Rock Radio Scrapbook
FROM THE ARCHIVES...
Talent:
ALAN FREDERICKS
Station:
WADO New York
Date:
February 13, 1961
Time:
16:56
Let's take a ride on the Night Train.
Alan Fredericks was a true rock radio legend, a deejay who played "New York sound" of doo-wop music in the 1950s and '60s on his "Night Train" show on New York and area stations WGBB, WHOM and WADO. Former WCBS-FM program director Joe McCoy told David Hinckley of the New York Daily News, "he was the guy who championed the group sound after it was basically dead on the radio."
Fredericks left radio in 1966, moving to Travel Weekly, where he became one of the most respected travel editors in the U.S. But he was able to revive the "Night Train" in the '80s and '90s, when he filled in for Don K. Reed on "The Doo-Wop Shop" on WCBS-FM, and also made appearances on that station's Radio Greats Reunions. He died July 31, 2005, at the age of 70.
In 1961, Fredericks was playing doo-wop records from 11-midnight every Saturday night at WADO. The show was sponsored by Times Square Records, then one of New York's most popular record shops. The following aircheck has survived through the years and we are happy to present it on Rock Radio Scrapbook.
Hear Alan Fredericks on WADO here.
(Scrapbook archives)