Radio Freed America

In the beginning there was Alan Freed. Not as a solo voice in the desert, mind you. There was Tommy “Dr. Jive” Smalls in NYC and Jocko Henderson in Philly/NYC and Pete “Mad Daddy” Myers in Cleveland and others simmering in regional pockets. There was Dewey Phillips in Memphis and Bill Randle in Cleveland, both of whom hyped gutbucket R&B and helped break Elvis & co., and there were others scattered haphazardly in urban markets throughout the post-war landscape as blues and R&B 78s gave way to rock and roll 45s. Together they spread the gospel of rock across the country while spewing their own brand of machine-gun beatnik patter between and atop the music. They were stars, just like the musicians. Only they didn’t drive the music. They rode it. Like jockeys. Disc jockeys.

Professor Pinky Tourette here, with your history lesson for the day. These weren’t the first DJs, of course. As soon as there was radio there were radio announcers, some of whom gained followings early on. Martin Block led the pack starting in the mid-30s with “Make Believe Ballroom,” a program that provided exactly what it promised: popular contemporary big-band records with Block offering segues as if from a live ballroom performance. Walter Winchell is credited with coining the term “disc jockeys” in reference to Block.

But the 1950s saw the birth of raucous JDs – pardon, DJs – the ones that caused the nascent “teen-age” audience to sit up and take notice, to hit the hop or just to huddle under the covers with a radio screwed to their ear. Freed has been wrongly credited with inventing the term “rock and roll” and rightly credited for his part in its wildfire spread among the pimply throngs.

(As an aside, the era also saw the rise of the MMJ, the Monster Movie Jocks, or horror hosts as they’re more commonly known. Spearheaded by Vampira and Zacherley, along with local faves like Marvin, Selwin, and Morgus the Magnificent, they did for cheesy black and white genre films what DJs did for music, and their gnarled offspring lurk to this day.)

The payola scandals of the late 50s did a number on the reigning DJs, gelding radio and making it safe for the MORification of America. Freed, as is well documented, went overnight from a celebrated promoter, tour packager, and tastemaker to a shunned alcoholic who died in debt.

In his wake rose the next generation of DJs, loud-mouthed, carny-style hustlers spieling the charms of 1960s rock and rollers. People like Wolfman Jack and Cousin Brucie and Murray the K, the self-proclaimed “245th Beatle.” They lacked the outsider charm and grit of the previous generation while retaining the rapidfire patter and coy hipness, making them perfect spokesmen as rock morphed from an upstart indie rebellion to a mainstream industry.

Later rose the AOR DJs in urban markets from L.A. to New York to London, many trading the amphetamine rant for a quaalude lull while extolling the virtues of songs lasting four sides of a rock opera packaged in a fold-out sleeve full of airbrushed wizards and demons.

Then there were the pure talkers, the Jean Shepherds, the Bobs and Rays who espoused music in favor of captivating stories and keen comic banter and sketches. Over time, of course, their ol’ familiar charm began to appear dated and lose its luster. Which brings us to “shock jock” Howard Stern. While far from the first music jockey to downplay records in favor of his own voice, he took it to another level, managing to lasso an ostensibly blue-collar rock and roll audience and captivate them by injecting his show with biting sarcasm and mockery, and, more important, edginess and irreverence. Despite a failed bid to become “King of All Media,” with unspectacular performances outside the realm of radio, his influence is massive. Not necessarily in a good way.

Can Stern be blamed for the rise of alt-right radio? In many ways they are the anti-Stern, espousing the ultra-conservative instead of the anything-goes. Yet they package it in pure Sterndom, sneering and satirical, depicting themselves and their followers as members of an enlightened yet oppressed minority. Rush Limbaugh, following the footsteps of seething right-wing firebrands Joe Pyne and Bob Grant before him, was already a perfectly-formed Pillsbury doughboy long before Stern’s first FCC fine, but it was only in the wake of Stern’s ascendance that he burst like a zit into public prominence as the living embodiment of reactionary Republican outrage. Only to be followed by an endless barrage of like-minded spielers of indignity and simmering confederacy. It could be argued that the rise of alt-hate radio fed the incipient and intolerant Tea Party, further spawning the radical right and resulting in the nadir of political awareness and accountability, Trumpism. And its eager, witless buttboys, Alex Jones and Glenn Beck and Steve Bannon and and and…

Parallel to this arose a whole new definition of “DJ,” as music fans with extensive LP collections hauled their milk crates to urban clubs and street parties and live-mixed a homemade party tape on the spot, paradoxically minus the ‘tween-song banter that turned past DJs into household names. In due time the most adept of the new DJs built a rep for themselves and became, like Freed, et al. a standalone breed of star, this time without opening their limpid mouths. Soon clubs were advertising not live bands but spinners of vinyl and CD. The birth of streaming democratized the process still further so no longer was a collection of milk crates needed, the result being that nowadays every third resume you see includes “DJ” in the “other skills” category.

And so to summarize: Alan Freed through radioactive meiosis split in two, into DJs who were all mouth, no music; and DJs who were all music, no mouth; simultaneously begetting both Tucker Carlson and utterly generic senior Bingo spinners. Now that, my friends, is talent.