When Dick Clark took over hosting duties for the program that would become American Bandstand, he was fully aware that his broadcasting success relied on playing the type of music that would attract throngs of enthusiastic dancing teenagers to the studios of WFIL-TV.
He also knew that he would have to rely on others to tap into that teenage world. He had, after all, spent most of his recent on-air time in a tiny radio booth, spinning out uninspiring pop tunes that went mostly unheard in the Philadelphia market.
Fortunately for Clark (and Bandstand), he was a quick learner. Plus, Bandstand's popularity under previous host Bob Horn had created a steady flow of eager record promotion men and salesmen, whose ambitions closely matched Clark's.
One of those promo men was Gunter Hauer, whose path to Bandstand and Clark symbolized the mythical American dream, though he was not born an American, nor was he a dreamer. Hauer died on August 2 of this year at the age of 101.
When Clark was just starting to listen to the early radio voices of the 1930s that would inspire his own lengthy broadcast career, the teenaged Hauer was listening to the harsh rhetoric being spun on radio stations in his native Germany by Chancellor Adolph Hitler.
When the Olympics came to Berlin in 1936, Hauer's family was one of many who opened their homes to American athletes and their families. It was then that Hauer met his first Black person, a woman who gave him a ticket to the August 4 track and field session of the Games.
Since Hitler took power three years earlier, life became increasingly difficult for Hauer and his Jewish family. They could no longer sit on a public park bench or attend movies. The future looked bleak.
It looked even bleaker after Hauer witnessed American Jesse Owens claim the gold medal in the long jump that day, only to see Hitler fawning over German silver medalist Lutz Long before leaving to stadium so he wouldn't have to present the gold to Owens.
After years of pleading with his family to leave Germany, they finally sailed away in 1939, only to end up in a Jewish refugee camp in Shanghai, China. Before the end of World War II, Hauer's parents died and he had married. After the war, he moved to the United States, first to Oakland, California, then to Cincinnati, Ohio.
In Cincinnati, Hauer began his entry into the music business, through the shipping dock. He landed a night job with King Records, the eclectic label started by Syd Nathan in the 1940s. Nathan staffed his operation largely with Jewish and Black workers, precisely the audience his upstart label was looking for.
Overnight, Hauer would stuff boxes of 78s by the likes of Earl Bostic and Bull Moose Jackson and prepare them for shipment. It seemed an odd job for a young man who knew nothing about the record business.
"I wanted to eat," Hauer explained. "I needed a job and it was the first thing that came along."
But Hauer saw more than just a job. He saw an opportunity.
"I worked weekends at retail stores to learn what customers wanted. It gave me experience in what people look for in music, and not just on a wholesale level. Distributing, retail, shipping, and from there into working with radio stations - even being a spectator at recording sessions. It didn't hurt.”
Nathan noticed. Within months, Hauer was sent to New York City where he was King's distribution branch manager, In 1950, he moved over to Gotham Records, where he took over record distribution in Philadelphia. In 1954, he jumped to Universal Record Distributing Co. which brought him solidly into the Horn/Clark orbit.
Besides working promotions throughout the Northeast, Hauer often got feedback from his young daughter, Gail, bring her unreleased records.
“He would could home and say, ‘Here, play this. This will be a hit in a couple weeks',” she said.
The Hauer household was so flush with records that they would give them out on Halloween instead of candy.
Hauer later moved to Atlantic Records and retired in the 1980s. In retirement, he followed his beloved Eagles in the National Football League and often spoke to school groups about his experiences as a young Jewish man growing up in Berlin as Hitler came to power. He was never bitter in his presentations, according to his driver and facilitator, Steve Korsin.
“He would begin, ‘You are not going to hear a horror story from me',” Korsin said.
Sources: "Holocaust Survivor Gunter Hauer Dies at 101," Jewish Exponent, August 12, 2020, By Andy Gotlieb.
"Gunter Hauer: Profile Of A Promotion Legend," World Radio History, June 10, 1983, By Jeff Green.
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. His book about the last tour of Buddy Holly, the Big Bopper and Ritchie Valens -- The Day the Music Died -- is available at Amazon.
© 2020 Larry Lehmer
