Clark was the only disc jockey with a national audience, and the subcommittee was especially interested in his business endeavors. The hearings revealed that Clark had an interest in thirty-three music-related companies and that he owned copyrights to 160 songs, 143 of which he received as gifts. Music industry witnesses called by the subcommittee testified to giving Clark copyrights to songs or paying him consulting fees to receive more spins on American Bandstand. Defending himself from these allegations, Clark told the subcommittee, “I have never taken payola. … I followed normal business practices under the ground rules that then existed.”71 Here and throughout the hearings, Clark adopted a narrow definition of payola as an explicit agreement to play a particular record in return for a specified payment. Robert Lishman, chief counsel for the house subcommittee, argued that this definition was “phrased in such careful legal draftsmanship as to let him do the substance of the wrong and avoid the consequence.”72 To convince the subcommittee that American Bandstand did not artificially manipulate the popularity of records, Clark paid Computech, a New York data processing firm, to conduct a study of the number of times American Bandstand played each record. The firm then compared the “popularity scores” for the Clark-affiliated records to those that were not linked. Not surprisingly, the report concluded that Clark did not favor records in which he had an interest. In his 1976 autobiography, Clark recalled Computech as a successful diversion. “I spent $6,000 creating the biggest red herring I could find,” he recalled, “something that would shift the Subcommittee’s attention away from my scalp.”73 This misdirection prevented the subcommittee from noting, as historian John Jackson has calculated, that over half of the records produced by Clark-affiliated companies were played on American Bandstand, including many that never appeared on Billboard’s top 100. While the subcommittee focused on American Bandstand’s ability to make any record into a hit, it failed to see that records in which Clark had a financial interest received an inordinately high percentage of spins relative to competitors.74
In addition to probing the connection between Clark’s financial interests and Bandstand’s playlist, the subcommittee expressed its animus to teenage music generally, asking Clark why he did not play more songs by “Frank Sinatra, Bing Crosby, Perry Como, and other established stars, instead of building up unknown names.” Clark replied that Sinatra and the older generation of singers did not appeal to his teenage audience.75 In pointing to his teenage audience as a defense of his choice of records, Clark reiterated an argument he used earlier to dismiss critics of the show. “Unlike the legitimate theater, television doesn’t live or die by the critics,” he told the Saturday Evening Post in the first year of the payola investigations. “I’m not putting on my show for them. My only aim is to please the people at home who watch.”76 Similarly, in March 1960, a month before he testified to the subcommittee, Clark told an interviewer: “I don’t set trends. I just find out what they are and exploit them. … Like any businessman, the desires of my customers must come first.”77 Presenting himself in the subcommittee hearings and popular press as the unbiased servant of the teen consumer market, Clark distanced himself from the charges of influence and reified the existence of the teen market as an entity to be served.
Despite the evidence presented in the hearings, Clark successfully deflected the subcommittee’s charges. Clark had to divest himself of his numerous financial interests in music publishing and record manufacturing firms, but the subcommittee only reprimanded him. Clark’s clean image and cool demeanor helped him weather the payola scandal, but more important, ABC president Leonard Goldenson and Walter Annenberg, both of whom had an investment in American Bandstand’s continued success, stood behind Clark during the hearings and helped rebuild his image afterward. When the payola scandal started to develop, ABC asked the network’s music-related employees to sign an affidavit stating that they had not received payola in any form and that they did not possess interests in any record companies. When American Bandstand producer Tony Mammarella received the affidavit, he admitted receiving monetary payments from several record companies and, opting to maintain these financial interests, resigned. Alan Freed, whose radio show broadcast on WABC in New York, refused to sign the affidavit for risk of perjuring himself by saying he had never taken payola. In contrast, ABC allowed Clark to draft and sign his own affidavit with a more narrow definition of payola than the affidavit circulated company-wide. As part of this negotiation with ABC, Clark agreed to divest himself of his numerous financial interests in music publishing and record manufacturing firms. ABC supported Clark’s statement of innocence and played up Mammarella’s payola confession. The network issued press releases before and after the hearings reiterating their support of Clark, and in his testimony, Goldenson defended his network’s star. TV Guide, which like Bandstand’s Philadelphia home WFIL was part of Walter Annenberg’s Triangle Publications, ran a story after the hearings titled “Guilty Only of Success,” which reported the outpouring of support for Clark from American Bandstand fans.
