American Bandstand was given a short trial run by the ABC network before committing to a permanent spot on the 1957 fall schedule. They also gave the show some financial help to get started, but not very much.
This excerpt from Bandstandland picks up the story:
"It didn’t take Dick Clark long to learn that the $1,500 that ABC had budgeted for American Bandstand each week didn’t go very far, especially when he was booking two acts per day just for the network portion of the show. But the resourceful Clark came up with a solution.
Though he variously referred to his system of payment as “kickbacks” or “check swaps,” the bottom line was that no act was paid more than scale and many acts performed for free.
“We paid the people as long as we had a budget. When we ran out of the budget, either the record company would pay them or they’d swap the check back.”1
Meanwhile, American Bandstand was fast gaining a reputation among artists as the place to be. In the show’s first month guests included Gene Vincent, Jerry Lee Lewis and Buddy Holly and the Crickets. Its influence extended to the kids watching the show, too.
Chartered buses from far outside Philadelphia often delivered throngs of teens to the WFIL doorstep, where they could live out their dancing fantasies. Bandstand parties popped up all across the country every afternoon. Record sellers added TV sets to their stores and encouraged people to watch the show there.
In Cleveland, Ohio, WERE disc jockey Tom Edwards reported that the Bandstand influence “is reflected at my record hops, where the kids are now doing the new steps they’ve learned from the Philly kids.”2
1 Up Close With Patsy Smullin, California Oregon Broadcasting, Inc,, May 13, 2001.
2 Billboard, Sept. 9, 1957.
Did you know? Having successful record labels like Swan, Cameo and Chancellor was a key to American Bandstand's early success. Read more in this excerpt from Bandstandland. 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.
Excerpted from Bandstandland: How Dancing Teenagers Took Over America and Dick Clark Took Over Rock & Roll, now available from Sunbury Press. Author 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.
© 2019 Larry Lehmer
