Clarks first day asBandstandsnew host was 9 July 1956. selected went together as a group. The first song aired on that broadcast was Jerry Lee Lewis' "Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On." The show stayed on the air until Clark retired as host in 1989, making it the longest-running music program in television history. "Afro-Americans who lived in communities as diverse as Chicago, Norfolk, and Buxton, Iowa, congregatedsometimes along class lines, but always together," Earl Lewis argues. I'm thinking it was either Bo Diddley or Ben E. King. d. Splatter Platter, The Beach Boys' first number-one hit was: Pepsi's sponsorship proved important to making of Teenage Frolics financially viable in the 1960s as it fought for airtime against more profitable national programming. 3. Dubois High School, Wake Forest, North Carolina," The North Carolina Historical Review 85, no. Matthew Delmont, "The Nicest Kids in Town." a. Squeaky clean commercial pitchman and deejay Dick Clark inherited Bob Horns locally broadcastBandstandin July 1956 and revamped it for a national audience of teenage consumers as ABCsAmerican Bandstand, which first aired in August 1957. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_24', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_24').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Mitch Thomas hosts Lewis Lymon and the Teenchords, Wilmington, Delaware, December 7, 1957, ThePhiladelphia Tribune. FormerBandstanderArlene Sullivan, famous in her own right as aBandstand regular in the late 1950s, recalled, There werent many people in the fifties who did not think that Fabian was the handsomest boy theyd ever seen. Televised teen dance shows offer an example of how"basic habits of interaction in public spaces" did not change dramatically in 1957. At the same time, the classic blues singers were too working-class and sexually frank for some of the urban middle classes. A handpicked selection of stories from BBC Future, Culture, Worklife and Travel, delivered to your inbox every Friday. . Lewis, July 7, 1967, Lewis Family Papers,folder 139. Themselves - Musical Guest 1 episode, 1981 Scott Baio . tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_52', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_52').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); King went on to say that he considered Teenarama and his radio show to be "rhythm and blues" programs, and R&B artists like James Brown, Jackie Wilson, Walter Jackson, and Chuck Jackson all performed on Teenarama. While it featured a sanitized version of rock and roll, with white teen idols such as Bobby Rydell and Frankie Avalon,American Bandstand also hosted black vocal groups such as the Coasters and the Impressions; early girl groups such as the Shirelles; Motown artists such as Mary Wells and Smokey Robinson and the Miracles; and R&B and soul pioneers such as James Brown and the Famous Flames, Marvin Gaye and Aretha Franklin. While a few women, notably Victoria Spivey and Edith Wilson, lived long enough to return to the stage during the 1960s blues revival, the likes of Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones were far more interested in the hardbitten men of the Delta. a. We may earn a commission from links on this page. Their teachers asked for volunteers and those who were In the 15-minute programs, please leave two 60-second cutaways for the Pepsi-Cola commercials which I am advised are all that we have sold in Teen-Age Frolics anyhow. The reality behind the scenes ofAmerican Bandstandwas quite different than what viewers saw on national television. Jeffrey Crow, Paul Escott, and Flora Hatley. 1967], Lewis Family Papers, folder 140. On this day in history, August 5, 1957, 'American Bandstand' makes My Place. c. they had top 40 albums When Clark initially referred to American Bandstand's "integration," he emphasized black musical artists performing on the show. c. musical playlets Much in the same way that national teen magazines followed American Bandstand, the Tribune's teen writers kept tabs on the performers featured on Thomas's show, and described the teenagers who formed fan clubs to support their favorite musical artists and deejays.14On the Philadelphia Tribune's "Teen-Talk" coverage of Mitch Thomas' show, see "They're 'Movin' and Groovin,'" Philadelphia Tribune, July 31, 1956; Dolores Lewis, "Talking With Mitch," Philadelphia Tribune, November 9, 1957; Lewis, "Stage Door Spotlight," Philadelphia Tribune, November 9, 1957; Laurine Blackson, "Penny Sez," Philadelphia Tribune, December 7, 1957 and April 26, 1958; Dolores Lewis, "Philly Date Line," Philadelphia Tribune, December 7, 1957; "Queen Lane Apartment Group [photo]," Philadelphia Tribune, December 7, 1957; Jimmy Rivers, "Crickets' Corner," Philadelphia Tribune, January 21 and April 22,1958; Edith Marshall, "Current Hops," Philadelphia Tribune, March 1,8 and 22,1958; Marshall, "Talk of the Teens," Philadelphia Tribune, March 22, 1958; and"Presented in Charity Show [Mitch Thomas photo]," Philadelphia Tribune, April 22, 1958. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_14', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_14').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); The fan gossip shared in these columns documented the growth of a youth culture among the black teenagers whom Bandstand excluded. This, however, did not stop her and she began playing gigs around New York City. With no need for backing bands or stage costumes, the men were much cheaper, too. | Lewis (WRAL), May 8, 1966, Lewis Family Papers, folder 140. