schools danced on Bandstand starting in 1952 when Bob Horn was the "23Black Philadelphia Memories,dir. "Squeaky clean" commercial pitchman and deejay Dick Clark inherited Bob Horn's locally broadcast Bandstand in July 1956 and revamped it for a national audience of teenage consumers as ABC's American Bandstand, which first aired in August 1957. New York Public Library Digital Collections, Billy Rose Theatre Division. Clark was the host of American Bandstand in the late '50s through the mid-'60s. 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. This article will also be published in the Washington Post's Outlook section for Sunday, April 22, 2012. Like other young people across the country, black teenagers identified with different aspects of. Black students from Philadelphia high schools and junior high After all, teenagers have $9 billion a year to spend.". 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. As a new generation of black female singers broke through in the 1930s Billie Holiday, Ella Fitzgerald, Memphis Minnie some of the first wave sought refuge in other branches of showbusiness. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_23', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_23').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Because the show influenced American Bandstand during its first year as a national program, teenagers across the country learned dances popularized by The Mitch Thomas Show. "In the southern context, congregation was important because it symbolized anact of free will, whereas segregation represented the imposition of another's will." Alan Freed's Big Beat television show, for example, was cancelled in August 1957 after affiliated stations complained about black teenage singer Frankie Lymon dancing with a white teenage girl. Matthew Delmont, "The Nicest Kids in Town." 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. University of California Press. Some teens were still holding their bottles when Grant started the next advertisement for Motorola portable radios. . In each clip, the teenagers dance as the singers lipsync to recordings of their songs, as was the common practice in this era. Historian Brett Gadsden describes Delaware as "a provincial hybrid, one in which ostensibly southern and northern modes of race relations operated. The advertisement billed WOOK-TV as "America's First Negro Oriented TV Station" broadcasting "To & For Washington, D.C.'s 57% Negro population." c. George "Shadow" Morton 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.. He is currently finishinga book titledMaking Roots: How an Epic Book and Television Miniseries Made History and Why Roots Still Matters(under contract with University of California Press). On Valentine's Day 1920, a little over a century ago, a 28-year-old singer named Mamie Smith walked into a recording studio in New York City and made history. Mamie Smith retired in 1931. 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. King's mention of "Funtown" is preceded by references to lynch mobs, police brutality and the "airtight cage of poverty," and followed by references to hotel segregation and racial slurs. 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. Bryan Adams Aerosmith Alabama All Sports Band The Alarm Deborah Allen The Animals Paul Anka Ann-Margret Susan Anton Adam Ant Aerosmith America Animotion Ashford & Simpson The Association Christopher Atkins Atlantic Starr Patti Austin Autograph Frankie Avalon Angel B[edit] The B'zz The Babys Bachman-Turner Overdrive Badfinger Philip Bailey Baltimora Just over onemile from Central High School, Steve's Show broadcast from the KTHV-TV studios. As a teenager though, she was very talented in performing arts. By 1960, under the control of Carl Murphy, the Afro-American publishededitions acrossthe Mid-Atlantic States. Screenshots courtesy of Matthew F. Delmont, The Nicest Kids in Town. 195657. Any racist similarities WOOK-TV advertisement for Teenarama host Bob King,1965. A. J. Fletcher and Fred Fletcher's Capitol Broadcasting Company, which owned WRAL, received a TV license in 1956 and Lewis played an important role in convincing the Federal Communications Comission (FCC)that WRAL-TV would serve African American viewers.33Clarence Williams, "JD Lewis Jr.: A Living Broadcasting Legend," Ace: Magazine of the Triangle, SeptemberOctober 2002, 1214, 70. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_33', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_33').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Unlike The Mitch Thomas Show and Teenarama, Teenage Frolics aired on a VHF (very high frequency)station with a network affiliation (WRAL-TV had a primary affiliation with NBC and a secondary affiliation with ABC).34"WRAL-TV," 1960 Broadcasting Yearbook,A73 tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_34', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_34').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Despite these network ties, WRAL proved challenging in other ways. Please be respectful. While Little Rock's school desegregation crisis led print and television news across the country in the fall of 1957, Arkansas viewers could tune in every afternoon to watch white teenagers dance on the still-segregated Steve's Show. https://collaborativehistory.gse.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/American%20Bandstand%27s%20West%20Philadelphia%20Home.jpg, American Bandstand's West Philadelphia Home, https://collaborativehistory.gse.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/Dick%20Clark%20.jpg, Dick Clark Hosts American Bandstand at Studio B, https://collaborativehistory.gse.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/Dick%20Clark%20at%20podium.jpg, Dick Clark and American Bandstand Youngsters, https://collaborativehistory.gse.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/Dick%20Clark%20and%20youngsters.jpg, https://collaborativehistory.gse.