the stand. Alan Freed and Dick Clark both played important parts in the rise of rock and roll. Freed embodied the incendiary spirit of the music more than Clark, refusing to play white cover versions of black songs, such as Pat Boone's version of Little Richard's "Tutti Frutti." And, though they both denied ever accepting payola, it's almost impossible to imagine two young, popular jocks not succumbing to a little temptation. Guilty or not, it was Freed who ended up taking the fall for DJs everywhere.

Why did the committee single him out? Freed was abrasive. He consorted with black R&B musicians. He jive-talked, smoked like a chimney, drank like a fish, screwed like a rabbit, and looked like an insomniac. He was also Jewish, and this was the 1950s. Clark was Protestant, squeaky-clean, Brylcreemed, handsome and polite. At least, on the surface. (It was the quiz show scandal's comparison of Herbert Stempel and Charles Van Doren all over again.)

Once the grilling started, Freed's friends and allies in broadcasting quickly and cowardly deserted him. He refused -- "on principle," he said -- to sign an affidavit saying that he'd never accepted payola. WABC, who took him on after WINS fired him in 1958, fired him, and he was charged with 26 counts of commercial bribery.

Freed escaped with fines and a suspended jail sentence. But he drank himself into commercial oblivion and health crisis. He died on January 20, 1965, only 43 years old, broke and virtually forgotten. He would not be "rediscovered" until the early 1970s, when the nostalgia wave for the 1950s got underway.

Before the trial, Clark divested himself of all incriminating connections. He had part ownership in seven indie labels, six publishers, three record distributors and two talent agencies. He got a slap on the wrist by the Committee's Chairman, Oren Harris, who called him "a fine young man." (A Democrat from the Southern State of Arkansas, he never would have said that of Freed.)

As Clark told Rolling Stone in 1989, the lesson he learned from the payola trial was: "Protect your ass at all times." Surprisingly candid words from the man who eventually became known as "The World's Oldest Teenager."

Congress amended the Federal Communications Act to outlaw "under-the-table payments and require broadcasters to disclose if airplay for a song has been purchased." Payola became a misdemeanor, with a penalty of up to $10,000 in fines and one year in prison.

The loophole in the legislation was that it didn’t say anything about "undisclosed payments." And so payola joined the cockroach and the Republican Party on the list of things that, despite changing times, always manage to survive and come back.

*

November 21, 1959 was a Saturday. Baseball season was over. The college football season was reaching its climax, with the 8-day rivalry week starting on this day. These were among the games played:

* Number 1 Syracuse beat Boston University, 46-0 at Nickerson Field in Boston. 'Cuse went undefeated, led by sophomore running back Ernie Davis, who, 2 years later, would become the 1st black player to win the Heisman Trophy.

* Number 2 University of Mississippi (Ole Miss) were idle.

* Rivalry: Number 3 Louisiana State University (LSU) beat Tulane, 14-6 at Tiger Stadium in Baton Rouge, Louisiana. Three weeks earlier, on a foggy Halloween Night, they were ranked Number 1, and beat Ole Miss, then Number 3. But LSU lost to Tennessee the next week, costing them the Southeastern Conference (SEC) title. When SEC Champion Georgia accepted the Orange Bowl bid, the Sugar Bowl set up an Ole Miss-LSU rematch, which Ole Miss won.

* Rivalry: Number 4 University of Southern California (USC) were upset by the University of California at Los Angeles (UCLA), 10-3 at their shared home field, the Los Angeles Memorial Coliseum. This loss cost USC the title  of the Athletic Association of Western Universities (AAWU, forerunner of the Pac-12), a bid to the Rose Bowl, and a shot at the National Championship.

* Number 5 Texas were idle. They won the Southwest Conference title, but lost the Cotton Bowl to Syracuse, giving the Orangemen the National Championship.

* Number 6 Georgia were idle. They won the SEC title, which would normally have put them in the Sugar Bowl. Instead, they accepted a bid to the Orange Bowl.

* Rivalry: Number 7 Penn State lost to the University of Pittsburgh, 22-7 at Pitt Stadium in Pittsburgh.

* Rivalry: Number 8 Northwestern, unusually favored in this game, were upset by Illinois, 20-0 at Memorial Stadium in Champaign, Illinois. This was Northwestern's 3rd straight loss, after starting the season 6-0. Unlike the many flops of the Chicago Cubs, this is one Chicago-area flop nobody ever talks about.

