Alan Freed's Influence In Radio

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Disk Jockey Alan Freed lived a hot life in the world of radio; he was a host for many different stations and brought about change not only in radio itself, but in who listened to it. His popularity as a deejay drove a large audience to follow him into the rock ‘n’ roll world and this success brought him to expand further into the field of media. But his social following could only hold him at his height for so long; eventually he would lose his influence in radio. Alan Freed started out as many disk jockeys do: working for his school radio station. His involvement with radio was due to an ear infection that kept him from playing in the band he was a part of in Ohio. But what really started his career were his radio opportunities that came during and after World War II. In 1942, he worked for WKST in New Castle, Pennsylvania, and also worked as a sportscaster for WKBN. In 1945, he was a deejay for WAKR, where he grew to become a very popular host on a station for jazz and pop music. Many people would agree that Freed was most known for his coinage of the…show more content…
Soon after, in 1952, he was a part of the first rock and roll concert, acting as a sort of host. His ‘creation’ of the term in Cleveland is the reason that the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland. This change was brought on because of the prejudices of the 1950s, but Freed was also inspired by a very popular song called “Sixty Minute Man” by The Dominoes. Freed got the idea to play this type of music from a record store owner by the name of Leo Mintz, who noticed that the amount of white teens interested in rhythm and blues music was on the rise (History of Rock). He figured that if Freed played rhythm and blues on the radio, there would be an even greater amount of white youth listening in. Freed’s first radio show, where he called himself Moondog in “Moondog’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Party”, was a program for rhythm and blues that had a predominately white and teen

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