The Pied Pipers of Rock 'n' Roll: Radio Deejays of the '50s and '60s Book

It was the conservative fifties, and then something happened. Ed Sullivan had to dump the opera stars and Chinese acrobats and give them Elvis. Straight-laced teens became rowdy rebels.

What caused the change? Rock-'n'-roll and the men who brought it into homes and cars. In The Pied Pipers of Rock 'n' Roll, Wes Smith examines the phenomenon of the AM deejays who captivated a generation and helped define the counterculture that has forever changed the landscape of American youth.

Broadcasting on signals that often reached across half the continent, these men Alan Freed, Dick Biondi, Hunter Hancock, Zenas Sears, Jocko Henderson, John R. Richbourg, Gene Nobles, Hoss Allen, and Wolfman Jack — developed followings as devoted as those of the stars whose records they played. Their loyal listeners would lie in darkened bedrooms for hours each night, transported from rural isolation, urban frustration, adolescent awkwardness to a place spun from the heady power of music and mesmerizing deejay lingo.