Nicest Kids in Town

by Delmont, Matthew F.

  48. Dick Clark and Richard Robinson, Rock, Roll and Remember (New York: Popular Library, 1976), 71.

  49. Jackson, American Bandstand, 40.

  50. Clark, Rock Roll and Remember, 71.

  51. Ibid., 82.

  52. Jackson, American Bandstand, 41.

  53. Ibid., 50.

  54. Christopher Anderson, “Disneyland,” in Television: The Critical View, 6th ed., ed. Horace Newcomb (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000), 20.

  55. Quoted in ibid.,” 21; Herman Land, “ABC: An Evaluation,” Television magazine, December 1957, 94.

  56. The Official Bandstand Yearbook 1957, [no publication information listed].

  57. Jackson, American Bandstand, 52.

  58. Harry Harris, “WFIL’s ‘Bandstand’ Goes National—Not without Some Strain,” Philadelphia Inquirer, August 6, 1957; Jackson, American Bandstand, 66.

  59. Bob Bernstein, “ ‘Bandstand’ Sociology but Not Entertainment,” Billboard, August 12, 1957, 48.

  60. J. P. Shanley, “TV: Teenagers Only,” New York Times, August 6, 1957, 42.

  61. Lawrence Laurent, “If It’s Keen to Teens It Goes on Television,” The Washington Post, August 10, 1957.

  62. George Pitts, “TV’s ‘American Bandstand’ a Noisy Menagerie!” Pittsburgh Courier, July 12, 1958.

  63. Jackson, American Bandstand, 67–68.

  64. Richard Peterson, “Why 1955? Explaining the Advent of Rock Music,” Popular Music 9 (January 1990): 97-116.

  65. Jon Hartley Fox, King of Queen City: The Story of King Records (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009), 59.

  66. On the importance of American Bandstand to record sales, see John Broven, Record Makers and Breakers: Voices of Independent Rock ‘ n’ Roll Pioneers (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2009); Anthony Musso, Setting the Record Straight: The Music and Careers of Recording Artists from the 1950s and early 1960s … in Their Own Words (Bloomington, IN: Author-House, 2007).

  67. Joe Smith, Off the Record: An Oral History of Popular Music (New York: Warner Books, 1988), 103; Jackson, American Bandstand, 85.

  68. On the history of payola, see Kerry Segrave, Payola in the Music Industry: A History, 1880–1991 (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 1994).

  69. Quoted in David Szatmary, Rockin’ in Time: A Social History of Rock-and-Roll (Upper Saddle River, NJ: Prentice Hall, 2000), 59.

  70. “Newest Music for a New Generation: Rock ’n’ Rolls On ‘n’ On,” Life, April 18, 1958, 166–68.

  71. Quoted in John Jackson, Big Beat Heat: Alan Freed and the Early Years of Rock & Roll (New York: Schirmer Books, 1991), 288.

  72. Quoted in Jackson, American Bandstand, 179.

  73. Clark and Robinson, Rock, Roll and Remember, 268.

  74. Jackson, American Bandstand, 182. On the payola hearings, see Segrave, Payola in the Music Industry, 100–58; Jackson, Big Beat Heat, 238–327; Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 161–69.

  75. Anthony Lewis, “Dick Clark Denies Receiving Payola; Panel Skeptical,” New York Times, April 30, 1960, 1.

  76. Pete Martin, “I Call on Dick Clark,” Saturday Evening Post, October 10, 1959,70.

  77. Bill Davidson, “The Strange World of Dick Clark,” Redbook, March 1960, 111.

  78. Jackson, American Bandstand, 153–96; Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 165; “Guilty Only of Success,” TV Guide, September 10–16, 1960.

  79. Steve Chapple and Reebee Garofalo, Rock ’n’ Roll Is Here to Pay: The History and Politics of the Music Industry (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1977), 57–60; Jackson, American Bandstand, 197–98.

  80. Chapple and Garofalo, Rock ’n’ Roll Is Here to Pay, 51.

  81. Clark and Robinson, Rock, Roll and Remember, 140; Jim Dawson, The Twist: The Story of the Song and Dance that Changed the World (Boston: Faber and Faber, 1995), 21–29; Jackson, American Bandstand, 170–71, 218.

  82. Chapple and Garofalo, Rock ’n’ Roll Is Here to Pay, 49.

  83. Ibid.; Peter Guralnick, Feel Like Going Home: Portraits in Blues and Rock ’n’ Roll (1971; New York: Little, Brown and Company, 1999), 20.

