Alan Freed:History Of Rock Music Essay -- essays research papers

Alan Freed Alan Freed was born December 16, 1922 in Johnstown, Pennsylvania. He was considered the most the most famous Disc Jockey(DJ) in rock 'n roll history, however, controversy encircled the man and he recieved lots of criticism especially from white adults during his career. I think that Alan Freed greatly helped shape the sound of music today and further advanced the progression of rock music. He is the person who coined the term "Rock & Roll" and also put up with a lot of nonsense regarding the term. At the time "Rock & Roll" was an urban african american term for sex, I think Alan realized that the popular white culture would be turned off by the term R&B, which was mainly associated with black artists, so he decided to give it a different name and expose that style of music to the general public. His radio name and nickname was "Moondog". These were also the names of his non-segregated concerts in which black and white teenagers came to listen to good rock & roll regardless of the singer's color. Moondog Balls were very popular and drew much criticism from white parents. At the first Moondog Ball over 25,000 kids, mostly white, showed up in the March of 1925 in Cleveland. I believe that what Freed did was good as far as opening people up to racially diverse music and not really listening to what the media ...