ABSTRACT
One of the ways in which the media asserted control over rock ’n’ roll in the 1950s was through its depictions of the music’s young audience. Often presented as a homogenous crowd, or simply a haven for delinquency, rock ’n’ roll fans were rarely accorded any agency within the mainstream press. Jeff Greenfield’s 1971 reminiscences of his experiences as an adolescent in New York City during the late 1950s offers a more personalized account of rock ’n’ roll’s impact on its young fans. Greenfield, a New York mayoral speechwriter who would later go on to a distinguished career as a political commentator, touches on a number of points. Most notably he describes the ways in which radio and live performances served to create an imagined community, unifying a disparate group of young rock ’n’ roll fans, separated by class, race, and ethnicity. Much of Greenfield’s article describes the important role of Alan Freed (1921-1965), the disc jockey often credited with popularizing the phrase “rock and roll.” Freed’s live shows at both the Brooklyn and New York Paramount Theaters routinely drew crowds of 4,000 to 5,000 teenagers (and many more who could not be admitted). The first performance that Greenfield attended, during “Washington’s Birthday of 1957,” was part of a tenday marathon run of shows that attracted a total of 65,000 spectators. These shows which, as Greenfield describes, involved the destruction of property and demonstrative dancing, drew extensive media coverage and acted as lightning rods for the mounting concerns about rock ’n’ roll’s supposedly pernicious effects.
