Alan Freed at the mic during his show for WAKR in Akron, Ohio – he was the station’s star announcer until 1950
© MICHAEL OCHS ARCHIVES/GETTY IMAGES
Rock’n’roll has many mothers and fathers. But while those artists who helped cement it as the defining sound of the 1950s are continually referenced by the media, there are others vital to this story that history has largely forgotten. As you’re reading this magazine, it’s likely that you’re already well acquainted with Alan Freed. He’s a figure that pops up regularly within these pages, and someone who remains atitanic name to music scholars. After all, look up ‘rock’n’roll’ on Wikipedia and Freed’s name appears more times than Elvis Presley. Stroll down Vine Street in Hollywood and there he is on the city’s Walk Of Fame, with the organisation’s website posting: “He became internationally known for promoting African-American rhythm and blues music on the radio in the United States and Europe under the name of rock and roll”.
Yet for all these honours, Freed’s name remains barely known to the general public. Despite being integral to the growth of rock’n’roll and for popularising the term itself, he remains afigure known primarily to the hardcore devotee. When Hollywood did get round to making a big screen biopic of Albert James ‘Alan’ Freed (in the form of 1978’s American Hot Wax) it was an almighty flop. However intrinsic Freed was to rock’n’roll, he was, in the eyes of the movie-going public, just a DJ without the sex appeal or blistering charisma of an Elvis or Jerry Lee Lewis.