Mroldies, your post made me recall a post I did several years ago about “Roll Over Beethoven” and thought since we were on the subject, the board might find it interesting to see it again, or, maybe not.
 
What I posted was what I remembered from a “news brief” published in the Wall Street Journal in the late nineteen seventies.  While the Wall Street Journal “news brief” is not inaccurate, it compresses a complicated chain of events that took place over several years.  Here’s my original post:
 
In the early Seventies, New York City had two Classical Music (classical as in Beethoven, Bach and Brahms) radio stations.  The second place one was struggling with a low but very loyal listenership.  The second-place radio station finally was sold and the new owners changed the station’s format to Rock ‘n’ Roll Oldies.  The second-place radio station’s loyal listeners were, of course, very displeased with this outcome, but resigned to accept it.  However, the first song the new radio station played in the Rock ‘n’ Roll Oldies format was “Roll Over Beethoven” by Chuck Berry.  This angered the loyal listeners so deeply that they became militant, organized and sued in court, and got their original format back.