* Rivalry: Number 9 Wisconsin beat Minnesota, 11-7 at Memorial Stadium in Minneapolis. Wisconsin won the Big Ten Conference title.

* Number 10 Texas Christian University (TCU) beat Rice University, 35-6 at Amon G. Carter Stadium in Fort Worth, Texas.

* Rivalry: Number 14 Washington beat Washington State, 20-0 at Husky Stadium in Seattle. Washington won the AAWU title, and beat Wisconsin in the Rose Bowl.

* Rivalry: Number 15 Oregon were upset by Oregon State, 15-7 at Hayward Field in Eugene, Oregon.

* Number 16 Iowa were upset by Notre Dame, 20-19 at Iowa Stadium (later Kinnick Stadium) in Iowa City.

* Rivalry: Number 20 Tennessee were upset by Kentucky, 20-0 at McLean Stadium in Lexington, Kentucky.

* Oklahoma beat Iowa State, 35-12 at Memorial Stadium in Norman, Oklahoma. Oklahoma won the Big Seven Conference title (Oklahoma State soon joined, making it a Big Eight), but were on probation, and couldn't accept the Orange Bowl's usual invitation to the league Champion.

* Rivalry: Missouri beat Kansas, 13-9 at Memorial Stadium in Lawrence, Kansas. As the 2nd-place team in the Big Seven (Oklahoma had beaten them), Missouri accepted the Orange Bowl's bid. Georgia beat them.

* Rivalry: Harvard beat Yale, 35-6 at the Yale Bowl in New Haven, Connecticut.

* Rivalry: Maryland beat Virginia, 55-12 at Byrd Stadium (now SECU Stadium) in the Washington suburb of College Park, Maryland.

* Rivalry: Florida beat Florida State, 18-8 at Florida Field in Gainesville.

* Rivalry: Michigan beat Ohio State, 23-14 at Michigan Stadium in Ann Arbor.

* Rivalry: Purdue beat Indiana, 10-7 at the original Memorial Stadium (which was replaced by the current one the next season) in Bloomington, Indiana.

* Rivalry: Utah beat Utah State, 35-21 at Ute Stadium (later Robert Rice Stadium) in Salt Lake City.

* Rivalry: The University of California beat Stanford, 20-17 at Stanford Stadium in Palo Alto, California.

* Air Force were the only service academy in action, losing to New Mexico, 28-27 at Denver University Stadium in Denver. Army and Navy had the week off, preparing to play each other in Philadelphia. Navy won.

* And among New Jersey schools, Rutgers lost to Columbia, 26-16 at Baker Field in Upper Manhattan; while Princeton lost to Dartmouth, 12-7 at Palmer Stadium in Princeton. 

There were 4 games played in the NBA:

* The New York Knicks lost to the Boston Celtics, 128-127 at the old Madison Square Garden.

* The Syracuse Nationals beat the Philadelphia Warriors, 116-107 at the Onondaga County War Memorial (now the Upstate Medical University Arena) in Syracuse, New York.

* The Minneapolis Lakers beat the Cincinnati Royals, 99-93 in overtime at the Cincinnati Gardens.

* And the Detroit Pistons beat the St. Louis Hawks, 109-107 at the Kiel Auditorium in St. Louis.

There were 2 games in the NHL. The Montreal Canadiens beat the Toronto Maple Leafs, 4-1 at Maple Leaf Gardens in Toronto. And the Boston Bruins and the Detroit Red Wings played to a tie, 3-3 at the Boston Garden. The New York Rangers and the Chicago Black Hawks were not scheduled.

And in English soccer, Arsenal, the North London team I would one day support, beat Chelsea, 3-1 at Stamford Bridge in West London.

July 5, 1954: Elvis Presley's 1st Recording Session

July 5, 1954: Elvis Presley makes his 1st professional recording, a cover of "That's All Right" by Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup.

At the time, Elvis was a 19-year-old kid with a high school education, driving a truck for Crown Electric Company of Memphis, Tennessee, where he and his family, previously from Tupelo, Mississippi, had lived since he was 13.

He wanted to be a singer. He admired gospel singers, both white and black. He admired rural singers, both white men singing "country and western music" and black men singing "the blues." He admired pop singers, in particular Dean Martin, one of the biggest stars in America in 1954.

