Live Vintage Aircheck Recording of Alan Freed, Moondog's Saturday Night Rock and Roll Party WJW 1953

This is a live recording of Alan Freed doing his Saturday Night Rock and Roll Party from December, 1953 as "Moondog." This clip had to come from a broadcast on WJW, Cleveland Two years later Freed moved to New York.
This record is a Wilcox Gay Recordio disc that someone thankfully recorded for us in 1952 at 33 RPM.

[@manuelgonzales9435]

My 6th Grade teacher in California was a cousin of Alan Freed. Every Wednesday in class she would let us hear rock n' roll music just because of her cousin. This was in 1956. Man those were good days. Now that they are gone I wish they were back.

[@luislaplume8261]

As 7 of 9 from Star Trek Voyager would say.........I concur!

[@BenneWill]

Cool story!!

[@largelester]

This is not rock and roll, this is rhythm and blues

[@pcaetano7527]

Alan called it rock n roll on his radio show and that name stuck. 'moon dog house rock and roll party'

[@dannykewl]

Actually the Blues, not R&B, but without the blues or R&B, rock'n'roll would have never been.

[@jivers58]

This just shows how much Alan loved our favourite music,I was born in 63 so born to late.Great post keep, em coming.

[@johnzamboni7561]

This is truly a valuable piece of Americana. Insure it for $100,000. I had no idea Freed was playing such crude country blues. On the 1954 WJW aircheck the music is more urbane. At any rate thanks for preserving and sharing this.

[@jamesten]

I could have gone on listening to that for another hour. Thanks for posting.

[@gords4520]

Holy cow! I've heard (I think) all of the known Freed airchecks on various sites but to the best of my knowledge this one is not known. I think this is extremely important and may be of interest to the R&R hall of fame or somebody like that and most definitely to radio historical organizations. Thanks so much for sharing this!

[@alman54]

Glad you enjoyed it. I don't believe this record was ever "discovered" before I got it. It came in a batch of home-recorded discs I bought off eBay. Someone's been unknowingly sitting on it for the past few decades, otherwise the recording would have been available somewhere. After I bought it, I recorded it for youtube, then resold it. A REAL Alan Freed collector has it now. I was more interested in the contents, not the actual record itself, although I do enjoy this recording very much. Add to the fact that it's a one-of-a-kind recording of a radio pioneer who was playing some very good music that night.

[@thevictrolaking]

Somebody should restore this audio

[@richdesilva3975]

Awesome recovery.....nice!!!

[@RichardKoenigsberg]

Yes, this was rock 'n' roll--before it became rock 'n' roll. One can call it rhythm & blues, or whatever. But eventually Alan Freed TRANSFORMED THE MUSIC INTO SOMETHING ELSE--something new. This is what he started with...and then HE created rock 'n' roll. But I didn't realize he was in touch with these blues singers. What a genius...a discoverer.

[@agkrakow]

This is so interesting. Blues and jump blues

[@MichaelHansenFUN]

if you can post the full thing please do

[@alman54]

This was the only one. It's possible that there could have been more at one time, but I only had this one record.

[@wynonie]

He moved to NY in `54, a few months after this aircheck. When he was in NY,he integrated pop into his play list.There were loads of DJ`s in various cities especially in the South doing the same thing even earlier.They didn`t get any credit or hype because they weren`t in NY.

[@alexandronjames]

You are dead right about the Southern DJs. I started listening to radio shows like this in 1949 in Atlanta. It wasn't until Jimmy Carter won the Presidency that NY media thought anything about the South or its artists.

[@deaddog5344]

Porky Chedwick in Pittsburgh, Pa. was doing this same thing in 1948 as while as Huntter Handcock in Los Angeles, Ca in 1948..

[@kingbee1500]

Right you are, Wynonie...my city (Louisville) had nighttime R&B radio in 1947 (WGRC's "Midnight Son Show") and also had one of the earliest full-time R&B stations in the USA (WLOU-AM, October 1951).

[@d820m]

even though my parents were in Texas, on a clear night they could hear WDIA in Memphis, and John R, Gene Nobles, and Hoss Allen on WLAC in Nashville, and Dewey Phillips on WHBQ, and Dr. Daddy-O & Okey Dokey Smith in New Orleans....sometimes they could hear Zenas Sears in Atlanta

[@BenneWill]

@@alexandronjames Lots of these blues artists came from the South. Where rock and roll really originated. Freed brought it to a northern audience for the first time.

