BIRTHING LITTLE RICHARD

BIRTHING LITTLE RICHARD
Reflections on the Rise of Rock-n-Roll, Los Angeles, 1950-7

by Charles Deemer

(originally published in Oregon Magazine)

I became a teenager in the right place at the right
time. Although you could count on one hand the number
of blacks enrolled at Woodrow Wilson Jr. High or
Pasadena High School, Los Angeles County had large
enough a black population to justify the existence of
radio shows that played "the very best in Negro
entertainment" around the clock. One such show was
Hunter Hancock's afternoon "Harlematinee" on KFVD.

I'd discovered this radio show in Jr. High. In 1952,
when I turned 13, I already was part of a growing
vanguard of white kids listening to black music, and
we were going to change the popular music industry
forever. I was on the front lines for the birth of
rock-n-roll.

Read it.