Elvis wasn't especially ambitious -- not yet, anyway. He just wanted to make enough money to get himself and his parents, Vernon and Gladys, out of poverty. He had been born in what was known as a "shotgun shack," and now they were living in what we in the Northeast would charitably call "garden apartments," but, though all-white, as Tennessee was very much racially segregated, it was definitely a ghetto.

So Elvis did have an ambition, if not an especially big one. What he needed was someone to recognize his talent.

*

In 1950, Sam Phillips opened the Memphis Recording Service, at 706 Union Avenue. It was a studio, not a company producing records. In 1951, he produced "Rocket 88," credited to Jackie Brenston and His Delta Cats. This was an all-black band playing what was then being called "race music," but would soon be called "rhythm and blues," or "R&B." (In contrast, people began calling "Country and Western" music "C&W.")

In fact, the band was actually Ike Turner and His Kings of Rhythm, for whom Brenston was the lead singer. Yes, that Ike Turner, the one who later discovered, trained, renamed, married and abused Tina.

There is dispute as to what was "the first rock and roll record." "Rocket 88" is a frequently-named contender, and it was soon recorded by a white band, The Saddlemen, and became a minor hit. The leader and lead singer of The Saddlemen was Bill Haley, who named his next band The Comets, and helped move the music that Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed had named "rock and roll" forward tremendously.

The Brenston version of "Rocket 88" made Phillips enough money to found a record label for his studio, Sun Records. Some of the biggest names in Memphis, already a great music city, black and white alike, came to him to record. Sam didn't care: The only color he cared about was green. Money.

Sam was ambitious. He said, "If I can find me a white boy who can sing like a black man, I could make a billion dollars." He really did say, "billion," with a B. To put that in perspective: With inflation factored in, $1 billion in 1954 would be worth about $10.9 billion in 2022. We're not quite talking Bill Gates money, but we are talking money that, to that point, very few Americans had reached. The Rockefellers. The Fords. The Mellons. Maybe a few other families.

And Sam was careful in his terminology. Not because he was tired of hearing grown men called "boy" because they were black (although that may also have been true), but because he thought it would be easier to sell records made by a white teenager who had the voice and feeling -- it would later be called "soul" -- of a mature black man.

So Sam had an especially big ambition. What he needed was someone to fulfill it.

*

This is not 1954. Most of you have heard of Elvis Presley. Some of you, but far fewer, have heard of Sam Phillips. That is unfortunate, given the jumpstart Sam gave to rock and roll. Even fewer of you have heard of Arthur "Big Boy" Crudup. And that is a tragedy.

Crudup was born in Mississippi in 1905. By 1939, he was barely getting by as a street singer, when he was discovered. Over the 1940s, he had a few hits with his blues songs. One, recorded in 1946, was "That’s All Right." This song became popular in the South, with both black bluesmen and white country singers. In 1954, it became the 1st song professionally recorded by Elvis. Elvis later recorded another of Crudup' songs at Sun Records, "My Baby Left Me."

By the time Elvis started recording, Crudup had stopped, because he wasn’t getting his royalties: "I realized I was making everybody rich, and here I was, poor.” He died in 1974, at 68, having won a case in court, but getting very little of what he was now legally owed. Today, when he is remembered at all, it is for writing Elvis’ first song.

*

On July 18, 1953, Elvis went to the Memphis Recording Service, because he wanted to hear how he sounded. This was the equivalent of making an audition tape. He paid $3.98, about $43.57 in today's money. About half a day's pay. This allowed him to record a two-sided record.

One side was "My Happiness." Written in 1933, it didn't become a hit until 1948, when Ella Fitzgerald recorded it. It became a hit again in 1958, for Connie Francis.

The other side was "That's When Your Heartaches Begin." Written in 1937, it became a hit in 1941, when it was recorded by the all-black vocal group The Ink Spots. After becoming famous, Elvis would record a much more professional version, which in 1957 became the B-side to "All Shook Up."

So Elvis recorded these 2 songs. Nothing happened: Sam didn't notice either recording. On January 4, 1954, Elvis went back to Sun, and recorded a 2nd acetate: Hy Heath's "I'll Never Stand in Your Way" and Fred Rose's "It Wouldn't Be the Same Without You." Still, nothing happened. At some point, Elvis made another recording, a 1918 song by Nora Bayes titled "Without You." (Not to be confused with "It Wouldn't Be the Same Without You," or with the later Harry Nilsson song titled "Without You.")

