The term “rock and roll” has a somewhat lengthy history, but for the sake this review let’s just accept as fact – since so many who seem to know what they’re talking about do – that the now venerable phrase was coined by Cleveland deejay Alan Freed in 1951 as a jaunty reference to how popular music was changing in those fantabulous years. A fan of the rhythm and blues songs Black artists were recording then, Freed began playing them on WJW, despite initial company resistance, thereby widely popularizing the moniker.
Then 29, he called himself Moon Dog and the show “The Moon Dog House,” its slogan “He spins them, Keed – He’s hep, that Freed.” (Notice he was hep, not yet hip, also that he’s not to be confused with the tall man calling himself Moondog who stood on Manhattan’s Sixth Avenue in the 1960s, bamboozling the passersby.)
[Read Frank Scheck’s ★★★☆☆ review here.]
For all his pioneering work popularizing music here-to-fore restricted to Black stations, especially when he was invited to New York City and WINS, Freed eventually ran into various problems. A major difficulty was “payola” that had him vilified by FBI honcho J. Edgar Hoover, who looked down his nose at r’n’r and brought bribery changes that stuck. (Need a “payola” definition? Accepting money to pay records on the air.)
Other bumps in the road were his inability to stop Frankie Lymon, who unexpectedly begun dancing with a white girl on his national “Big Beat” television show, as well as worsening alcoholic years when his career began slipping away. He died penniless in 1965 in Palm Springs.
Though his name may have faded since then, it hasn’t with Gary Kupper, Larry Marshak, and Rose Caiola. They’ve decided it’s high time later generations get a reminder of – or is it an introduction to? – the ground-breaking fellow. They’ve written the book to the rousing Rock & Roll Man, for which Kupper has written a few original songs but which primarily relies on great hand-clapping, foot-stomping, finger-snapping, sometime singing-along-with blasts from many Top 40-charts pasts.
And they’ve given it a clever premise. As this nostalgic history gets underway, the older, weary, besieged Freed (Constantine Maroulis) falls asleep and dreams he’s on trial in, of all things, the Court of Public Opinion. His prosecutor is, of all people, the formidable Hoover (Bob Ari), whose reputation as a cross-dresser isn’t neglected. His defense attorney is, of all people, Little Richard (Rodrick Covington), who not only reprises “Tutti Frutti,” but dresses tutti frutti, thanks to costumer Leon Dobkowski.
Supporting Freed’s ascent is Cleveland’s Leo Mintz (Joe Pantoliano), a good guy sponsoring Freed’s Cleveland airwave shows. Supporting his ascent but not necessarily standing in the way of his descent is Manhattan Birdland founder, record executive (Roulette, other labels), and mob-friendly Morris Levy (Pantoliano again).
A fervent backward glance like Rock & Roll Man would be low decibels indeed without clamorous, glamorous drop-ins by chart-climbers Lavern Baker (Valisia LeKae), Lymon (Jamonté D. Bruten), Buddy Holly and interloper cover artist Pat Boone (Andy Christopher), Screamin’ Jay Hawkins and Chuck Berry (Matthew S. Morgan), Jerry Lee Lewis and broadcasting rival Dick Clark (Dominique Scott), and Bo Diddley (Eric B Turner, who also plays the Court of Public Opinion Judge). Cast members also represent The Drifters. The Moonglows, The Coasters, Frankie Lymon’s Teenagers, and The Platters.
Many, if not all, the songs made famous by these players are featured (“Sh-Boom,” “Maybelline,” “Great Balls of Fire,” and on and on), not always in full versions. Nevertheless, enough are sung and played to keep rock-and-rollers of a certain 1950s-60s age (at whom Rock & Roll Man is certainly aimed) happy as Freed’s “Big Beat” television dancers always looked to be. Younger audience members are likely to wig out as well.
Kupper, Marshak, and Caiola don’t shy away from the shadier aspects of Freed’s curriculum vitae – the drinking, his accepting money as “a consultant,” which gave Hoover the in for a bribery charge – but they are solidly in his corner as one of 20th-century’s most important taste makers or, in today’s vernacular, influencers. No one can deny him that when Bob Horn of “Bandstand” (and later Clark’s “American Bandstand”) was some months behind.
Rock & Roll Man does include one egregious historical mistake. When Freed broadcast the many ground-breaking songs, he wasn’t doing what’s done throughout this production: pulling LPs from their sleeves and lowering a record arm on a turntable track. Nuh-uh. He was playing 45s, yes, the currently almost forgotten 45s with the big hole in the center. In those bygone days, few rock and roll soloists and groups recorded entire albums. Their releases often were one-hit wonders. Maybe eventually they were asked to record albums, but that most often would be after initial clicks added up.
Full disclosure: This reviewer was the associate editor of a music trade magazine at the time and knows whereof he speaks. He also knows as the magazine’s hard-working singles and albums reviewer that many audiences for Rock & Roll Man, directed by Randal Myler and choreographed by Stephanie Klemons, are going to believe for two acts that they’ve died and gone to rock & roll heaven.
Rock & Roll Man opened June 21, 2023, at New World Stages. Tickets and information: rockandrollmanthemusical.com