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_42', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_42').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Fans also felt free to criticize the format of Teenage Frolics. Themselves - Pop Band 1 episode, 1957 Bob Crewe . Who was first black artist on American bandstand? For the most partthe future deejay, guru of oldies radio, and memoirist Jerry Blavat being a notable exceptionhe was able to do this. Nationally, American Bandstand blocked black teens from entering the studio during its years in Philadelphia, despite host Dick Clark's claims to the contrary. The resulting image nicely illustrates the tensions surrounding televising black music to white audiences. Page not found Instagram Bessie Smith was the first African-American singer. "58Nan Randall, "Rocking and Rolling Road to Respectability," Washington Post, July 4, 1965. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_58', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_58').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); In an interview with filmmaker Beverly Lindsay-Johnson, who made an important documentary on the show, Teenarama regular Reginald "Lucky" Luckett recalled, "One of the key things about the program was that it got the [teens] involved. Lewis, July 7, 1967, Lewis Family Papers,folder 139. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_38', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_38').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Despite Helms's backhanded reference, Pepsi's sponsorship offered Teenage Frolics a national brand sponsor, something neither The Mitch Thomas Show nor Teenarama possessed. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_5', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_5').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Part of the power of television for civil rights activists was how the medium exposed excessive acts of physical violence to audiences outside the South. | Museum of Broadcast Communications. The teens on Seventeen were emulating their peers in Philadelphia who popularized the dance on the nationally broadcast American Bandstand. But now it doesn't interest anyone." "30Brett Gadsden, Between North and South: Delaware, Desegregation, and the Myth of American Sectionalism (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2013), 7. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_30', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_30').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Many teens who danced on The Mitch Thomas Show or watched the program would have experiencedde jure school segregation and the slow realization of educational equality promised by Brown. Clarks usual practice was not to play any record that was not already a hit in some major local markets; this applied to recordings by Avalon (a nice little voice), Rydell, and Francis.3 Fabian, who by all accounts was no singer, presented a different case: his fabulous looks drove teenage girls to gleeful screaming fits. Please be respectful. When I started research six years ago for a book on American Bandstand, I believed, as Clark claimed, that the show's studio audience was fully integrated by the late 1950s. the U.S. are lifted from events regarding the Buddy Deane Show. [1] Larry Lehmer,Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll(Mechanicsburg, PA: Sunberry Press), 55. New York King and Goffin Despite this, Clark claimed for years that he integrated Bandstand by the late 1950s. It seems as if you never play records anymore. "The NAACP Reports: WCAM (Radio)," August 7, 1955, NAACP collection, URB 6, box 21, folder 423, TUUA. Most of the obituaries of Clark, who took over Bandstand in 1956, have noted that the show used rock and roll to break down racial barriers, mostly because that is the story Clark told. This eclipse is the result of a concerted effort by cultural gatekeepers, across several decades, to valorise certain aspects of the African-American experience while denigrating others. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_9', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_9').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); The Mitch Thomas Show debuted on August 13, 1955, on WPFH, an unaffiliated television station that broadcast to Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley from Wilmington.10"The NAACP Reports: WCAM (Radio)," August 7, 1955, NAACP collection, URB 6, box 21, folder 423, TUUA. a. Dick Clark b. Neil Sedaka c. Chubby Checker d. Bob Horn, The focus of American Bandstand was: a. provocative live performances b. resurrecting rhythm and . When Chuck Willis released his single "Betty and Dupree" in 1958, he and Atlantic Records wanted to keep teenagers across the country dancing the Stroll. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_49', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_49').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Whereas all television sets could pick up VHFstations, which carried major network programming, UHF (ultra high frequency) stations required viewers to have special UHF tuners. Lewis (WRAL), letter to Dick Snyder, May 24, 1963, Lewis Family Papers, Southern Historical Collection,University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill, catalog number 5499, folder 139. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_36', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_36').