Why CLEVELAND?
When the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame inducted its latest class of honorees for 2005, it was a fine list of talented folks, including Buddy Guy, The O'Jays, The Pretenders, Percy Sledge, and U2. I saw the O'Jays perform a concert at a casino where my own band was playing in Louisiana just a couple of months ago. They were incredible performers, and very deserving to be inducted. Great music, great people, but WHY CLEVELAND? All across the U.S., the kids went crazy for Rock and Roll in the 1950's, so how did the shrine to the greatest rockers of all time end up in the tourist mecca that is northeastern Ohio?
Disk jockey Alan Freed is widely credited with coining the term "rock and roll" to describe the uptempo black R&B records he played as early as 1951 on Cleveland radio station WJW. Born in Johnstown, PA, Freed called himself "the Moondog" and billed his show as the "Moondog Rock ‘n' Roll Party." He called it rock and roll because "it seemed to suggested the rolling, surging beat of the music." The Freed-sponsored 1952 Moondog Coronation Ball in Cleveland is believed to be the nation's first rock and roll concert. Only two short years after conquering Cleveland, he took his show to WINS New York. There, he spread the popularity of rock and roll via TV, movies and the celebrated all-star shows he promoted at Brooklyn's Paramount Theater. Those stage shows remain the essential rock and roll revues of the era.
So why isn't the Hall of Fame in New York? Millions of people from all over the world visit New York every year and a tiny percentage of those folks have ever been to Cleveland, sometimes called "the mistake by the lake." Despite the fact that Freed wasn't from Cleveland and didn't stay there long, and even though the payola scandals of the late Fifties left Freed blackballed within the business and a broken man when he died in 1965, the city of Cleveland embraced this man and even went so far as to have his cremated remains transferred to the Hall of Fame's Museum on March 21, 2002 – fifty years to the day since Freed hosted the Moondog Coronation Ball at the Cleveland Arena.
"The entire Freed family is in agreement that Dad would have wanted the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum to be his final resting place," said Lance Freed, Alan's son. Maybe so, but Freed would never have predicted that his final resting place would be the city that he abandoned for greener pastures in 1954! The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum exists to educate its visitors, fans and scholars from around the world about the history and significance of rock and roll music. How unfortunate that the New York Chamber of Commerce was asleep at the wheel - the legacy of Rock and Roll would have been better served with a venue in a city where countless more visitors could have been educated.
Disk jockey Alan Freed is widely credited with coining the term "rock and roll" to describe the uptempo black R&B records he played as early as 1951 on Cleveland radio station WJW. Born in Johnstown, PA, Freed called himself "the Moondog" and billed his show as the "Moondog Rock ‘n' Roll Party." He called it rock and roll because "it seemed to suggested the rolling, surging beat of the music." The Freed-sponsored 1952 Moondog Coronation Ball in Cleveland is believed to be the nation's first rock and roll concert. Only two short years after conquering Cleveland, he took his show to WINS New York. There, he spread the popularity of rock and roll via TV, movies and the celebrated all-star shows he promoted at Brooklyn's Paramount Theater. Those stage shows remain the essential rock and roll revues of the era.
So why isn't the Hall of Fame in New York? Millions of people from all over the world visit New York every year and a tiny percentage of those folks have ever been to Cleveland, sometimes called "the mistake by the lake." Despite the fact that Freed wasn't from Cleveland and didn't stay there long, and even though the payola scandals of the late Fifties left Freed blackballed within the business and a broken man when he died in 1965, the city of Cleveland embraced this man and even went so far as to have his cremated remains transferred to the Hall of Fame's Museum on March 21, 2002 – fifty years to the day since Freed hosted the Moondog Coronation Ball at the Cleveland Arena.
"The entire Freed family is in agreement that Dad would have wanted the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum to be his final resting place," said Lance Freed, Alan's son. Maybe so, but Freed would never have predicted that his final resting place would be the city that he abandoned for greener pastures in 1954! The Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum exists to educate its visitors, fans and scholars from around the world about the history and significance of rock and roll music. How unfortunate that the New York Chamber of Commerce was asleep at the wheel - the legacy of Rock and Roll would have been better served with a venue in a city where countless more visitors could have been educated.
posted by O'Coileain at 1:05 AM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home