  84. Michael Shore and Dick Clark, The History of American Bandstand (New York: Ballantine Books, 1985), 81–84, 127–32.

  85. Jackson, American Bandstand, 225.

  86. On the economics of television reruns in the 1950s and 1960s, see Phil Williams, “Feeding Off the Past: The Evolution of the Television Rerun,” in Television: The Critical View, 6th ed., ed. Horace Newcomb (New York: Oxford University Press, 2000),, 52–72.

  87. Jackson, American Bandstand, 227–87.

  88. Office of City Representative Division of Public Information Board of Trade and Conventions, The Song of Philadelphia [n.d.] [ca. 1962] (MacDonald and Associates, Chicago).

  89. Georgie Woods hosted dozens of concerts from 1956 through 1965 at the Uptown and elsewhere. For a sample of these concerts, see “Disc Jockey’s Rock and Roll Show Attracts 4500 Teenagers,” Philadelphia Tribune, September 11, 1956; “The Biggest Show of Stars for ‘58,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 1 and 12, 1958; “Georgie Woods Rock, Roll Show Lures 80,000 Fans to Uptown,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 10, 1958; “40,000 Teenagers Await Big Uptown Theater Show,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 18, 1959; “Georgie Woods Presents a Gala Holiday Rock ’n Roll Show at the Uptown Theater,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 21, 1959; “Georgie Woods Presents 5th Anniv. Rock ’n Roll Show,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 22, 1960; “Georgie Woods of WDAS Presents All-Star Show,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 20, 1961; “Georgie Woods 8th Anniversary Rock n’ Roll Show,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 20, 1962; “Georgie Woods Presents 9th Anniversary Show,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 19, 1963; Lucille Alexander, “Pips, Tops, Impressions Impressive in Georgie Woods’ Show at Uptown,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 9, 1964; “Georgie Woods Presents His Rock ’n Roll Convention,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 25, 1964; “Uptown,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 28, 1965.

  90. Art Peters, “Woods’ Rock, Roll ‘Thriller’ Lures 60,000 to Uptown Theatre,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 1, 1958.

  91. “40,000 Teenagers Await Big Uptown Theater Show,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 18, 1959.

  92. On the record hops that Georgie Woods and Mitch Thomas hosted, see “Teenagers Welcome Disc Jockeys,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 12, 1954; Jimmy Rivers, “Mitch Thomas at Skating Rink,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 7, 1958; Tommy Curtis, “Elmwood Teenagers,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 18, 1958; Billy Johnson, “Teen Social Whirl,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 25, 1958; Jimmy Rivers, “Crickets’ Corner,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 1, 1958; Jimmy Rivers, “Crickets’ Corner,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 6, 1958; Jimmy Rivers, “Crickets’ Corner,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 10, 1958; Gil Zimmerman, “Person to Person,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 10, 1958; Jimmy Rivers, “Crickets’ Corner,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 13, 1958; Edith Marshall, “Current Hops,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 17, 1958; Jimmy Rivers, “Crickets’ Corner,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 20, 1958; Jimmy Rivers, “Crickets’ Corner,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 18, 1958; Laurine Blackson, “Penny Sez,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 4, 1958; Laurine Blackson, “Penny Sez,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 6, 1958; Jimmy Rivers, “Crickets’ Corner,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 6, 1959; “Fortieth Street Youth Committee Entertained 1200 Children,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 6, 1959; “ ‘ Mobbed by Teenagers,’” Philadelphia Tribune, April 18, 1959. On other record hops for black teenagers in the Philadelphia area, see Billy Johnson, “Teen Social Whirl,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 26, 1958; Muriel Bonner, “Teen Chatter,” Philadelphia Tribune, September 20, 1958; Veronica Hill, “Jamming with Ronnie,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 1, 1958; Veronica Hill, “Jamming with Ronnie,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 22, 1958; Veronica Hill, “Jamming with Ronnie,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 31, 1959.

  93. On these local youth programs, see V. P. Franklin, “Operation Street Corner,” in W. E. B. Du Bois, Race, and the City: The Philadelphia N
egro and Its Legacy, ed. Michael Katz and Thomas Sugrue (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 195–215.

  94. Georgie Woods, “Geo. Woods Says,” Philadelphia Tribune, September 19, 1959.

  95. Ibid.

  96. Georgie Woods, “Geo. Woods Says,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 3, 1959.

  97. Georgie Woods, “Geo. Woods Says,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 10, 1959.

  98. Ibid.

  99. Woods, “Geo. Woods Says,” October 3, 1959.

  100. Mark Bricklin, “DJ’s Georgie Woods, Reggie Lavong Join Local Businessmen to Establish New Commercial TV Station for Philadelphia, Philadelphia Tribune, August 22, 1964; “City’s New TV Station Seeks Huge Juice Boost,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 30, 1965; “Georgie Woods Seventeen Canteen,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 30, 1965; Masco Young, “The Notebook,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 14, 1965; Masco Young, “Notebook,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 1, 1966.

