… From Hollywood, California, we welcome you to the Big Beat in popular music in America …
[Description by Uncle Ricky]
This Rock ‘n’ Roll Dance Party is brought to us by Camel cigarettes on the CBS radio network. The King of Rock ‘n’ Roll, Alan Freed welcomes The Count Basie Orchestra, Joe Williams, and guest stars Faye Adams and The Robins.
Keep in mind that Freed and these musicians performed everything in “real-time”, LIVE, with no electronic or recorded accompaniment. Hey, this was genuine “show-biz”, but it was on the radio.
Also, consider a (regulated) radio organization (they could only own two stations in a market!) but with hundreds of skilled employees capable of setting up microphones and mixing a live stage presentation – they did it every day. TV had not quite yet killed the radio star, and this was not a man sitting in a room with a microphone and two turntables, pounding on a phone book to accentuate the beat. This WAS the “Big Beat” of 1956, or perhaps Freed and CBS hoped it would continue to be.
It would be interesting to know about about this program, how long it was on the network,
but for now, I encourage you to listen and learn about rock ‘n’ roll on network radio, circa 1956.
 Alan Freed Big Beat, CBS Radio, 1956
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