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Lewis secured Pepsi Cola, which sponsored Teenage Frolics as part of the "special markets" campaign to increase sales of the beverage among African Americans.37On Pepsi marketing to black customers, see Stephanie Capparell, The Real Pepsi Challenge: How One Pioneering Company Broke Color Barriers in 1940s American Business (New York: Free Press, 2008). In 1920, however, a loner with a knife wasn't going to help the commercially savvy Handy break the music industry's colour barrier. Christopher Sterling and John Michael Kittross, "Voice of the People: In Defense of WOOK-TV,", "Nation's First Minority Group TV Station to Broadcast Today,", Nan Randall, "Rocking and Rolling Road to Respectability,". Their teachers asked for volunteers and those who were b. the rise of surf music Who was the first black dancer on American Bandstand? The history of the blues is dominated by men. Clark first addressed the integration of the studio audience in his 1978 record collection celebrating the shows twenty-fifth anniversary. That is the show that had Show," Philadelphia Tribune, November 19, 1957. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_18', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_18').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Thomas promoted large stage shows as well as small record hops at skating rinks.19On Mitch Thomas' concerts, see Archie Miller, "Fun & Thrills," Philadelphia Tribune, December 4, 1956; "Rock 'n Roll Show & Dance," Philadelphia Tribune, April 19, 1958; "Swingin' the Blues," Philadelphia Tribune, August 5, 1958; "Mitch Thomas Show Attracts Over 2000," Philadelphia Tribune, August 18, 1958; "Don't Miss the Mitch Thomas Rock & Roll Show," Philadelphia Tribune, July 2, 1960. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_19', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_19').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); These events were often racially integrated,"The whites that came, they just said, 'Well I'm gonna see the artist and that's it.' b. teenage symphonies a. Mike Stoller Sponsors that advertised on The Milt Grant Show bought interaction between their products and the show's teenagers. "Seventeen (WOI-TV's teen dance show), 1958." City councils from Jersey City to Santa Cruz to San Antonio had banned rock performances, and radio stations in Pittsburgh, Chicago, Denver, Lubbock and Cincinnati refused to play rock and roll. As program manager in the late-1960s, Helms was Lewis's boss.35Jesse Helms, Here's Where I Stand (New York, Random House, 2005), 4451; Ernest Furgurson, Hard Right: The Rise of Jesse Helms (New York: W. W. Norton, 1986), 6991; William Link, Righteous Warrior: Jesse Helms and the Rise of Modern Conservatism (New York: St. Martin's Press, 2008), 6498. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_4', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_4').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Televisual representations and photographs of civil rights protests in Little Rock, Greensboro, Birmingham, Jackson, Selma, and other cities also made images of the South highly politicized.5Aniko Bodroghkozy, Equal Time: Television and the Civil Rights Movement (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012); Martin Berger, Seeing Through Race: A Reinterpretation of Civil Rights Photography (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2011); and Leigh Raiford, Imprisoned in a Luminous Glare: Photography and the African American Freedom Struggle (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013). She sang for her classmates and family members, and even had the opportunity to perform with her church's choir where she says she really received training for her voice and style. DVD. a. the Beach Boys Where Are the American Bandstand Regulars Now? tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_39', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_39').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); "When black schools closed," historian David Cecelski writes, "their names, mascots, mottos, holidays, and traditions were sacrificed with them, while students were transferred to historically white schools that retained those markers of cultural and racial identity. The Video Beat, 2015. There have been many cases where our leaders needed to make outcries such as Milt Grant's TV dance program, it seems to me that that was segregation. 195657. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_48', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_48').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Soul Train and American Bandstand attracted nationally known performers, but on Teenage Frolics, teenagers participated in the show's creation and saw their neighbors, classmates, friends, and family do the same. Beautiful, if you will.4, Critics have derisively called the Fabian-Avalon-Rydell, white-teen-idol side ofAmerican BandstandPhiladelphia Schlock, also tame rock and roll. Yet, as the historian Matthew Delmont observes, there was an edgier side to Clarks show, a side that hosted R&B vocal groups like the Shirelles; rockabilly and country-influenced artists like Brenda Lee, Johnny Cash, Conway Twitty, and Patsy Cline; and Motown artists such as Mary Wells and Smoky Robinson and the Miracles; as well as R&B and soul pioneers like James Brown and the Famous Flames, Marvin Gaye, and Aretha Franklin. These