  101. Spady, Georgie Woods, 114, 120, 162.

  102. Quoted in Barlow, Voice Over, 206.

  103. Art Peters, “‘Sermons,’ Songs Blend into Revival Atmosphere,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 18, 1963.

  104. Ibid.

  105. Ibid.

  106. Fred Bonaparte, “‘Average Joes’ Star in Demonstrations,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 28, 1963.

  107. “NAACP Slates Saturday Rally for Slain Birmingham Girls,” Philadelphia Tribune, September 21, 1963.

  108. Mark Bricklin, “14,000 Jam NAACP Convention Hall Freedom Show; $30,000 Raised,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 21, 1964; Mark Bricklin, “$16,000 Given to Four Groups at Mon. Lunch,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 24, 1964. On Leon Sullivan and the Opportunities Industrialization Center, see Matthew Countryman, Up South: Civil Rights and Black Power in Philadelphia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2006), 112–19.

  109. “Freedom Show of ‘64” [concert ad], Philadelphia Tribune, March 7, 1964.

  110. Bricklin, “14,000 Jam NAACP Convention Hall Freedom Show; $30,000 Raised.”

  111. “Snipers Wound 2 Marchers in Selma Vigil,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 16, 1965.

  112. Mark Bricklin and Jim Magee, “12,000 Ring City Hall in Protest Demonstration,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 16, 1965.

  113. Ibid.

  114. Jack Saunders, “Georgie Woods: Disc Jockey, Rights Fighter, Humanitarian,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 23, 1965.

  115. Barlow, Voice Over, 207–11. See also Ward, Radio and the Struggle for Civil Rights in the South.

  116. Countryman, Up South, 170. On the concurrent development of the New Left on Philadelphia area college campuses, see Paul Lyons, The People of This Generation: The Rise and Fall of the New Left in Philadelphia (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 2003).

  117. Ibid., 171.

  118. On the Girard College protest, see Countryman, Up South, 168–78; Art Peters, “NAACP Girds for Girard College Battle,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 5, 1965; Mark Bricklin, “1000 Police ‘Protect’ Girard College from 50 NAACP Pickets,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 4, 1965; Mark Bricklin and Fred Bonaparte, “Girard College Operating Illegally Leading Constitutional Atty. Says, Philadelphia Tribune, May 8, 1965; Mark Bricklin, “No Settlement of Girard College Demonstration in Sight,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 15, 1965; Ray McCann, “Moore, Woods Lead 1000 on Girard College, Philadelphia Tribune, January 5, 1965; Jim Magee, “AMEs Stage 22-Block Girard March,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 22, 1965; “Experts See City Plan to Integrate Girard Doomed,” Philadelphia Tribune, September 18, 1965.

  119. Jacob Sherman, “NAACP Calls off Girard College Picketing as Lawsuit for 7 N. Phila. Boys Is Filed,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 18, 1965.

  120. John A. Jackson, A House on Fire: The Rise and Fall of Philadelphia Soul (New York: Oxford University Press, 2004), 14–16.

  121. Kenny Gamble, “Introduction,” in James Spady, Georgie Woods: I’m Only a Man (Philadelphia: Snack-Pac Book Division, 1992), 111.

  122. Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 418.

  123. Jackson, A House on Fire, 92–151; Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 418.

  124. Gamble, “Introduction,” iii.

  CHAPTER 6

  1. Dick Clark and Richard Robinson, Rock, Roll and Remember (New York: Popular Library, 1976), 81.

  2. Josh Kun, Audiotopia: Music, Race, and America (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2005), 2.

  3. Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism, rev. ed. (New York: Verso, 1991), 35.

  4. Diana Mutz, Impersonal Influence: How Perceptions of Mass Collectives Affect Political Attitudes (Cambridge, UK: Cambridge University Press, 1998), xvi. Quoted in Sarah Igo, The Averaged American: Surveys, Citizens, and the Making of a Mass Public (Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 2007), 12.