The payola investigations derailed the careers of several major disc jockeys, including Freed and Tommy Smalls, Jack Walker, and Hal Jackson in New York; “Jumpin” George Oxford in Oakland; Tom Clay in Detroit; and Joe Smith in Boston. These deejays, both black and white, lacked the high-profile support that Clark enjoyed. American Bandstand made Clark the only national deejay, and while this celebrity made Clark a target for the payola subcommittee, it also gave him more clout with ABC than other deejays had with their local stations.78
While the payola investigation threatened Clark’s career, the scandal actually strengthened American Bandstand’s position in the pop music business in the early 1960s. After the payola scandal, disc jockeys held less power in selecting their own playlists, and in their place station program directors reduced the range of songs stations played. The tightening of playlists was abetted by the shift in radio ownership from individual local stations to chain owners who held station licenses in multiple markets. Entering the 1960s, these chain owners adopted a Top 40 radio strategy that called for stations to limit their programming to forty mainstream market pop singles, and to play the top ten songs in the heaviest rotation. While this Top 40 concept proved financially successful for the chain owners, it centralized and homogenized radio by catering to listeners’ current tastes and limiting the willingness of stations to play unknown music.79
American Bandstand contributed to, and thrived in, this atmosphere of sameness. The program featured a number of singers, signed to local record labels, who sounded very much alike. Bobby Rydell and Charlie Gracie on Cameo-Parkway, Fabian and Frankie Avalon on Chancellor, and Freddie Cannon on Swan all appeared regularly on American Bandstand and had hit records in the late 1950s and early 1960s. In addition to these Philadelphia label stars, Paul Anka (ABC-Paramount), Bobby Darin (Atlantic), and Johnny Tillotson (Cadence) also scored hit records with tame rock and roll songs in a crooning style.80 Like Clark, these white “teen idols” presented a sanitized version of rock and roll designed to sell records while avoiding the connections to race and sex that fueled opposition to rock and roll. Clark also had financial interests in many of these artists. Before he divested his formal recording interests during the payola hearings in early 1960, Clark had an interest in Swan and was reported to have interests in Cameo and Chancellor. After divesting, Clark maintained close connections with the directors of these Philadelphia labels and negotiated exclusive performances of their artists on American Bandstand.81
Reflecting on the commercial dominance of the these artists, music historians Steve Chapple and Reebee Garofalo have called the period from 1958 to 1963 “the lull in rock,” in which “Philadelphia Schlock” filled the vacuum left by “hardline Rock ’n’ rollers” like Elvis Presley, Buddy Holly, Little Richard, Jerry Lee Lewis, and Chuck Berry.”82 Similarly, R&B historian and critic Peter Guralnick described this era as the “treacle period” in which “rock ’n’ roll died.”83 While the promotion
al power of American Bandstand and the show’s primary audience of teenage girls certainly helped these teen idols sell lots of records, the program also offered a wider variety of music than was available on Top 40 radio. From 1958 through 1963, American Bandstand hosted R&B vocal groups like the Coasters, the Revels, the Drifters, and the Impressions; early girl 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.84 If American Bandstand helped push Philadelphia Schlock up the charts in this era, it also exposed viewers to a wider range of music than did Top 40 radio. Still, like Top 40 radio, American Bandstand showcased and marketed new records and neglected veteran R&B musicians who helped create rock and roll, like T-Bone Walker, Big Mama Thornton, LaVern Baker, and Bo Diddley. The payola scandal contributed to this homogenization of popular music, and the predominance of teen idols on American Bandstand marked rock and roll and the youth consumer culture surrounding it as white.
American Bandstand lost much of its power as a new music venue in August 1963, when ABC moved the show from weekdays to Saturday afternoons. As the network affiliates began to tire of the format, the show lost its hold on the local markets that were central to its daily success. Clark later recalled that affiliated stations “got greedy and took the time back to put their own material on where they got 100 percent of the revenue. … As two or three stations grab it off, you get less clearance, therefore you get less ratings, and it’s an endless cycle. You eventually get cancelled.”85 Most often, stations turned to syndicated reruns of network sit-coms, westerns, or adventure series.86 In Philadelphia, for example, WFIL filled the weekday afternoon slot with Major Adams—Trailmaster and syndicated reruns of Wagon Train. Responding to ABC’s reduction of American Bandstand’s airtime, Clark increased his focus on other television opportunities. In late 1963, Clark’s desire to expand his television career led him to California to host a game show called The Object Is. Although the show was short-lived, the move precipitated American Bandstand’s move from Philadelphia to Los Angeles. In February 1964, American Bandstand made its debut in Los Angeles, where it would broadcast weekly until 1989.87 Even after the show went off the air, Dick Clark worked to maintain American Bandstand’s commercial visibility through televised anniversary specials, books and music box sets, and the NBC drama American Dreams (2002–2005). American Bandstand’s successful seven-year run as a daily program in Philadelphia and its remarkable longevity made it part of the cultural memory of millions of viewers.
GEORGIE WOODS, ROCK AND ROLL, AND CIVIL RIGHTS
Shortly before he decamped for the West Coast, Dick Clark narrated a short booster film called Song of Philadelphia. Designed to promote the city as a destination for tourism and business, the film juxtaposed images of the history of Philadelphia, including Independence Hall, the Liberty Bell, and Betsy Ross’s house, with contemporary scenes of the new metropolis, such as skyscrapers, the science museum, and, of course, American Bandstand.88 Not surprisingly, this fourteen-minute advertisement for the “quaint” and “majestic” city of Philadelphia made no mention of the civil rights protests that were growing larger and more publicized in the city, or of the deejay who played a leading role in these protests. When American Bandstand wrapped up its run in Philadelphia in 1964, deejay Georgie Woods was more successful than ever and was in the process of using music to advance civil rights. Woods’s civil rights activism developed out of his experience in working with black teenagers as a deejay and concert promoter as well as his concern about the lack of black television personalities and black-owned broadcast stations in the city. Woods used his radio show and concerts to raise money for the NAACP Legal Defense and Education Fund and to promote civil rights protests, in which he also participated. By merging his critiques of the media industry with civil rights work in support of the black teenagers who sustained his broadcast career, Woods offered a model for what music could achieve beyond commercial success.