On May 26, Sam heard that record, and bought it for a quarter -- with inflation, probably the best $2.72 anybody's ever spent. But the name of the singer wasn't on it. He took it back to Sun, and played it for his assistant, Marion Keisker. She recognized the voice as "the young truck driver." They checked their records (books, not platters), and found Elvis. Marion called him, and said Sam wanted him to come down.

On the 4th of July, Sam took Elvis to the home of Winfield Scott "Scotty" Moore, a local guitarist, and, backed by Moore and standup bass fiddle player Bill Black, auditioned him. Neither Scotty nor Bill was especially impressed with Elvis, but they agreed to meet at the Sun studio the next day, to see what they could do.

The first song they tried was "I Love You Because," written in 1949 by country singer Leon Payne, and a hit for pop singer Eddie Fisher in 1952. They weren't impressed. They tried a few other country songs, but nothing worked. So they took a break.

Elvis and Bill stayed in the room, while Sam and Scotty went into another room to smoke and talk. Bored, Bill started playing around with his bass. Elvis started mimicking it on his guitar. Apparently, it reminded him of "That's All Right," because that's what he started singing. Sam heard it: Here was a white kid singing a black man's song, and it felt real, not faked. A tribute, not a mockery.

Sam had found his white boy. Scotty went back in, and a proper recording of the song was made. They also recorded "Blue Moon of Kentucky" by Bill Monroe, the fiddler (violinist) who invented bluegrass music.

Three days later, Sam took the record to Dewey Phillips (no relation), a disc jockey at WHBQ in Memphis. (It was at 560 on the AM dial. It's now an all-sports station.) Dewey played it. Within a week, Sun had 6,000 advance orders for "That's All Right." It was released on July 19.

Elvis started playing live dates with Scotty and Bill, each of them getting 25 percent of his earnings. Sun would release 5 double-sided singles for Elvis in 1954 and 1955, and his touring from Florida to Texas, especially on the live radio broadcast Louisiana Hayride out of Shreveport, made him one of the biggest draws in the South. He was billed as "The Memphis Flash." People listening to his records and his radio shows couldn't see him jiggling around onstage, but they loved his voice and his personality.

But by November 1955, Sam needed money. He wasn't making the billion dollars. So he sold Elvis' contract to RCA Victor Records for $40,000 -- about $436,000 in today's money. On January 10, 1956, in Nashville, Tennessee, Elvis, Scotty, Bill, additional guitarist Chet Atkins, drummer D.J. Fontana, and pianist Floyd Cramer recorded Elvis' 1st RCA single, "Heartbreak Hotel." It was released nationally 17 days later. When Billboard magazine released its April 21 issue, it listed "Heartbreak Hotel" as the Number 1 song in the country.

Sam no longer had Elvis, and he didn't have the billion dollars. What he did have was the $40,000, enough to record some new performers he wanted to try. These included Carl Perkins, Jerry Lee Lewis, Roy Orbison and Johnny Cash.

Sam never did make his billion dollars, but he made a few million. He actually made more money investing in a new company that had been started in Memphis: The Holiday Inn hotel chain. He was the 1st non-performer inducted into the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 1986, happily capitalized off his connection to Elvis, and lived until 2003. He was 80 years old.

Marion Keisker left Memphis in 1957, and enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. She became an information officer, and rose to the rank of Captain. Discharged in 1969, she joined the National Organization for Women. She died in 1989, at 72.

Elvis continued to sing "That's All Right" in his concerts up until his death in 1977. Bill Black died of cancer in 1965. Chet Atkins lived until 2001. Scotty Moore and D.J. Fontana joined Elvis for his 1968 NBC "Comeback Special." Moore lived until 2016, Fontana until 2018.

*

July 5, 1954 was a Monday. This was a big day in rock and roll for another reason. The man believed to be the coiner of the very phrase "rock and roll," disc jockey Alan Freed, had left Cleveland, and, on this night, played his 1st show in New York, on 1010 AM, WINS. From this day onward, thanks in large part to Alan Freed, Sam Phillips and Elvis Presley, the world would never be the same.

Alan Freed

It was the off-season for the NFL, the NBA and the NHL. But a lot of Major League Baseball games were played. Apparently, it wasn't enough that the day before was the 4th of July: Because it was now a common thing to give people the day off on July 5 when the 4th fell on a Saturday, the 5th also saw some doubleheaders. In fact, every matchup on this day was a twinbill:

* The New York Yankees swept the Philadelphia Athletics at Connie Mack Stadium in Philadelphia. The Yankees won the opener 7-4. Harry Byrd, ironically a former A's pitcher, was the winning pitcher. Joe Collins and Mickey Mantle hit back-to-back home runs in the top of the 8th inning.

