How the First Rock Concert Ended in Mayhem (Cleveland, 1952)

“Amer­i­ca has only three cities: New York, San Fran­cis­co, and New Orleans. Every­where else is Cleve­land.” That obser­va­tion tends to be attrib­uted to Ten­nessee Williams, though it’s become some­what detached from its source, so deeply does it res­onate with a cer­tain expe­ri­ence of life in the Unit­ed States. But con­sid­er this: can every Amer­i­can city claim to be where rock and roll began — or at least the site of the very first rock and roll con­cert? Cleve­land can, thanks to Alan Freed, a famous radio announc­er of the nine­teen-for­ties and fifties. The Moon­dog Coro­na­tion Ball he orga­nized in 1952 may have end­ed in dis­as­ter, but it began a pop-cul­tur­al era that arguably con­tin­ues to this day.

Hav­ing attained pop­u­lar­i­ty announc­ing in a vari­ety of radio for­mats, includ­ing jazz and clas­si­cal music, Freed was awak­ened to the pos­si­bil­i­ty of what was then known as rhythm and blues by a local record-store own­er, Leo Mintz. It was with Mintz’s spon­sor­ship that Freed launched a pro­gram on Cleve­land’s WJW-AM, for which he cul­ti­vat­ed a hep­cat per­sona called “Moon­dog.” (Some cred­it the name to an album by Rob­by Vee and The Vees, and oth­ers to the avant-garde street musi­cian Moon­dog and his epony­mous “sym­pho­ny.”) Start­ing at mid­night, the show broad­cast hours of so-called “race music” to not just its already-enthu­si­as­tic fan base, but also the young white lis­ten­ers increas­ing­ly intrigued by its cap­ti­vat­ing, propul­sive sounds.

Freed soon com­mand­ed enough of an audi­ence to describe him­self as “King of the Moon­dog­gers.” When he announced the upcom­ing Moon­dog Coro­na­tion Ball, a show at Cleve­land’s hock­ey are­na fea­tur­ing sets from such pop­u­lar acts as Paul Williams and the Huck­le­buck­ers, Tiny Grimes and the Rock­ing High­landers (an all-black group whose sig­na­ture kilts would sure­ly stir up “cul­tur­al appro­pri­a­tion” dis­course today), Varet­ta Dil­lard, and Dan­ny Cobb, the Moon­dog­gers turned out. About 20,000 of them turned out, in fact, twice what the venue could han­dle. A tick­et mis­print was to blame, but the dam­age had been done — or rather, it would be done, when the well-dressed but over-excit­ed crowd stormed the are­na and the author­i­ties were called in to shut the show down by force.

In the event, only the first two acts ever took the stage. The planned coro­na­tion of the two most pop­u­lar teenagers in atten­dance (a holdover from anoth­er cul­tur­al dimen­sion entire­ly) nev­er hap­pened. But the spir­it of rebel­lious­ness wit­nessed at this first-ever rock con­cert was like a genie that could­n’t be put back in its bot­tle. How­ev­er square his image, Freed, who pop­u­lar­ized the term “rock and roll” as applied to music, was nev­er much of a rule-fol­low­er in his pro­fes­sion­al life. His lat­er impli­ca­tion in the pay­ola bribe scan­dals of the late fifties sent his career into a tail­spin, and his ear­ly death fol­lowed a few years lat­er. But to judge by re-tellings like the one in the Drunk His­to­ry video just above, he remains the hero of the sto­ry of the Moon­dog Coro­na­tion Ball — and thus a hero of rock and roll his­to­ry.

Relat­ed con­tent:

The Live Music Archive Lets You Stream/Download More Than 250,000 Con­cert Recordings–for Free

Inti­mate Live Per­for­mances of Radio­head, Son­ic Youth, the White Stripes, PJ Har­vey & More: No Host, No Audi­ence, Just Pure Live Music

How the Grate­ful Dead’s “Wall of Sound” — a Mon­ster, 600-Speak­er Sound Sys­tem — Changed Rock Con­certs & Live Music For­ev­er

The Ori­gin of the Rooftop Con­cert: Before the Bea­t­les Came Jef­fer­son Air­plane, and Before Them, Brazil­ian Singer Rober­to Car­los (1967)

Based in Seoul, Col­in Marshall writes and broad­casts on cities, lan­guage, and cul­ture. His projects include the Sub­stack newslet­ter Books on Cities and the book The State­less City: a Walk through 21st-Cen­tu­ry Los Ange­les. Fol­low him on the social net­work for­mer­ly known as Twit­ter at @colinmarshall.