  5. On the locally televised teenage dance programs that competed with American Bandstand, see Tom McCourt and Nabeel Zuberi, “Music on Television,” Museum of Broadcast Communications, http://www.museum.tv/archives/etv/M/htmlM/musicontele/musicontele.htm (accessed July 1, 2007); Laura Wexler, “The Last Dance,” Style: Smart Living in Baltimore magazine, September/ October 2003, 130–35, 166–69; Gary Kenton, “Cool Medium Hot,” Television Quarterly 36 (Winter 2006): 36–41; Clay Cole, Sh-Boom! The Explosion of Rock ‘ n’ Roll 1953–1968 (New York: Morgan James Publishing, 2009), 26, 43, 46, 72; Jake Austen, TV a-Go-Go: Rock on TV from American Bandstand to American Idol (Chicago: Chicago Review Press, 2005), 42; Matt Schudel, “Milt Grant: Dance Host, TV Station Entrepreneur,” Washington Post, May 3, 2007; Richard Harrington, “Before Dick Clark, Washington Had Boogied on Milt Grant’s Show,” Washington Post, May 2, 2007; “J. D. Lewis Jr. obituary,” News and Observer (Raleigh, NC), February 20, 2007; “Bud Davies obituary,” Detroit News, October 28, 2006; “Bill Craig Jr. obituary,” Star Press (Muncie, IN), March 23, 2006; “Clark Race Popular Radio DJ and Host of KDKA-TV’s ‘Dance Party,’” Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, July 28, 1999; “David Hull, 66, Host of ‘Chicago Band Stand,” Chicago Tribune, May 4, 1999; “KPTV Premieres High Time, Portland’s First Music Show for Teenagers, with Host Ed Gilbert,” KPTV (Portland, OR) Timeline, http://home.comcast.net/~kptv/timeline/timeline.htm (accessed July 1, 2007).

  6. “Milt Grant Pitches His Show to Sponsors,” May 27, 1957, http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CJLTQ-3Mgik (accessed, October 15, 2010).

  7. Michael Shore and Dick Clark, The History of American Bandstand: It’s Got a Great Beat and You Can Dance to It (New York: Ballantine Books, 1985), 13.

  8. “American Bandstand,” December 17, 1957 (video recording), Acc T86:0318, Museum of Radio and Television (MTR).

  9. Ibid.

  10. “American Bandstand,” December 18, 1957 (video recording).

  11. On the concept of imagined communities, see Anderson, Imagined Communities. On the production strategies through which television constructs its national audience, see Victoria Johnson, Heartland TV: Prime Time Television and the Struggle for U.S. Identity (New York: New York University Press, 2008); Sasha Torres, Black, White, and in Color: Television and Black Civil Rights (Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 2003); Marita Sturken, “Television Vectors and the Making of a Media Event,” in Reality Squared: Televisual Discourse on the Real, ed. James Friedman (New Brunswick, NJ: Rutgers University Press, 2004), 185–202. For related studies of imagined communities with respect to radio, see Susan Douglas, Listening In: Radio and the American Imagination (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2004); Jason Loviglio, Radio’s Intimate Public: Network Broadcasting and Mass-Mediated Democracy (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2005);.

  12. American Bandstand Yearbook, 1958 [no publication information listed].

  13. “American Bandstand,” December 2, 1957 (video recording), Acc T86:0317, MTR; “American Bandstand,” December 17, 1957; “American Bandstand,” December 18, 1957.

  14. On the development of teenage girls’ consumer culture in decades b
efore World War II, see Kelly Schrum, Some Wore Bobby Sox: The Emergence of Teenage Girls’ Culture, 1920–1945 (New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).

  15. Louis Kraar, “Teenage Customers: Merchants Seek Teens’ Dollars, Influence Now, Brand Loyalty Later,” Wall Street Journal, December 6, 1956, 1, 11.

  16. Schrum, Some Wore Bobby Sox, 2. On Eugene Gilbert, see Dwight MacDonald, “A Caste, A Culture, and A Market—I, “ New Yorker, November 22, 1958; James Gilbert, A Cycle of Outrage: America’s Reaction to the Juvenile Delinquent in the 1950s (New York: Oxford University Press, 1986, 205–10; Eugene Gilbert, Advertising and Marketing to Young People (Pleasantville, NY: Printers’ Ink Books, 1957); Grace Palladino, Teenagers: An American History (New York: Basic Books, 1996), 96-115.

  17. Gilbert, Advertising and Marketing to Young People, 4.

  18. Igo, The Averaged American, 4, 18.

  19. “Challenging the Giants,” Newsweek, December 23, 1957, 70.

  20. American Bandstand, December 18, 1957.

  21. On interpolated television advertising in this era, see Lawrence Samuel, Brought to You By: Postwar Television Advertising and the American Dream (Austin: University of Texas Press, 2001); Susan Murray, Hitch Your Antenna to the Stars: Early Television and Broadcast Stardom (New York: Routledge, 2005); and Lynn Spigel, Make Room for TV: Television and the Family Ideal in Postwar America (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1992).