The Yankees won the nightcap 11-2. Confusingly, the Yankees used pitchers named Tom Morgan (for 6 1/3rd innings) and Tom Gorman. Known as the Plowboy, Morgan had his best season in 1954, going 11-5 with a save. He helped the Yankees win 3 World Series. Irv Noren went 3-for-4 in this game, with 2 homers and 5 RBIs.

After the season, the Mack family sold the A's, and they were moved to Kansas City.

* The New York Giants swept the Philadelphia Phillies at the Polo Grounds. The Giants won the 1st game 10-0. Johnny Antonelli pitched a 3-hit shutout. Davey Williams and Dusty Rhodes hit home runs.

The Jints won the 2nd game 4-3. Ruben Gomez was shaky, and Leo Durocher took him out in the 2nd inning. Hoyt Wilhelm, the knuckleballer who eventually became the 1st relief pitcher elected to the Hall of Fame, ended up as the winning pitcher. Rhodes homered again, and another homer was hit by Willie Mays, who ended up as the biggest reason the Giants went on to win the World Series.

* The Brooklyn Dodgers swept the Pittsburgh Pirates at Forbes Field in Pittsburgh. The Brooks won the opener 8-6. Russ Meyer, "the Mad Monk," was a shaky starter. Ben Wade was even worse, but ended up as the winning pitcher. Vern Law, eventually to be a Cy Young Award winner for the Bucs, was knocked out of the box in the 1st inning. The game wasn't won until the top of the 9th inning, when Walt "Moose" Moryn and Edwin "Duke" Snider hit back-to-back home runs.

Dem Bums won the nightcap 7-2. Billy Loes went the distance, with 11 strikeouts against only 1 walk. Jim "Junior" Gilliam hit a home run. Jackie Robinson drove in a run with a sacrifice fly.

* There was a split at Griffith Stadium in Washington. The Boston Red Sox won the 1st game 14-0. Willard Nixon pitched a 6-hit shutout. Jackie Jensen and Ted Lepcio hit home runs. The Washington Senators won the 2nd game 7-1. Ted Williams got 2 hits in the 1st game, but none in the 2nd game.

* There was a split at Briggs Stadium in Detroit. (It was renamed Tiger Stadium in 1961.) The Cleveland Indians won the 1st game 13-6. The Detroit Tigers won the 2nd game 1-0. Cleveland's Don Mossi and Detroit's George Zuverink both went the distance, 11 innings, ending when Mossi was taken deep by Harvey Kuenn.

* The Cincinnati Reds swept the Chicago Cubs at Crosley Field in Cincinnati. The Reds won the 1st game 6-5. Randy Jackson hit 2 home runs for the Cubs, but Ted Kluszewski had 3 hits including a home run. The game went 10 innings, and an RBI single by Bobby Adams won it. Cincy won the 2nd game 8-7.

* The Chicago White Sox swept the Baltimore Orioles at Comiskey Park in Chicago. The Pale Hose won the 1st game 3-0, as Billy Pierce pitched a 4-hit shutout. The O's pitcher also went the distance. His name was Don Larsen. The ChiSox won the 2nd game 2-1.

* And the Milwaukee Braves swept the St. Louis Cardinals at the original Busch Stadium in St. Louis. (It had been named Sportsman's Park until the year before.) The Braves won the opener 8-6, and the nightcap 10-4. Eddie Mathews hit 2 home runs in the 1st game. Between the 2 games, the Braves' rookie left fielder, Hank Aaron, went 3-for-10 with 2 RBIs, but no home runs.

March 21, 1952: The 1st Rock and Roll Concert

Alan Freed hosting the Moondog Coronation Ball

March 21, 1952: The Moondog Coronation Ball is held at the Cleveland Arena. It is now widely regarded as the 1st rock and roll concert -- and the 1st example of backlash against rock and roll.

It was hosted by Alan Freed, a disc jockey at Cleveland radio station WJW, 850 on the AM dial. He hosted a classical music show, until he met Leo Mintz, owner of Record Rendezvous on Prospect Avenue, on the East Side, which was, and remains, mostly black. Mintz was selling records made by black performers to both black teenagers and white teenagers.