[@pjriverdale8461]

This is a Wilcox Gay acetate, for home recording use and likely a line recording from the units radio receiver. As for what stylus to improve the surface noise ratio, it probably wouldn't matter as these home discs didn't have any service life after the first play. Possibly some noise reduction and speed correction could be applied. Freed ' s voice and the songs are too slow. Still, any Freed air check is better than no aircheck........

[@CusterFlux]

Thanks for that badly needed background … I assumed the pitch was probably off, and the noise floor is terrible, good to hear that confirmed ( fixing it is what Pro Tools is for ), but what really matters is, we have an actual recording of real radio from the early 50s - and it turns out it's better than radio today. It's an actual performance …

[@Lampshade51]

Speed seems a little slow, but always thrilling to hear previously unheard Freed airchecks from his great days in Cleveland on WJW.

[@alman54]

Glad you liked it. I always regret not increasing the pitch when making this video.

[@tonydavis6482]

OMG!....where did you get this?.....i thought i had all the Freed Airchecks!...but this beats it all!....MANY thanks for posting!

[@alman54]

Glad you liked it! This record came in a batch of Recordio discs I bought on eBay. After finding out what was on it, I uploaded this video of it, then resold it. It's such a neat snapshot of what Alan Freed and his music was like.

[@MichaelHansenFUN]

please post them

[@williammeier4534]

I'm jealous as hell that you actually possess this! Nonetheless, I was even happier than hell to have had the privilege of hearing it. For some 12 minutes listeners get to live in December 1953 and hear Alan Freed's Moondog persona and some of the great records he used to play on WJW. I can imagine hearing this on a Philco or Zenith tube radio and getting real gone!

[@alman54]

So glad you liked it! It was a really rare find.

[@williammeier4534]

@@alman54 I'll bet it's rare! I'm astonished at the comparatively few aircheck recordings of early rock n' roll DJ's that have survived!

[@alman54]

@@williammeier4534 we only have what someone recorded off the radio sixty-plus years ago. Lots of records exist and are turning up all the time. But most of these contain music, and oftentimes no air personality. It was rare that someone recorded a show at 33 1/3 RPM, that consisted of more than just two unfamiliar songs.

[@BenneWill]

@@williammeier4534 Luckily we have so much 1960s airchecks that have been uncovered recently from WABC, WLS, and KHJ etc. Personalities such as Dan Ingram, Ron Lundy, Don Steele, etc. and in surprisingly good audio quality as well. You can now find a lot of them on KZbin. It's the closest to a time machine we have. For a moment I am flashed back to the decade.

[@markeddeckmusic7202]

He didn’t create rock n roll , he just coined the term to cover the emerging popularity of black music that fermented out of the swing period ie buster brown , jimmy rushing and big joe et al , you can say it’s an umbrella term I guess

[@RecordKing44]

So we heard "Don't Leave Me This Way" by Fats Domino, "Hoopin' and Jumpin'" by Sonny Terry, "Drunk" by Jimmy Liggins, and "Call Before You Come Home" by Memphis Slim. Correct?

[@d820m]

I'm hearing Muddy Waters Mad Love as well

[@tonydavis6482]

..Then that probably means theres more out there in the hands of serious collectors....but i`m still on the hunt for more.....

[@yoncalla44]

Hell's Bell's!! This has got to be a R&B/ R'n'R Rosetta Stone of sorts - Tony Arioli

[@x-rockfm92hd81]

1:05 new orleans ashes moved from Rock Hall OF Fame Cleveland OHIO

[@DrewTechner]

Is this recorded in 1952 or December 1953?

[@manjapan362]

Love this and thank you for sharing. Was there more on the other side?

[@dannykewl]

Those homemade acetate records only had 1 playing side.

[@Altchannel2988]

I have many and they are all double sided acetates

[@josephwalter9797]

Thanks for the video. Where waS THIS Party at?

[@PRSRECORDS]

Repaired the audio. Would you like me to re-up?

[@alman54]

Please do. I've always been dissatisfied with how I didn't adjust the pitch.

[@theweirdworldofstevecoan6555]

It is STILL at the wrong speed.

[@Johnthemusicguy]

Is this a 16 inch transcription disc? I've heard of them, but never seen one.

[@alman54]

This was a ten-inch record made of a thin vinyl. Actual transcription discs were of much higher quality.

[@kingisgonesoareyou]

Unfortunately, the 'hiss' is so annoying I am unable to listen to it. Perhaps it can be 'cleaned' up to listen to at least.

[@RobConstantine]

+Uppa Yernose Oh for Christ Sakes..Filter it with your brain...