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/Pop%20Singer%27s%20.jpg, https://collaborativehistory.gse.upenn.edu/sites/default/files/Line%20outside%20Studio%20B.jpg, University of Pennsylvania Graduate School of Education, American Bandstand: West Philadelphia's Seven-Year Wonder 1957-1964, Starting Local: WFIL-TV, Bob Horn, and Philadelphia's Bandstand, Going National: Dick Clark and ABC's American Bandstand, Whose Music, Whose Dances? Lewis (WRAL), June 24, 1967, Lewis Family Papers, folder 140; Daniel Jackson, letter to J.D. There was a protest in the early 60's, I think it was 1963 (my parents were there as teens). Checker himself twisted as he performed the song. Her songs "Tweedle Dee" and "Jim Dandy" both reached the top twenty of the pop chart, but white singer Georgia Gibbs's cover of "Tweedle Dee" topped the pop chart and outsold Baker's version.63Arnold Shaw, Honkers and Shouters: The Golden Years of Rhythm and Blues (New York: Macmillan, 1978), 376. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_63', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_63').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Baker's contemporary Ruth Brown explained, "I wasn't so upset about other singers copying my songs because that was their privilege, and they had to pay the writers of the song. "60Beverly Lindsay-Johnson, interview with author, January 8, 2013. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_60', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_60').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); This story and the black and white reenactments in Lindsay-Johnson's film speak both to the creativity that historians of television must employ and to the imprint Teenarama made on the black population in Washington, DC. d. the auto accident involving Jan Berry. They had four top 10 pop hits and "Don't Worry, Baby" was the B-side to their first #1 "I Get Around." New York First, were important for black teens because the shows offered televisual spaces that valued their creative energies and talents. "61"Voice of the People: In Defense of WOOK-TV," Washington Afro-American, February 23, 1963. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_61', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_61').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); As Burton suggests, during its five years The Milt Grant Show (19561961) was an officially segregated program. Because you would look at Bandstand and we thought it was a joke. This site requires Javascript to be turned on. Hard-drinking, hedonistic, recklessly generous and sometimes violent, she sold a record-breaking 780,000 copies of her debut single, 1923's Downhearted Blues, in just six months and bought her own Pullman railway car to travel in. "The songs may live," wrote one critic in 1926, "but the best thing of all, the free impulse, the pattern of careless voices happily inventing as they go, if it dies it cannot be resurrected." Sisters Gwendolyn and Lena Horton, for example, regularly walked from the Walnut Terrace neighborhood to appear on the show. The distinction, which may be a fine one, is the style of the singer and the background of a record. Barry Malone, "Before Brown: Cultural and Social Capital in a Rural Black School Community, W.E.B. A graduate of Morehouse College and a World War II veteran, John Davis (J. D.) Lewis, Jr. started his radio career at Raleigh's WRAL in 1947 as a morning deejay playing gospel music. a. Grant needed to be able to feature black performers in a way that was safe for the consuming pleasure of the white studio and television audiences and the sponsors that were eager to reach them. Singer and musician Bobby Rydell sits next to host Dick Clark in the audience of "American Bandstand" around 1958. resembles some things from the 1950's. . Rydell sang popular songs such as "Volare" and appeared in the hit film "Bye Bye . Show,", On Mitch Thomas' concerts, see Archie Miller, "Fun & Thrills,", Ray Smith, interviewwithauthor, August 10, 2006. Kendall Productions Records, Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum. American Bandstand also helped invent the demographic that still dominates popular culture: teenagers. 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. Broadcast icon Dick Clark, the longtime host of the influential "American Bandstand," has died, publicist Paul Shefrin said. d. "Dead Man's Curve", "Dead Man's Curve" was a splatter-platter hit by: Wald describes this as an "affective compact" that "complicates the clear division between production and consumption. 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. She was later signed to the Decca Recordings and later Verve Records. Teenarama Dance Party received top billing in this advertisement and ultimately the show's fortunes would rise and fall with WOOK's. Arguing that television provided creative outlets for some black teens during segregation, Delmont focuses on three black teen shows, The Mitch Thomas Show from Wilmington, Delaware (19551958), Teenage Frolics (19581983), hosted by Raleigh, North Carolina, deejay J. D. Lewis, and Washington, DC's Teenarama Dance Party (19631970) hosted by Bob King. a. the Ronettes In a long list of reasons why "we find it difficult to wait," King includes, "when you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can't go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children, and see ominous clouds of inferiority beginning to form in her little mental skythen you will understand why we find it difficult to wait." 1950s Teen Dance TV Shows, Volume 1. Answer.Yes Dick Clark did have. Roger Beebe and Jason Middleton (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007), 226251; Coates, "Filling in Holes: Television Music as a Recuperation of Popular Music on Television,"Music, Sound, and the Moving Image 1, no. d. singing in falsetto, Which event helped signal the end of the Brill Building? Bodroghkozy, Aniko. Lewis (WRAL), n.d. [ca. Thomas continued to work as a radio disc jockey through the 1960s, until he left broadcasting in 1969 to work as a counselor to gang members in Wilmington.