interpolated commercials, common in radio and television in this era, offered sponsors daily visual evidence of teenagers' eagerness to consume and encouraged The Milt Grant Show's viewers to participate in the same rituals of consumption. Eustace Gay, "Pioneer In TV Field Doing Marvelous Job Furnishing Youth With Recreation,". d. opposing Vietnam, Which of following can be said about Bob Dylan and Joan Baez during the folk revival? An Italian-American teenager raised in Newark who achieved similar stardom appearing onAmerican Bandstandwas Concetta Franconero, whose stage name was Connie Francis, whose breakout hit was Whose Sorry Now.. Male country blues resonated with rock's singer-songwriters in a way that the classic blues never could. With limited televisual evidence, my analysis draws on archival documents, promotional materials, newspapers, photographs, and interviews to explore how these shows got on and stayed on the air and what they meant to their audiences. . Teenarama Dance Party received top billing in this advertisement and ultimately the show's fortunes would rise and fall with WOOK's. Photograph by Will Counts. On Pepsi marketing to black customers, see Stephanie Capparell. host and continued as the show became American Bandstand with Dick Despite its success among black and white teenagers, Thomas's show remained on television for only three years, from 1955 to 1958. Every form of historical revisionism has its winners and losers. It is a fictional performance that only vaguely August Wilson's Rainey calls the blues "life's way of talking". tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_11', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_11').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); His television show, broadcast every Saturday, resembled Philadelphia's Bandstand,at the timea local program hosted by Bob Horn,and other locally broadcast teenage dance programs. Counter to host Dick Clark's claims that he integrated American Bandstand, my research revealed how the first national television program directed at teens discriminated against black youth during its early years and how black teens and civil rights advocates protested this discrimination.8Matthew Delmont, The Nicest Kids in Town: American Bandstand, Rock 'n' Roll, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1950s Philadelphia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012). These white teenagers were not alone in watching The Mitch Thomas Show. Who was the first black singer to appear on American Bandstand? As Grant introduced The Four Aces' "I Just Don't Know," he exited the scene, the camera pulled back to focus on teens who flocked to pick up their free Pepsi. Clarks policy was to restrict American Bandstand to youth aged 14-17. This meant buying additional hardware to receive the channels, or, after Congress passed the All-Channels ReceiverAct in 1962, buying a newer television set.50Christopher Sterling and John Michael Kittross, Stay Tuned: A History of American Broadcasting, Third Edition (Mahwah, NJ: Lawrence Erlbaum Associates, 2002), 255256, 351352, 383, 415416. They didn't need that bridge to the South anymore. Second, television technology worked to enhance and/or limit the visibility of different youth musical cultures. Whose Culture? Soundings is an ongoing series of interdisciplinary, multimedia publications that use historical, ethnographic, musicological, and documentary methods to map and explore southern musics and related practices. The classic blues singers were already in decline when the Great Depression finished them off. More than 20 million people watched the coronation on the BBC . "As per our conversation of yesterday, it is going to be necessary that we make some adjustment in our Saturday afternoon schedule this fall with respect to Teen-Age Frolics," Helms wrote to inform Lewis and other staff that the show would have to be shortened from its regular one hour broadcast time. Ironically, the records that the Blues Mafia dedicated themselves to rescuing from obscurity have become far more famous than the smash hits of the 1920s. American Bandstand also helped invent the demographic that still dominates popular culture: teenagers. After the widely circulated photograph made her a local celebrity she attended the show with a bodyguard.68David Margolick, Elizabeth and Hazel: Two Women of Little Rock (New Haven: Yale University Press, 2011), 44, 290. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_68', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_68').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Steve's Show was a highly visible regional space that asserted a racially segregated public culture and continued to do so until it went off the air in 1961. "Who can tell," Burton offered, "from the working of the station maybe we can increase our colored stardom. Lewis (WRAL), June 21, 1967, Lewis Family Papers, folder 140; Guadalupe Hudson, letter to J.D. As historian Earl Lewis has noted, when African Americans faced Jim Crow policies in parks, swimming pools, and movie theaters, they developed separate recreation sites through which they turned segregation into "congregation. Every weekday afternoon, in each of these broadcast markets, these shows presented images of exclusively white teenagers. Please be respectful. By 1961, The Twist and Checkers follow-up record, Lets Twist Again (Like We Did Last Summer), were an international phenomenon.

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