What is Cleveland’s significant tie to Rock and Roll history (esp. over Philly!) to become home of the Rock and Roll hall of fame?
- Jinx
- Cleveland bid for it.
- Alan Freed worked in Cleveland and is considered to be on of the first DJs to popularize rock and roll acts and even play music performed by blacks to predominantly white audiences.
Of course, it ought to be in Memphis or New Orleans. Or even Chicago (home to Chess Records.)
New Orleans? Wumpus, you mean Jazz Hall of Fame, don’t you?
Because Cleveland Rocks!
I agree with BobT. Alan Freed is generally credited as being the one who coined the term “rock and roll”. The term had sexual overtones at the time - believe it or not. (Didn’t Cecil give this some print space in one of his books?)
Of course, Freed wasn’t exactly a saint. He was up to his neck in the payola scandals. You may recall, at his induction into the R & R Hall of Fame, Paul Simon said he owed his success to Alan Freed, who told him that, for a $500 fee, he’d put “Hey Schoolgirl” by Tom & Jerry (the name Simon & Garfunkel were using back then) into heavy rotation, and make it a hit. Simon paid the money, and sure enough, Freed played the song on the radio.
In fairness to Freed, Simon himself says “I wish it was STILL that way in the radio business!”
On a less savory note, Freed sometimes extorted major concessions from artists who wanted airplay. Freed never wrote a song in his life, but he often demanded co-writing credit, as a condition for playing a song on the radio. He actually demanded credit for co-writing Chuck Berry’s “Maybelline,” and he got it.
In no way do I wish to exonerate Freed. But you might find reading THIS interesting.
As for the Chess Boys, you don’t want to know.
Because of Freed, Joe Finan, and others, truly Cleveland has as good a claim as any other city to birthing Rock and Roll.
Actually, it would be more accurate to say he was the first to describe the (then) new style of music as “Rock and Roll.” Rock and Roll was very clearly a euphemism for copulation in the late 40s and early 50s.
Cleveland was also one of the first venues that actively encouraged Rock and Roll acts in the early days, including being the first or one of the first sites for Barry, Presley, and others to get gigs outside their local or regional bases, (and was the site of the first Rock and Roll riot when one of Freed’s promotions was overbooked).
The New York-based organizers of the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame were not really happy with the choice of Cleveland, and they have made a point of staging the induction ceremonies elsewhere as often as possible, but Cleveland put up the numbers in terms of supporters and public allocation of cash, so Cleveland got the Hall.
tomndeb gets it absolutely right in their last line of their post.
Cleveland got the Rock’n’roll hall because they paid for it.
In 1986, IIRC, USAToday had an informal poll on which city should have the rock hall. Due to mega rock superstation WMMS’s influence, Clevelanders wrote in and won the poll in some ridiculous margin, like 90%. I seem to remember the runner-up was Memphis. This got the city fathers thinking…hmmm, we want the rock hall. The New York people needed financing, and IIRC, Cleveland put up $90 million for it. Nobody else would put up the money. Cleveland got the hall.
Similar situation happened a few years later. Spanish no-charm rustbelt city and den of terrorists Bilbao wanted to revitalize its former industrial waterfront, and heard that the Guggenheim people were looking for a location for a museum. They asked them to come around and consider Bilbao. The Guggenheim people said hahahahahahahahahahahahahahahah… But to be polite, they visited the city. The Bilbao people said we want the museum. The Guggenheim people winked at each other and said, “Well, we’re going to need $150 million up front. Then, $50 million over the next few years for artwork, which you will give to us.” The Bilbao people said, “where do we sign?” The Guggenheim people sh*t themselves, and then built Gehry’s museum.
Always follow the money.