For songs like this, there were various terms used: "Race music," "jump music," and "rhythm and blues," or "R&B" for short. Mintz agreed to sponsor Freed's show, if Freed would play these records. The words "rock" and "roll," sometimes close together, were used in many of the songs, and while it is disputed whether Mintz or Freed was the first person to call the entire genre of music "rock and roll," it seems pretty clear that, together, they started it.

Freed called his show "The Moondog House" and himself "Moondog." It proved so successful that Mintz agreed to produce and promote an entire concert of the new music. It would be called "The Moondog Coronation Ball," and Freed was sure it could sell out the 10,000-seat Cleveland Arena.

The lead act was Paul Williams. Not to be confused with other musical personalities with that name -- including one of the original Temptations and the diminutive singer-songwriter of the 1970s -- he was a saxophonist whose playing style presaged that of many who went on to use the instrument in rock and roll, including Rudy Pompilli of Bill Haley's Comets, and King Curtis, best known for his work on The Coasters' records.

In 1949, Williams hit Number 1 on the R&B chart with "The Huckle-Buck," a dance tune that would later be recorded by Kay Starr (her version is the one Jackie Gleason and Art Carney danced to on The Honeymooners) and Chubby Checker. The song was so successful, for the rest of his life -- though possibly also to avoid confusion with the other Paul Williamses -- he was billed as "Paul 'Hucklebuck' Williams." (At some point, "Hucklebuck" became one word.) He also had a hit with "The Twister," a precursor to "The Twist" by Hank Ballard and Checker.

Another act on the bill was Billy Ward and his Dominoes. In 1951, they had a Number 1 R&B hit with "Sixty Minute Man," which some have called "the first rock and roll record." That group had Clyde McPhatter, before he formed The Drifters. After Clyde left, he was replaced by a man who would go on to even bigger solo success, Jackie Wilson.

Also on the Moondog bill were Tiny Grimes and the Rocking Highlanders (black men who sang in Scottish-style kilts), male soloist Danny Cobb, and female soloist Varetta Dillard.

$1.75 in 1952 would be about $18.74 today.

History, relatively cheap.

But there was a problem: More tickets were printed than the Arena held seats. And they were sold. At 10:00 PM, Williams and his band went on, and played their set. Contrary to legend, the show was not stopped after their set, much less after their first song.

Valena Williams (no relation to Paul) covered the show for the Cleveland Call and Post, a black newspaper, still in business although published only weekly. She confirmed that the Hucklebuckers played their entire set, and that Tiny Grimes and the Highlanders did begin playing.

They could hardly be heard, because there was a noise outside the Arena that had worked its way inside: Fans with extra tickets got in, perhaps 6,000 of them. Valena Williams wrote that 99 percent of the attendees were black, so if Freed was hoping for an integrated audience, his hopes were not met. The Police shut the show down at 10:30, for fear that there might be a riot. There wasn't one: Although some doors were broken down, there was no fighting, and no damage inside the Arena.

The next day, on the air, Freed delivered an apology. Cleveland's self-appointed moral arbiters tried to frame the event as a "riot," but there was no riot. The Cleveland Police Department arrested no one. No injuries were reported. The 1st backlash against rock and roll turned out to be a lie, although, to this day, there are those who say the Ball ended in a riot.

Nevertheless, Freed's popularity, and that of the music, soared. He continued to play rock and roll, and began to call himself "The King of the Rock-and-Rollers." With a particularly beaty song, he would pound his fist on a telephone book, making the sound even beatier.

In 1954, he was brought to New York by WINS, 1010 AM, and took the Big Apple by storm. But his role in the 1960 "payola" scandal and his heavy drinking brought him down. Rock and roll has never really died, but Alan Freed did, in 1965, only 45 years old.

Mintz expanded his record store into a chain, and was still running it when he died in 1976, at age 65.

The Cleveland Arena stood at 3717 Euclid Avenue, about 2 miles east of Public Square. It opened in 1937, and was the home of the American Hockey League's Cleveland Barons from then until 1974. In the NBA's 1st season of 1946-47, the Cleveland Rebels played there. The Cleveland Cavaliers moved in for the 1970-71 season, and the Cleveland Crusaders of the World Hockey Association did so in 1972.

In 1988, the film Heartbreak Hotel premiered, taking place in 1972, and featured a concert by Elvis Presley at the Arena. Elvis did once sing at the Arena, but early in his career, on November 23, 1956. He gave only one concert in Ohio in 1972, and that was in Dayton.

