ROCK OF AGES; VALENCIA MAN SALUTES MUSIC IN CABLE SHOW.

Byline: Mary Schubert Daily News Staff Writer

As host of a weekly public access show on early rock 'n' roll, Joe Fitzgerald calls himself the Duke of Doo-Wop, but his focus in February is rhythm and blues pioneers, in a nod to Black History Month.

``Joe's Record Shop'' airs at 8 p.m. Fridays on MediaOne and Time Warner cable, Channel 20 in the Santa Clarita Valley.

Fitzgerald, a Valencia resident and 29-year veteran of the Lockheed plant in Palmdale, spins platters from his own collection of an estimated 500 albums - the vinyl LPs, not those newfangled CDs - plus 5,000 more 45s, countless cassette tapes and hundreds of vintage 78s.

Since the half-hour show debuted about two years ago, Fitzgerald, 55, has tried to showcase music that is generally ignored by commercial radio stations, even though Southern California has several oldies-themed spots on the FM and AM dials.

Previously, he broadcast a radio show at KCSN-FM (88.5), the campus station at California State University, Northridge.

Fitzgerald's love for early rock and R&B was born during his youth in New York, attending a working-class high school that was racially and ethnically mixed. Artists such as Pat Boone were on the hit parade, but from his classmates Fitzgerald learned about the radio stations and disc jockeys who played African-American music, and he was hooked.

He lists Cleveland disc jockey Alan Freed, the man who coined the term rock 'n' roll, as one of his heroes. ``He's the one who brought the black music to the white kids, breaking the color barrier,'' Fitzgerald said.

He still remembers the first record he ever bought - ``Silhouettes'' by The Rays, a 1957 song about a man who thinks his girlfriend is one of the two lovers whose shadows he sees on a window shade - and still has that vintage 78 rpm disc.

``The reason I'm here is that (listeners) are tired of the same oldies on the radio every day,'' explained Fitzgerald, ``You know what I'm saying?'' regularly punctuating his rapid-fire speech. ``When it comes to oldies, (radio) sticks to the same ones all the time.''

His Black History Month broadcasts will trace gospel and rhythm and blues back to their roots more than a century ago, when Fitzgerald said a call-and-response style of singing emerged that lasted to the modern era, he said.

``Gospel is singing about the spirit and R&B is singing about the flesh,'' Fitzgerald said. ``They all used call and response, which is what the slaves did.''

His weekly show is part of the community-based programming lineup at Channel 20, which broadcasts from a studio in Newhall. ``Joe's Record Shop'' is among 60 to 70 hours of weekly programming, ranging from a show by City Councilwoman Jill Klajic and a home cooking-themed program to shows about the Santa Clarita Valley Senior Center and various programs produced by students in the William S. Hart Union High School District, said Susan Shapiro, community programming manager for MediaOne.

MediaOne runs the public access operation, also received by customers of Time Warner Communications, which supplies cable to half the Santa Clarita Valley.

``We have a requirement that the people who produce (public access programming) either live or work in this area, so the feel of the channel overall is a little more community-oriented,'' Shapiro said.

Channel 20 also broadcasts meetings of the Santa Clarita City Council and the city Planning Commission, along with ``college by television'' classes offered through College of the Canyons. The public access channel opened its studio production facility in 1995, Shapiro said.

``All of the Santa Clarita Valley sees us on Channel 20, with the exception of Stevenson Ranch. They have their own cable company,'' Shapiro said.

That's a potentially sizeable audience for a guy hoping to introduce old music to new ears. Fitzgerald likes to remind the uninitiated how much white artists were influenced by their African-American predecessors and contemporaries - and how many songs they ``borrowed'' and popularized with white audiences.

``Every time a black group had a hit, the white groups would cover it,'' he said, ticking off examples of Elvis Presley, the Beatles and other groups redoing songs by African-American artists.

Fitzgerald, who said he knows members of the 1950s- and 1960s-era groups the Coasters, the Drifters and the Platters, likes to tell stories on ``Joe's Record Shop'' about how the performers got started - but he sidesteps the often sad or tragic twists of their lives.

``I did a Frankie Lymon special and I never once mentioned (his problem with) drugs,'' Fitzgerald said. Instead, he focused on seldom-heard songs in the performer's catalog. ``On the radio, you only hear one song,'' he said, referring to ``Why Do Fools Fall in Love?''

To bolster his record collection, Fitzgerald said he makes regular visits to garage sales and thrift shops. ``People just dump stuff there. You never know what you're going to find,'' he said.

Sometimes, viewers recognize him on the street and shout words of encouragement like ``Keep playing those oldies, baby!'' Fitzgerald said. ``I just love the music and the people who made it.''

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PHOTO (color) Valencia resident Joe Fitzgerald owns an exhaustive collection of vintage rock 'n' roll that he shares on a cable television show.

Gene Blevins/Special to the Daily News