“The History of the History of Rock and Roll begins with Bill Drake, who conceived it; Ron Jacobs produced it, generally after Pete Johnson wrote it. Ellen Pelissero directed it. Production Coordinator was Sandy Gibson, and Vicki Larson was Music Coordinator. Sound supervision and production techniques by Bill Mouzis.”
Three different narrators appear on this version of the demo: Mark Elliot does the intro, Robert W. Morgan narrates from “Tribute to the early blues” through “Alan Freed, 1952” and Harvey Miller (Humble Harve) narrates from “Broadway Musicals” through “Credits and Copyright Notice”. Thanks to Ray Randolph and Ron Jacobs for providing additional background information. (Jacobs says the original KHJ version was much better than the syndicated version.)
The History of Rock and Roll was immensely successful and broadcast by stations all over the world. Some version of this program is still available in syndication to U.S. radio stations with fee-free transmission of the program’s music.
The program itself was a massive undertaking, and included rare interviews and exhaustive retrospectives of the roots of rock ‘n’ roll. According to the demo, “the initial cost of the program exceeded $75,000 and expended over 12,000 man-hours of research, writing and production.” (Simple math reveals the cost of those man-hours at a little over $6 an hour – which seems hard to believe, but it was over 40 years ago.)
Highlights of this demo are linked for your convenience. Enjoy!