How the First Rock Live performance Resulted in Mayhem (Cleveland, 1952)

“Amer­i­ca has solely three cities: New York, San Fran­cis­co, and New Orleans. Each­the place else is Cleve­land.” That obser­va­tion tends to be attrib­uted to Ten­nessee Williams, although it’s develop into some­what indifferent from its supply, so deeply does it res­onate with a cer­tain expe­ri­ence of life within the Unit­ed States. However con­sid­er this: can each Amer­i­can metropolis declare to be the place rock and roll started — or a minimum of the location of the very first rock and roll con­cert? Cleve­land can, because of Alan Freed, a well-known radio announc­er of the 9­teen-for­ties and fifties. The Moon­canine Coro­na­tion Ball he orga­nized in 1952 could have finish­ed in dis­as­ter, nevertheless it started a pop-cul­tur­al period that arguably con­tin­ues to today.

Hav­ing attained pop­u­lar­i­ty announc­ing in a vari­ety of radio for­mats, includ­ing jazz and clas­si­cal music, Freed was awak­ened to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of what was then often known as rhythm and blues by a neighborhood record-store personal­er, Leo Mintz. It was with Mintz’s spon­sor­ship that Freed launched a professional­gram on Cleve­land’s WJW-AM, for which he cul­ti­vat­ed a hep­cat per­sona referred to as “Moon­canine.” (Some cred­it the title to an album by Rob­by Vee and The Vees, and oth­ers to the avant-garde road musi­cian Moon­canine and his epony­mous “sym­pho­ny.”) Begin­ing at mid­evening, the present broad­forged hours of so-called “race music” to not simply its already-enthu­si­as­tic fan base, but in addition the younger white lis­ten­ers increas­ing­ly intrigued by its cap­ti­vat­ing, propul­sive sounds.

Freed quickly com­mand­ed sufficient of an audi­ence to explain him­self as “King of the Moon­canine­gers.” When he introduced the upcom­ing Moon­canine Coro­na­tion Ball, a present at Cleve­land’s hock­ey are­na fea­tur­ing units from such pop­u­lar acts as Paul Williams and the Huck­le­buck­ers, Tiny Grimes and the Rock­ing Excessive­landers (an all-black group whose sig­na­ture kilts would certain­ly fire up “cul­tur­al appro­pri­a­tion” dis­course at present), Varet­ta Dil­lard, and Dan­ny Cobb, the Moon­canine­gers turned out. About 20,000 of them turned out, in actual fact, twice what the venue might han­dle. A tick­et mis­print was responsible, however the dam­age had been achieved — or reasonably, it could be achieved, when the well-dressed however over-excit­ed crowd stormed the are­na and the creator­i­ties had been referred to as in to close the present down by drive.

Within the occasion, solely the primary two acts ever took the stage. The deliberate coro­na­tion of the 2 most pop­u­lar youngsters in atten­dance (a holdover from anoth­er cul­tur­al dimen­sion total­ly) nev­er hap­pened. However the spir­it of insurgent­lious­ness wit­nessed at this first-ever rock con­cert was like a genie that would­n’t be put again in its bot­tle. How­ev­er sq. his picture, Freed, who pop­u­lar­ized the time period “rock and roll” as utilized to music, was nev­er a lot of a rule-fol­low­er in his professional­fes­sion­al life. His lat­er impli­ca­tion within the pay­ola bribe scan­dals of the late fifties despatched his profession right into a tail­spin, and his ear­ly demise fol­lowed just a few years lat­er. However to evaluate by re-tellings just like the one in the Drunk His­to­ry video simply above, he stays the hero of the sto­ry of the Moon­canine Coro­na­tion Ball — and thus a hero of rock and roll his­to­ry.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Reside Music Archive Lets You Stream/Obtain Extra Than 250,000 Con­cert Recordings–for Free

Inti­mate Reside Per­for­mances of Radio­head, Son­ic Youth, the White Stripes, PJ Har­vey & Extra: No Host, No Audi­ence, Simply Pure Reside Music

How the Grate­ful Useless’s “Wall of Sound” — a Mon­ster, 600-Communicate­er Sound Sys­tem — Modified Rock Con­certs & Reside Music For­ev­er

The Ori­gin of the Rooftop Con­cert: Earlier than the Bea­t­les Got here Jef­fer­son Air­airplane, and Earlier than Them, Brazil­ian Singer Rober­to Automobile­los (1967)

Based mostly in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His tasks embrace the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the e book The State­much less Metropolis: a Stroll by Twenty first-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social internet­work for­mer­ly often known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.