Talk:Alan Freed

Biography assessment rating comment

The article may be improved by following the WikiProject Biography 11 easy steps to producing at least a B article. --KenWalker | Talk 08:50, 1 July 2007 (UTC)

"Rock and Roll" and "Moondog"

Who did coin the phrase "Rock and Roll"? PMelvilleAustin 11:37 Feb 6, 2003 (UTC)

I've heard that there is a connection between Freed's "Moondog Coronation Ball" and the musician Moondog. Does anyone know more about this? McGravin 00:00 Mar 3, 2004

Yes this correct. Freed used the name Moondog after he used a piece of music called Moondog Symphony by the street musician Moondog as his repeated opening music for his radio show. Moondog subsequently sued Freed on grounds that he was stealing his name. Since Freed was no longer allowed to use the term Moondog he needed a new catch phrase. After a night of heavy drinking he and his friends came up with the name "The Rock and Roll Party" since he was already using the phrase "Rock and Roll Session" to describe the music he was playing on his radio show.

It should also be noted that it was in fact Freed to coin the phrase "Rock and Roll" to describe a form of music. It is true that the phrase appeared in many songs before Freed but this did not describe a type of music. Freed is also credited with popularizing the phrase through his show "The Rock and Roll Party". --Manik52 08:15, 22 April 2006 (UTC)

Very POV

This needs lots of work as it is very pro-Freed POV and not at all objective (even though I very much agree with a majority of the points made). I'm not going to "tag" it yet, but it certainly needs lots more work to come up to Wikipedia standards — as currently written it is just a defense of Freed and not an encyclopedia article. Rlquall 00:20, 20 May 2005 (UTC)

I tend to agree.

I've been with R&R at least since Alan came up to the desert, and before; and I don't think the whole story is told here.

What about the bit with Morris Levy, the Music Mafia dude? That's where he really got ripped off.

They told me that they only made $10.00 out of all that; even the Jews themselves spoke out against Morris Levy, he was a real schmuck.

And I don't think Clark faired that well either, as I remember. He really got stuck when they literally forbade him to own his own stuff; he got around it, though, with some kind of by-proxy ownership thing or something.

And then there was Peter Tripp. They really socked it to him, but like Freed and Clark, he moved out to California where "miraculously" Rock & Roll was reborn.

As for as the name "Moondog"; he was sued back in 1953 for stealing that name from some blind dude: Louis "Moondog" Hardin who was a street poet who had been going by that name for at least 10 years. Alan apologized and changed the name to "rock & roll", but Louis has never been properly credited for his accomplishments, including being the true father of "Moondog Music" as Alan had at first called it.

WB2 06:18, 27 May 2005 (UTC)

Was Alan Freed an anarchist? In what sense? Positive or pejorative? I've never heard anything about Alan that suggested to me that he was an anarchist. HUAC types might feel that way about it. But if Alan had any politics (other than play what the kids want to hear and make a buck at it), that's certainly been kept on the down-low. Motives were a lot simpler back in those days. Well, ok -- simpler. -- Anonymous user

I deleted him from category "anarchists"... better to keep that for self-described ones 02:55, 8 February 2006 (Moscow time)

It should be tagged. It's not a bad article, but it's packed with evaluative comments unsupported by references - "great," "legendary," even "smarmy."KD Tries Again (talk) 03:48, 17 July 2009 (UTC)KD Tries Again

There are clips on youtube labeled Alan Freed Show WNEW-TV, New York which would be Channel 5 in New York at that time and aired around 3:00 or 4:00 in the after noon so kids home from school would see the show. Thats the show I recall seeing. In sponsoring Coke a Cola Allen would ask a dancer Candy to take a sip. You saw her pony tail and say something good about the soda and walk off. I met Candy years later in my High School cafeteria. Good work Allen love Ya. Teslafieldmachine (talk) 18:09, 15 May 2011 (UTC)

Current location of interment

Needs to be updated with the current location of the interment of his ashes. See RRHoF press release dated 2002-03-22. Additional links to press articles about the move of the ashes can be found toward the bottom of this web page.

song-writer under...

the Anthony September pseudonym. Stephan KOENIG.

Citations & References

See Wikipedia:Footnotes for an explanation of how to generate footnotes using the <ref(erences/)> tags Nhl4hamilton (talk) 04:55, 1 February 2008 (UTC)

Suggestion for disambiguation note

A disambiguation page should be considered for the topic of "Alan Freed" because there is another, more recent, yet unrelated, Alan Freed in national broadcasting.

See: Beat Radio and XM BPM —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.235.201.241 (talk) 01:50, 24 September 2010 (UTC)

WJW as opposed to WINS

I find the article a bit confusing. I am sure the Moondog name can from the NY musician but while Freed was on WJW his theme song was "Blues for the Red Boy" by Todd Rhodes (King Records), not the Moondog Symphony. The law suit came after he moved to New York which is not clear at all from the text.

I listened to the WJW show nightly after he got a free plug from another DJ in Cleveland, Bill Randall. Not sure how to go about verifying the theme song issue. — Preceding unsigned comment added by Russbo (talk • contribs) 21:35, 1 November 2011 (UTC)

Heritage?

The article now says "Freed was born to a latin (sic) father...and Welsh-American mother...." I had always been under the impression that he was of Jewish extraction, but even if he wasn't, "Latin" is too broad a descriptor. It needs to be changed. Dozzzzzzzzzing off (talk) 03:26, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Alan Freed was not half Latin. He self-identified as a Jew. His father was Jewish American (I think originally from Germany before WWII. His mother was Welsh-American. I knew the family personally in Ohio.NDeWolfe (talk) 16:14, 1 July 2014 (UTC)

A quick Google Books search should convince anyone that Freed was half-Jewish through his Russian immigrant father (his mother was Welsh). I cannot find any evidence of Latin descent. Levdr1lp / talk 19:38, 13 November 2013 (UTC)

Thank you. Dozzzzzzzzzing off (talk) 03:19, 14 November 2013 (UTC)