Free Here Comes the Night by Joel Selvin Page A

“He’s Gone,” the first Chantels release, did very well, and the second, the plaintive gospel call of “Maybe,” broke the Top Twenty in December 1957.
    Barrett, one of the secrets of Goldner’s success, next brought Goldner a group called the Chesters, vocal group veterans with a single out on another New York independent. Goldner cut the group’s two originals and, not satisfied with either, gave the group a song by Alley veteran Al Lewis, whose old chestnut “Blueberry Hill” Fats Domino had revived to great effect the previous year. Lewis had a new song, “Tears on My Pillow,” that the group hated, but Goldner made them sing. After a handful of indifferent takes, Goldner told lead vocalist Anthony Gourdine to sing in the baby voice he used when he spoke. One of Goldner’s guys changed the group’s name to the Imperials and Alan Freed named the lead vocalist Little Anthony. The record was a Top Five hit on the End label in 1958.
    Goldner was not musical in any practical way, but he knew what a record should sound like. By using the same basic group of musicians, Goldner had a sound he could trust, and he knocked out records by the dozens. He became a master of studio technology, such as it was, and his 1959 record with the Flamingos, his brilliant, shimmering “I Only Have Eyes for You,” used the new electronic echo with as much as three seconds’ delay. The vocals break the surface of the sound likethe reflection of the moon rippling across a lake. The harmonies sound as if they are being piped in from some other planet. Lead vocalist Nate Nelson gives a flawless performance of the Harry Warren standard, and the record stands as one of the greatest achievements in the field, the acme of the entire era.
    While most disc jockeys who took cash from the labels at least gave the records a spin for the money, Dick Clark conducted business from such regal heights, payola was paid him as a tribute, offered up so that he might even deign to pay attention. Cash was not enough. Even handing over the publishing might not be enough. A man like Goldner had to give up almost everything just so Dick Clark would think about helping him. This was a tough racket and nobody extracted their pound of flesh from the guys with any greater relish than Dick Clark.
    When the payola scandal hit in late 1959, hot on the heels of quiz show champion Charles Van Doren testifying before the same congressional committee about rigging the TV show Twenty-One , Goldner, Freed, Clark, and all the others were dragged through the witness chair. With an election year looming and rock and roll blamed as one of the great social ills of the day, these congressmen bent to the task of cleaning up this cesspool of corruption, even though the practice of payola wasn’t, strictly speaking, illegal.
    Freed, who switched from WINS to WABC in 1958, refused to sign a statement saying he never accepted payola until he saw one signed by Dick Clark, who worked for the same corporation. WABC fired Freed. Although Levy warned Freed to keep quiet, he shot off his mouth in a quarrelsome, contentious interview with columnist Earl Wilson and the headlines on the New York Post front page were the same size as V-J Day (“Alan Freed Telling All”). Levy phoned Freed. “What the fuck did you do?” he said.
    Dick Clark’s labyrinthian holdings in the music business were so complex, committee investigators needed to prepare charts for the committee to lay out all seventeen different corporations Clark ownedand the more than eighty different individuals with singular business associations with him. He even owned a record pressing plant. Of course, Clark had divested himself of all his music business interests by the time he appeared before the committee. But he was too valuable a property to ABC. He would keep his job. Clark was going to weather the same storm that sunk Freed.
    A chastened, dour Goldner faced the congressmen, seated by his lawyer, and ratted out