

"He was a brilliant performer," Randle told The Plain Dealer in 1993. The two were national tastemakers, breaking many acts of the day. He got his start in Cleveland in 1951 at WERE-AM/1330, where he became a close friend of legendary DJ Bill Randle. One of the most distinctive voices in Cleveland radio history, McLean combined a smooth baritone, mastery of language and a deep knowledge of music to become one of the top DJs in the country during the 1950s. Lanigan calls in from his Florida home to hash out current events with Triv. In 2015, he became a co-host of WTAM's "The Spew," coupled with Mike Trivisonno, weekday mornings from 9-10 a.m. Lanigan was inducted into the National Radio Hall of Fame in 2013. It became "Lanigan, Webster and Malone" in 1991, with the addition of comedian Jimmy Malone, then just "Lanigan and Malone" when Webster left in 1997. The show was a big hit and stayed atop the ratings for years. His WGAR show featured a morning segment called "The Flex Club." He left WGAR in 1984 for a radio job in Tampa, Fla., but returned in 1985 to work at WMJI-FM/105.7, co-hosting "The Lanigan and Webster Show" with newsman and sidekick John Webster. He was soon a popular mainstay, doing double duty as the host of the "Prize Movie" on WUAB Channel 43. Lanigan came to Cleveland in 1970 to replace Don Imus at WGAR. John Lanigan has amassed a 45-year broadcast career – most of them in Cleveland radio and TV. But he was soon back on the air with a new deal, and currently broadcasts from a base at WABC in New York. He got fired from CBS from that gig in 2007 after making racist and insulting remarks about the Rutgers women's basketball team. Imus was back to New York the following year and eventually built an "Imus in the Morning" media empire that had him syndicated across the country. The even more vile Gary Dee did mornings. But drug and alcohol abuse, violent episodes and other bizarre behavior got him fired eventually and he headed back to Cleveland, this time to work as the afternoon-drive host at WHK. When he left in 1971 for the big-time in New York, the headline in The Plain Dealer read: "Garbage mouth goes to Gotham." He shot to stardom in the Big Apple, serving up the same shock schtick. 1 in the ratings, as Imus peppered the airwaves with a seemingly drunken flurry of sexually and politically provocative material. The first started in 1970 at WGAR-AM/1220 and lasted barely a year. One of the nation's original – and most notorious – shock jocks, Imus had two memorable stints in Cleveland. They were moved to Lake View Cemetery in 2016. His ashes were brought back to Cleveland in 2002, where they were on display in an urn until 2014. He was trying to revive his career on the West Coast when he died, at age 43, in 1965. He got caught up in the payola scandals of the early 1960s, and left New York. He was featured in several early rock 'n' roll movies and put together concerts that toured the nation.
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Freed left Cleveland for New York in 1954, where he became a national figure, hosting a nationally syndicated radio show and a weekly TV program on ABC. He presided over what many consider the first-ever rock concert, the Moondog Coronation Ball, held March 21, 1952, at the old Cleveland Arena. The R and B records he played were a hit with black and white listeners alike, and Freed dubbed himself "The King of the Moondoggers." The flamboyant Freed was a showman who would growl, howl and pound phone books like drums when he was on the air. He jumped to WJW in Cleveland in 1951, where his late-night program, "The Moondog House," became a phenomenon. He started his radio career at WAKR in Akron in 1945, playing jazz, pop and early rhythm and blues. Contrary to popular opinion, Freed did not coin the phrase "rock'n' roll," but he was certainly instrumental in popularizing it and spreading the revolution around the world.

The most famous radio personality in Cleveland history, and a pioneer of early rock 'n' roll.
