Bandstand Beat

Bandstand Bits: Is that Chuck Berry or a huckleberry?, Eddie Fisher returns home

The kids who showed up at the Bandstand studio on July 9, 1956, just wanted to dance.

But would they get the chance? What kind of music would this new guy play?

That was the day Dick Clark took over Bandstand from Bob Horn. When Horn was at the helm, the kids knew they could count on a good mix of jitterbug and slow dance tunes. But Clark? No one in the Bandstand crowd listened to his radio show, stuffed with tunes from their parents' era.

Clark was as uncertain about what he was about to play as were the young dancers. As fellow WFIL disc jockey Jerry Ross famously said of Clark, "He didn't know Chuck Berry from a huckleberry."

In fairness, many Americans didn't know what to think of the music that was emerging in 1956. Helen Bolstad took dead aim at the music that year, gathering material for an article simply entitled "Rock 'n' Roll" that appeared in the September 1956 issue of TV Radio Mirror magazine. What Bolstad wrote was hardly good news for fans of the music:

“Dr. Francis J. Braceland, psychiatrist-in-charge of the city's [Hartford, Conn.] Institute of Family Living, termed rock 'n' roll “a communicable disease” and castigated it as “a cannibalistic and tribalistic form of music . . . which appeals to adolescent rebellion and insecurity.”

Even people closer to the music proved to be harsh critics:

Veteran disc jockey Fred Robbins said: “Too many disc jockeys are failing to live up to the importance of their jobs.” He blamed them for a great part of “the rock 'n' roll scourge,” calling it “musical junk ... a mere perversion of rhythm-and-blues.”

Leonard Feather — who conducted the quiz, Platterbrains, on ABC Radio, and whose Encyclopedia Year Book of Jazz had been recently released— stated: “Rock 'n' roll bears the same relationship to jazz that wrestling does to boxing. Jazz is an art form. Rock 'n' roll is a phony. It appeals to morons of all ages, but particularly to young morons. It is unfortunate that so many good musicians must play out of tune to make a living.”  

Did you know? Eddie Fisher made his first appearance in his old hometown on Jan. 28, 1960, when he lip-synced to Scent of Mystery on American Bandstand. Dick Clark proclaimed the entire program a “Salute to Eddie Fisher.”

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. Go here to learn the story behind the writing of Bandstandland or here to listen to the Pennsylvania Cable Network's interview with author Larry Lehmer.

Larry Lehmer's book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

 

Bandstand Beat: If it had a good beat, the kids from Philadelphia would dance to it

In last week's post, I wrote about some of the non-dancing reasons that viewers tuned into American Bandstand. This week, I want to give a shout out to the kids who were, indeed, interested in the dancing.

At its core American Bandstand was a teen dancing show, a very successful one at that.

Marvin Brooks, a cameraman on the show, also did occasional duty as a Bandstand doorman. While most of the show's doormen were of stocky build, Brooks was not, weighing just 140 pounds. He was cautious whenever opening the door to allow kids into the studio.

“The girls from West Catholic High School got out early and were the first in line," he said. "When I opened that door, they ran right over me, they trampled me. So I had to open the door and step out of the way, fast."

Mary Ann Collella was an early regular in the Bob Horn era. She considered herself a born dancer.

“It’s in my genes, I guess. My mother used to sneak out and get punished for going to dances. My uncle’s a great dancer, my father’s a good dancer so it’s in my genes," she said. "I used to practice with the wall. I went to dances even before I went to Bandstand, like the school dances and stuff. We traveled to all the different parishes to go to the dances. It was just something that kids from South Philly and North Philly did when they were teenagers.”

Rick Fisher, who was a semi-regular during Dick Clark's later years in Philadelphia, agreed that dancing was definitely a Philadelphia specialty.

"Philadelphia had its own style of dancing that nobody else was ever able to duplicate," he said. "New York kids thought they were great dancers, but they did not dance as well as us. We just had a style in Philadelphia that I thought was just wonderful and we seemed to pick it up quickly. Outsiders that would come in never seemed to get it, the way we picked up things.”

Barbara Marcen, who won a jitterbug contest on Bob Horn's Bandstand, said she didn't know how to dance at all when she first arrived in the WFIL-TV studio.

"You just learn. You watch the other ones dance," she said. "The other Committee members taught me how. It was just like a family. Everybody knew one another, especially among the regulars.”

