CLASS NOTES: 1950s: Radio, Records and Disc Jockeys (History of Rock and Roll, Part One)
History of Rock and Roll, Part One
Notes taken by Edward Tanguay on July 24, 2013 (go to class or lectures )
Choose from these words to fill the blanks below:
radio, television, Mama, Moondog, destroyed, white, respectable, 3000, Freed, discretion, parents, Phillips, white, segregated, hillbilly, alluring, whiskey, cheating

how did           white teenagers get to listen to rhythm and blues in the early 1950s?

country was still very                     segregated

African-Americans were largely living in separate towns and neighborhoods than whites

for white kids to go into those parts of town was still largely forbidden by their               parents

there wasn't a conscious effort to for rhythm and blues labels to reach white teenagers

the rise of the disc jockey in regional radio

after WWII, the national audience and the technology that went with it started to migrate to                     television which left a fairly developed radio business of radio but with the national attention taken away

some regional stations decided they would focus on rhythm and blues music which would appeal to the African-American communities

the disc jockey

up until around 1950, playing a record on the radio was considered                 cheating. Anyone who heard music on the radio would assume it was live, so if you are playing a record, your listeners would think that you are trying to trick them into thinking that you had an orchestra there in your studio that you didn't actually have

but around the 1950s, playing records on the radio simply became a cheap alternative to live music and it was the disc jockey that managed this playing of records and made it a new form of format to deliver music.

no radio stations exclusively used disc jockeys, but they used them more and more

the disc jockey had a large                     discretion of what to play, so they quickly became very important figures in the development of the early Rock and Roll industry

in 1947, there were about         3000 disc jockeys in the country, mostly white, and many were playing rhythm and blues to the African-American communities

most important R&B DJ in championing the cause of early Rock and Roll

known as               Moondog, was an American disc jockey

became internationally known for promoting the mix of blues, country, and rhythm and blues music on the radio in the United States and Europe under the name of rock and roll

career was                   destroyed by the payola scandal that hit the broadcasting industry in the early 1960s

became a national celebrity with Moondog Show in 1951

by this time, other DJs were already doing it but he was the one who got most of the attention

his show was on a classical radio station but his show was put on at 11:00 PM "when most                       respectable people had gone to bed"

most listeners were surprised to find out that Alan Freed was           white

Alan Freed starts to put R&B concerts together e.g. at a big theater in Cleveland, and both white and black kids would come, they would have to be segregated and it was seen as a source of worry that this new music was bringing blacks and whites together, seen as a "dangerous influence" and a scandal

September 1954: had so much success in Cleveland that he moved to New York and created the show "The Rock and Roll Party"

this show goes into syndication nationally

did a number of movies

Decca, Mercury, RCA, Victor, Columbia, Capital and MGM

they were the only one with the money and resources to quickly and efficiently distribute records nationally

independent labels were small companies who could distribute their music about as far if they could put the records in their trunk and drove to each jukebox provider and radio station you could reach

major labels really didn't want this business since they were making their money in major pop music

since indie labels were small companies who spent their own money to run the business, there was much temptation to accept a "cash gift, bottle of               whiskey, or a paid vacation" in return for playing certain records, which turned into the payola scam

the national labels were doing this as well, but the indie labels were very aggressive about it

indie labels began to cross over from the R&B charts (which was largely uninteresting to the major labels as being to small) to the pop charts where the major labels because to notice this new competition
1950s: Radio, Records and Disc Jockeys
1950s Crossovers and Cover Versions
First Crossovers: Fats Domino, Chuck Berry, Little Richard