Obit: Alan Fredericks ("Night Train")
Joel Rubin
'Night Train' conductor
makes his final stop
Radio
By DAVID HINCKLEY
DAILY NEWS STAFF WRITER
For the past 40 years, Alan Fredericks was one of the most influential
travel writers and editors in the country.
But to New York's first generation of rock 'n' roll and rhythm and
blues fans, he was more important than that: He ran the "Night Train"
on radio.
Fredericks, who died Sunday at age 70, started on radio in 1954. A
jazz fan, he filled in for such hosts as Symphony Sid before running
the "Night Train" on WGBB, WHOM and WADO from the late '50s to 1964.
He featured rhythm and blues vocal groups, and while he never worked
prime-time on a big station, he picked up the torch from jocks like
Dr. Jive and Jocko in spreading the "New York sound."
"He was the guy who championed the group sound after it was basically
dead on the radio," recalls Joe McCoy, former WCBS-FM program
director. "We listened to 'Night Train' every weekend."
McCoy, who remembers running into Fredericks at a Yankees game in the
1950s, later had him guest-host Don K. Reed's "Doo-Wop Shop" at
WCBS-FM and would sometimes use him to wrap up that station's "Radio
Greats Reunion" weekends in the "Night Train" spirit.
"He was a major influence," said Dan Romanello, whose "Group Harmony
Revue" on WFUV began as the "Time Capsule Show" in 1963 and has often
credited Fredericks as an inspiration.
Fredericks left radio in 1966 and soon settled at Travel Weekly, where
he would become a widely respected editor. But he said years later
that radio reunions always brought back a good time.
"He was surprised that so many people remembered him," his son, Todd
Fredericks, said yesterday. "He had no idea. But he felt honored."
To many fans, Fredericks was always associated with the collectors'
shop Times Square Records, which sponsored him for a time. On one
WCBS-FM guest spot, he played a 1963 Times Square best-sellers list.
A city native who graduated from Bronx High School of Science and NYU,
Fredericks remained a radio listener and fan after he left the biz,
said his son. Besides rock 'n' roll and R&B, he loved classical music
and musical theater, often using his travel job to keep up with shows
in London's West End.
Outside of music, he was an avid reader who liked 19th-century novels,
with a particular fondness for Dickens.
He was such a Yankees fan that when Cablevision didn't carry Yankees
games for a while, he switched to satellite TV so he wouldn't miss
them.
"Alan was a very easy-going, likable, approachable guy," said Travel
Weekly colleague Gerry Bourbeau. "And one who never took himself or
his many accomplishments too seriously."
"He was important in radio history," said McCoy. "He'll be missed."
Services are 1 p.m. today at Bloomfield-Cooper Jewish Chapels, 44
Wilson Ave., Manalapan, N.J.