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N0KFQ > TODAY 21.03.15 17:00l 58 Lines 2877 Bytes #999 (0) @ WW
BID : 50755_N0KFQ
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Subj: Today in History - Mar 21
Path: IW8PGT<IZ3LSV<I0OJJ<N6RME<N0KFQ
Sent: 150321/1459Z 50755@N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA BPQ1.4.63
1952
The Moondog Coronation Ball is history's first rock concert
Breathless promotion on the local radio station. Tickets selling
out in a single day. Thousands of teenagers, hours before show
time, lining up outside the biggest venue in town. The scene
outside the Cleveland Arena on a chilly Friday night in March
more than 50 years ago would look quite familiar to anyone who
has ever attended a major rock concert. But no one on this
particular night had ever even heard of a "rock concert." This,
after all, was the night of an event now recognized as history's
first major rock-and-roll show: the Moondog Coronation Ball, held
in Cleveland on March 21, 1952.
The "Moondog" in question was the legendary disk jockey Alan
Freed, the self-styled "father of rock and roll" who was then the
host of the enormously popular "Moondog Show" on Cleveland AM
radio station WJW. Freed had joined WJW in 1951 as the host of a
classical-music program, but he took up a different kind of music
at the suggestion of Cleveland record-store owner Leo Mintz, who
had noted with great interest the growing popularity, among young
customers of all races, of rhythm-and-blues records by black
musicians. Mintz decided to sponsor three hours of late-night
programming on WJW to showcase rhythm-and-blues music, and Alan
Freed was installed as host. Freed quickly took to the task,
adopting a new, hip persona and vocabulary that included liberal
use of the phrase "rock and roll" to describe the music he was
now promoting. As the program grew in popularity, Mintz and Freed
decided to do something that had never been done: hold a live
dance event featuring some of the artists whose records were
appearing on Freed's show. Dubbed "The Moondog Coronation Ball,"
the event was to feature headliners Paul Williams and his
Hucklebuckers and Tiny Grimes and the Rocking Highlanders (a
black instrumental group that performed in Scottish kilts). In
the end, however, the incredible popular demand for tickets
proved to be the event's undoing.
Helped along by massive ticket counterfeiting and possibly by
overbooking on the part of the event's sponsors, an estimated
20,000-25,000 fans turned out for an event being held in an arena
with a capacity of only 10,000. Less than an hour into the show,
the massive overflow crowd broke through the gates that were
keeping them outside, and police quickly moved in to stop the
show almost as soon as it began. On the radio the very next
evening, Alan Freed offered an apology to listeners who had tried
to attend the canceled event. By way of explanation, Freed said:
"If anyone_had told us that some 20 or 25,000 people would try to
get into a dance_I suppose you would have been just like me. You
would have laughed and said they were crazy."
73, K.O. n0kfq
N0KFQ @ N0KFQ.#SWMO.MO.USA.NA
E-mail: kohiggs@gmail.com
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