… . . . you made it all possible with your record purchases . . . …
Alan Freed, “The King of the Rock ‘n’ Rollers” is featured on New York City’s WINS, February 12, 1955.The music on this aircheck is rarely heard these days. These are the genuine roots of rock – the “Blues and Rhythm” records that Freed, and later, Murray the K, “crossed over” into the mainstream. You’ll hear him use the word “original” more than once – a reference to cover versions by white Pop artists that were getting airplay on more traditional music stations of the day.
It was also common for Freed to identify the label of each record he played. A few years later, Freed and others were branded as criminals because they took “pay for play”. What seemed like a terrible transgression against the “public interest” then pales in comparison to today’s mega-monopoly ownership of the airwaves.