WHEN THE MUSIC WAS
FREED by
Lynne Zielinski Arisway@aol.com
I am a frequent contributor to the best-selling, Chicken Soup
for the Soul and Chocolate for a Woman, book series, among other
publications. I stroll with my broom in Huntsville, Alabama when not
working on my first historical novel.
I was strolling with my broom in the kitchen to Fat's Domino's, I Want to
Walk You Home, when, out of the mist of memories, I saw myself--a
little white girl from Suburbia-- walking the mean streets of the inner city. It
was the day after I first heard Alan Freed's new radio program and I was on a
mission.
Mostly, I ignored the question seen in the eyes of the slick, pomaded preacher
in his purple Cadillac and the cool dudes hanging on the corner in their
thirteen-inch peg pants and rolled, Mister B shirt collars. My eye's side
did glimpse a scraggly, cotton-topped old man sitting on the curb, his hue the
color of dusty, dead chocolate. Muddy-water eyes glared as he tipped his
brown paper-wrapped bottle up to the sun. I never gave him, or them, a
second glance as I marched along the treeless, concrete veldt.
A butt less, skinny bag of bones and a hank of hair at the age of twelve, I
created quite a stir in this closed community, not of lusty catcalls or
challenge, but only of surprise. White folk did not enter the Negro
sections of this city. Yes, that was the term back in the early fifties,
sorry to say.
Alone and determined, I sailed past the pheromone-soaked crowd of black and
brown men to enter the record shop where hubcaps hung on the walls above racks
of wax platters in paper covers. I knew exactly what I wanted. The
enormous proprietor's kind temper was as big as his person and the rings on his
fingers. A jolly sort, he appeared amused at my businesslike manner.
Purchase was made and off I went.
Two buses and one long walk later, I was back home with my treasure. History
was in the making, but I never knew. I simply wanted this record. "Yes
Sir, She's My Baby," was the song. Not Eddie's Cantor's sanitized
version (... "That's My Baby"), but a slow Blues rendition. Tell
me who recorded it and I'll send you a Hershey bar. I cannot remember. Possibly, it was The Clovers.
By accident, I had hit upon a radio program that was to change the world and
sweeten my soul: Alan Freed and his "Moon Doggers" radio
program. This was still not a fad; friends hadn't heard of him.
Mr. Freed played black artists who recorded a style of song white kids had yet
to encounter. I was mere minutes ahead of the crowd. Who knew this
man would become the most famous disc jockey in the world? Like the flood
in the town he was born in, Johnstown, PA, Mr. Freed was about to send a sonic
deluge into the heartland of America.
The tunes he played came from the centuries-old social environs of
African-Americans. From Dixieland jazz, though Boogie Woogie and the Big
Band era, the Mississippi Delta and New Orleans music carried the Rhythm and
Blues beat. Blues--the only original art form the United States has
contributed to world culture--was about to break cultural barriers.
Prejudice reigned and Freed knew how to push buttons. As word got out and
R&B gained popularity, white performers recorded their versions of the black
artists' songs. Freed refused to air them on his program.
Pat Boone was a very nice man, in a Dan Quayle sort of way, but Fats Domino's
rendition of "Ain't That a Shame," put Boone to, well, ... shame.
Prior to World War II, our depression-era Moms and Pops had few amusements
growing up. They wanted to, and did, give us more. We had stuff.
We had money. And now we were buying the black music we adored.
Young bones and souls responded to the slow-rolling, slow- rocking tempo with
its heavy backbeat of piano and saxophone riffs. This was just before the
flashy, crashy rock and roll music of Bill Haley and the Comets. You could
dance with your partner and never move your feet, just slow rock and slower
roll- -hip to hip--a whole new way of dirty dancing. This was sexy and our
parents knew it. A firestorm began. Preachers thumped and parents
raged while we kids danced the nights away. This was fun. Sadly,
this was brief.
"We've set up a twenty-man committee to do away with this vulgar,
animalistic, nigger Rock and Roll bop," said the Alabama White Citizen's
Council member. And Jesus wept.
In nineteen-fifty-two, Alan Freed renamed the music. He called it,
"Rock and Roll" and threw a party in Cleveland. His "Moondog
Coronation Party" caused a near riot with an unexpected crowd of twenty-five-thousand kids. This became the very first Rock
concert.
My own first rock concert came in nineteen-fifty-five when Freed brought his
show to Brooklyn's Paramount Theater. My main man--Fats, was there, along
with Frankie Lymon and The Teenagers, the Temptations, Little Anthony and the
Imperials, The Platters, The Coasters, The Chiffons, the Drifters and other
glittering greats. This was Mad Magazine come to life. This was
Teenage Nirvana.
Before the show, some of the performers leaned out the third story windows and
waved us into happy pandemonium. Dancing in the Streets was given a whole
new meaning. There were no fights, no one got hurt. We all simply
had a grand time. By the time the Shirelles hit the charts with, "Dedicated to the One I
Love," and, "Tonight's the Night," I was a bit long in the tooth.
Married and the mother of two at age nineteen, I heard the music
through a glass darkly as the true rhythm and blues of my youth faded.
White performers crowded in and the music changed. Major record labels
were turning out watered-down Rock and Roll. But, for this little girl,
nothing would replace the love of my life, Fats Domino, or the tune of my first
romance, the timeless song,
the Penguin's, "Earth Angel." Misty memories might fade, but I still wonder if that famous "payola"
scandal was contrived by Alan Freed's detractors as pay-back for breaking
barriers.
Did angry parents, a confused Congress and a Sinatra-loving Mafioso conspire to
do the guy in? For a lousy twenty-five- hundred bucks, the man who freed
the music became trapped by the system, was ruined and died penniless in
nineteen-sixty-five.
And the beat goes on. ###
Lynne Zielinsk Arisway@aol.com