Opening narration on this aircheck from Programmer’s Digest (Vol 2 Issue 10), is by Wayne Hiller, listed at the time as Program Director for KQWB in Fargo, North Dakota. The description provided by PD reads:
“Alan Freed: This show from WJW in Cleveland was before Alan’s New York City days, arrest for anarchism, payola, integrated shows, etc. To the best of our knowledge, Freed conducted the first integrated rock show netting him no small amount of grief from the establishment. Anyway, appreciate your heritage and enjoy this touch of history.”
I remember reading once that Freed would play along with the records, pounding a telephone book to accentuate the beat of his “blues and rhythm” records. Devastated by the dire consequences of the “Payola Scandal”, Freed passed away at the age of 43, in 1965. He was inducted into the Emerson Radio Hall of Fame in 1968. Although the quality of this ‘check is marginal (it was 1954, after all), “The Moondog” is the very beginning of what became Top 40 radio.