The Arena was replaced by The Coliseum, in the suburb of Richfield, Ohio, in 1974, and was torn down in 1977. The Cleveland Chapter of the American Red Cross now occupies the site.

In 1986, because of its status as the location of the 1st rock and roll concert, Cleveland was selected as the location of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame, although it took until 1995 for the actual museum to open. In voting taken by the Hall's board, Memphis was a distant 2nd.

Since 1992, a Moondog Coronation Ball, featuring early rock and roll acts, has been held in Cleveland ever year; since 1994, at the arena now named the Rocket Mortgage FieldHouse. By now, the acts are tribute performers, since the original rock and rollers are now either dead or elderly.

Since 2001, Cleveland's 850 AM has hosted all-sports radio station WKNR.

On July 4, 1954, Varetta Dillard, who didn't get to take the stage at the Moondog Coronation Ball, was among the acts at the 1st rock and roll concert in New Jersey, at Patrylow's Grove Park in Kenilworth, Union County. Among the other acts were Roy Hamilton, Sonny Til & The Orioles, and Nappy Brown. Dillard lived until 1993.

Paul "Hucklebuck" Williams lived until 2002, and may have been the last survivor of the principals of the Moondog Coronation Ball.

*

March 21, 1952 was a Friday. Baseball was in Spring Training. Football was out of season. And no games were scheduled in either the NBA or the NHL. So there were no scores on this historic day.

January 14, 1955: Alan Freed Hosts New York's 1st Rock and Roll Concert

January 14, 1955: Alan Freed, disc jockey on WINS, 1010 on the AM dial, hosts New York City's 1st rock and roll concert, at the Saint Nicholas Arena. The demand for tickets is so strong, a 2nd show is booked for the following night.

Freed did not coin the term "rock and roll," but he was the first person to use it to describe the form of music itself, thinking it a better term than "race music," "jump music," or even "rhythm and blues" (R&B).

In 1952, he hosted what's recognized as the 1st rock and roll concert anywhere, at the Cleveland Arena. In 1954, WINS brought him to New York to be the Big Apple's 1st white DJ to play rock and roll.

His critics said he was corrupt, that he took money to play certain records. It was true. It was equally true that, if he didn't like a record, he wouldn't play it no matter how much you offered him. He kept a copy of the Manhattan phone book in the studio, and, if he thought a record had an especially good beat, he would pound his fist on the phone book, to make the beat even better.

Both nights of the show were sold out, and featured Big Joe Turner, the Moonglows, Fats Domino, and the original, Clyde McPhatter-led lineup of the Drifters. Unfortunately, no audio recording, no film, and no photograph of these shows is known to exist.

Despite the all-black concert lineup, and the name reminiscent of St. Nicholas Avenue, the Arena was not in Harlem. It was at 69 West 66th Street, off Columbus Avenue, now across from Lincoln Center. It was built in 1896 and was The City's first major skating rink, and America's premier hockey venue before the 1925-1968 version of Madison Square Garden, what came to be known as "The Old Garden," was built.

It continued to host boxing cards until 1962, when ABC bought it, used it as a production center, and tore it down in the 1980s to build their new studios. WABC-Channel 7's Eyewitness News, and Live (with Regis Philbin, Kathie Lee Gifford, Kelly Ripa, and so on) are taped there. So were Good Morning America and The View, before their moves to bigger studios. So were the now defunct The Rosie O'Donnell Show and The Rachael Ray Show.

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January 14, 1955 was a Thursday. Baseball and football were out of season. There were 3 games in the NBA, including a doubleheader at the Boston Garden. In the opener, the New York Knicks beat the Fort Wayne Pistons, 97-83. In the nightcap, the Boston Celtics beat the Minneapolis Lakers, 100-95.

And the Milwaukee Hawks beat the Philadelphia 76ers, 86-84 at the Milwaukee Exposition & Convention Center Arena, a.k.a. The MECCA. The Hawks couldn't draw in Milwaukee, and, the next season, moved to St. Louis. In 1968, they moved to Atlanta. The Pistons moved to Detroit in 1957, and the Lakers moved to Los Angeles in 1968.

There was 1 game in the NHL: The New York Rangers beat the Chicago Black Hawks, 6-2 at the Chicago Stadium. Most likely, if either the Knicks or the Rangers had been playing at The Garden that night, the Freed concert still would have sold out.