Visitors to the show were sometimes intimidated by the Bandstand dancers. Like Bruce Aydelotte of Vineland, N.J., who sharpened his dancing skills on the Barbary Coast of the Jersey Shore where Joe Grady and Ed Hurst frequently hosted record hops at the Palm Garden dance hall.

When Aydelotte finally stepped onto the Bandstand set, he became anxious when he realized he could actually fulfill his fantasy of dancing with Pat Molittieri, one of the most popular dancers on the show.

“I just remember she was really sharp and that I was shaking in my shoes walking up to her to do a slow dance," Aydelotte recalled. "That was the days when you touched somebody when you danced.”

Another regular, Dorothy Bradley, said she wasn't the only family member interested in the show. "My Mom would watch Bandstand every day and dance right along with us," she said.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. Go here to learn the story behind the writing of Bandstandland or here to listen to the Pennsylvania Cable Network's interview with author Larry Lehmer.

Larry Lehmer's book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

 

Bandstand Bits: It wasn't just dancing that drew viewers to American Bandstand

American Bandstand's audience in its early years was mostly female, ranging from pre-teens to young housewives. Their reasons for watching varied. Some simply enjoyed the dancing or the music. Others were interested in the fashion exhibited by the dancing teens. Still others were interested in the hairstyles or the relationships of popular couples.

But males watched, too. Their interest had little to do with hair or clothing, though. Some were interested in the music or the dancing, but for much of the male audience, the attraction of Bandstand was more primal.

"They watched American Bandstand for sex," wrote Stuart D. Bykofsky in the Philadelphia Inquirer on July 25, 1971. "It was television at its best, aimed squarely at the lowest common denominator."

John Carlton, a WFIL-TV announcer who hosted the movie show that immediately preceded Bandstand, was fully aware of the phenomenon.

“Every bartender in Philadelphia knew me," Carlton told me in a 2000 interview. "Not because I’d been to every bar, but they’d turn on the last 10-15 minutes of the movie so they wouldn’t miss all the pretty little girls on Bandstand.”

Sailors apparently noticed, too. Dick Clark once announced on American Bandstand that regular Bunny Gibson had been named "Queen of the Shasta" by U.S. Navy men assigned to that ship.

Bykofsky expounded on the "Bandstand effect:"

"Bandstand was an explicit if not outright carnal, program. Hemlines were down to the calf, but skirt material was pulled tightly over the rump. Necklines were high and no one dreamed of going without a bra, but sweaters were as conforming as skin on a grape."

"Cameramen lay in ambush at  hip level and focused only on the more pronounced cases of adolescent overdevelopment. ... The girls whipped back and forth, first near the camera, then away.  The camera dutifully tracked posteriors like a beagle on scent. If all this wasn't done intentionally, why didn't they ever show the boys' backsides?"

Why indeed.

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. Go here to learn the story behind the writing of Bandstandland or here to listen to the Pennsylvania Cable Network's interview with author Larry Lehmer.

Larry Lehmer's book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.

 

 

Bandstand Bits: Studio B, Bandstand theme, Mickey Mouse Club and shellac head

Did you know? Here are a few facts about American Bandstand that you may have missed:

• WFIL-TV's Studio B (The American Bandstand studio) measured 80 feet by 42 feet, including the space taken up by the bleachers.
• High Society by Artie Shaw was the original Bandstand theme song, but was replaced by Bandstand Boogie. The most popular version of Boogie during the Philadelphia years was by the big band of Les Elgart.
• From October 1957 to December 1957, Dick Clark hosted a Monday night prime-time version of American Bandstand. It was a flop.
• In the film Dead Poets Society, the Robin Williams character criticizes a textbook's instruction to give poetry numerical ratings: "How can you describe poetry like American Bandstand? 'I like Byron, I give him a 42 but I can't dance to it'!"
• American Bandstand pretty much killed off The Mickey Mouse Club. After watching high energy teens dancing on Bandstand, older teens were switching off their TV sets rather than sticking around to watch a bunch of younger kids doing vaudeville routines on the slower-paced kiddie show.
• Because of Clark’s heavy use of hair tonic, some kids would call him “shellac head.”
• Just before Dick Clark moved American Bandstand out of Philadelphia, he began hosting a game show called The Object Is.
  

Author Larry Lehmer's book about Dick Clark and American Bandstand --  Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll --is available from Sunbury Press. Go here to learn the story behind the writing of Bandstandland or here to listen to the Pennsylvania Cable Network's interview with author Larry Lehmer.

Larry Lehmer's book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.