Popular Music, Popular Myth and Cultural Heritage in Cleveland by Brett Lashua

Author:Brett Lashua [Lashua, Brett]
Language: eng
Format: epub
Tags: Social Science, Popular Culture, Music, Genres & Styles, Rock, Biography & Autobiography, Pop Vocal, History & Criticism
ISBN: 9781787691575
Google: 3VynDwAAQBAJ
Publisher: Emerald Group Publishing
Published: 2019-08-22T05:30:04+00:00

The Rock ‘n’ Roll Capital?

Apart from within a circle of dedicated radio personalities, there appears to have been little awareness in Cleveland of its own popular musical heritage. As I noted in the Introduction, one Cleveland journalist had expressed surprise at the mention of Freed’s tenure in Cleveland in Gillett’s (1970) history of rock ‘n’ roll, The Sound of the City: The Rise of Rock and Roll. As the “King of the Moondoggers,” interest in Freed was revived by Gillett as “a significant figure in American musical history” (McGunagle, 1971, p. 3). Perhaps, in the social and economic problems that troubled the city, Cleveland had in some ways forgotten itself, as a steel town turned to rust. Yet, many radio DJs found ways to celebrate the city. In 1972, local radio producer Billy Bass of emerging FM “rock” station WMMS began calling Cleveland “the rock ‘n’ roll capital of the world” (Gorman & Feran, 2007; Halasa, 2009). Another celebratory slogan also coined in the 1970s by WMMS was “Cleveland: Where rock began to roll.” The Greater Cleveland Growth Association noticed how WMMS had created “assets” (in Gorman’s terms) by championing Cleveland as a rock city, and adopted both mottos in the mid-1980s during the competition to become the location for the Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum (see Chapter 5). Other Cleveland radio stations, including those in the “classic rock” format (WNCX [North Coast Express], from 1986) and “oldies” stations (WMJI, from 1982) joined the chorus of Cleveland’s rock ‘n’ roll champions and cheerleaders. In this boosterism, local stations became key narrators in the telling and retelling of the city’s musical past. This arguably began to transform the city, at least in the popular imagination, if not yet materially. In echoes of anthropologist Clifford Geertz (1973, p. 448), in which “culture is the stories that we tell ourselves about ourselves,” Cleveland, as prominent DJs, and radio broadcasters put it, became a city built on rock ‘n’ roll. Another WMMS promotional catchphrase soon declared “Rock ‘n’ Roll – born in Cleveland!” The idea that Cleveland was where rock ‘n’ roll originated was deeply entrenched by 1984, when local DJ and record convention organizer Steve Petryszyn (1984) opined:

You know, Nashville’s got country […] and Cleveland is the birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll. Whether you contest the “Capital” boast or not, you can’t deny that Cleveland was the birthplace. (p. 7)

Other radio DJs were to play pivotal roles in the shaping of Cleveland as a musical city, one worthy of celebrating its popular music heritage by siting the Rock Hall of Fame there. During the early 1980s in New York City, a “Foundation” committee of leading music industry figures was organized to plan for the establishment of a Rock and Roll Hall of Fame and Museum. Led by Ahmet Ertegun of Atlantic Records, other members of the Foundation included Rolling Stone magazine co-founder Jann Wenner, Bruce Springsteen’s manager Jon Landau, music industry attorneys Suzan Evans and Allen Grubman, and record executives Seymour Stein, Bob Krasnow, and Noreen Woods.

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