Although Woods’s concerts were popular when they started in 1954, they took off in the late 1950s and became part of the fight against juvenile delinquency. With his drawing power and the chance for artists to perform on American Bandstand while they were in Philadelphia, Woods’s concerts attracted some of the biggest names in rock and roll. Woods’s March 1958 ten-day show at the Uptown Theater in North Philadelphia, for example, featured Chuck Berry, while Sam Cooke headlined his April 1958 show at the Arena in West Philadelphia.89 The Uptown was part of an informal network of black theaters that hosted concerts in the East and Midwest, including New York’s Apollo Theater, Washington, D.C.’s Howard Theater, Baltimore’s Royal Theater, Detroit’s Fox Theater, and Chicago’s Regal Theater. The Philadelphia Tribune estimated that sixty thousand people attended the Uptown concerts and noted that “the long waiting lines of teenagers outside the theater— sometimes more than a block long—are visible proof of the magic drawing power of Georgie Woods, the ‘King of Rock and Roll.’” 90 Woods built on this success with two more shows in 1958 and four in 1959, all multiple-day shows at the Uptown. In addition to enhancing his stature as a broadcaster, Woods believed that these concerts helped curb juvenile delinquency. Woods told the Tribune:
Many of the teenagers who patronize these shows find in them an outlet for their emotions. And while previous single shows have been attended by as many as 30,000 teenagers we have never had any serious trouble. This proves, as far as I am concerned, that there might be less delinquency if there was more healthy entertainment such as that offered by our shows.91
With this commitment to music as a way to reduce juvenile delinquency, Woods and deejay Mitch Thomas also hosted dances at the Elmwood skating rink in Southwest Philadelphia and the Carmen skating rink in the Germantown section of the city.92 Although some white teenagers attended Woods’s Uptown and Elmwood events, black teens made up the majority of the audiences. Woods used his celebrity to provide healthy social activities for teens and built on the work of local black churches and community organizations that had a long-standing concern with delinquency.93
In addition to his well-received concerts, Woods also used his column in the Philadelphia Tribune to critique the lack of black representation in the media industry. More specifically, Woods raised the question of why, after the cancellation of Mitch Thomas’s show, there were no black deejays on television in Philadelphia. Woods started by noting that “Teenagers have won the hearts of advertisers,” and that these teens “have said that the time is ripe for a DJ on one of the TV channels here.”94 As evidence Woods cited Sandra Williams, a North Philadelphia teen who was collecting one thousand signatures asking for the addition of a black deejay to one of the local television stations. Woods wrote that these teens viewed Dick Clark as “the most,” but that they preferred the music played on Woods’s WDAS over American Bandstand. Woods concluded by asking his readers to join these teens in a letter-writing campaign to television stations: “It is my feeling, as I have previously stated, that the Negro population in this city warrants a Negro on the staff of a TV station, whether it be DJ or in some other capacity.”95 Woods continued to make his case in subsequent columns. Outlining the millions of dollars black Philadelphians spent on food, household goods, apparel, and other products and services, Woods asked why more black personalities were not hired to advertise these products.96 “Television, like radio, is only able to exist because of advertising in America,” Woods wrote. “There can be no question that capable men and women, with tan skins, and some who have that one drop of colored blood in their veins, are available and what they don’t know about TV they can be taught.”97 Woods concluded:
It is our contention that there is many a Negro who can sell soap, cosmetics, beer, automobiles, food or anything else just as well as a white person can. All he asks is a chance. Begin to flood the TV st
ations here, folks, and advise them the time is RIPE for a Negro to be engaged.98
Woods peppered these columns with notes on the lack of black technicians at the city’s television stations and black-oriented radio stations.99 Neither these columns nor the letter-writing campaign produced immediate changes in the city’s media industry, but Woods continued to look for opportunities to establish a foothold in television. He eventually got his shot at television in 1965 with a dance program called Seventeen Canteen, which broadcast locally for two years on WPHL, a new station in which he held a small ownership stake.100
These critiques of the media industry came at the same time as Woods became more involved in Philadelphia’s growing civil rights movement. Although Woods had participated in NAACP membership drives since 1955, it was Cecil B. Moore’s campaign for NAACP branch president in 1962 that drew him fully into civil rights work.101 As Woods recalled in a 1996 interview with radio historian and producer Jacqui Webb:
Nicest Kids in Town Page 19