The pop audience's perception of the image and authenticity of folk music was the result of the: All of the following were professional songwriters at the Brill Building EXCEPT: And that was something for the black kids to really identify with. A playlet is a short song telling a humorous story. He first commented on the program's integration in his 1976 autobiography, when American Bandstand's ratings were in decline and the show faced a challenge from Don Cornelius' Soul Train. By 1933, record sales were just 7% of what they had been in 1929 and many of the theatres had closed or been turned into movie theatres. Ramsey, Guthrie P. Jr.. Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop. Not so nice: No matter what Dick Clark says, 'American Bandstand Otis Givens, interview withauthor, June 27, 2007. Aperformance later in the show by white singer Jeri Renay did not use this technique. . "Surfin' Safari" Black teenagers undermined this ticket plan on at least one occasion. Seventeen (WOI-TV's teen dance show), 1958. Clark was well aware that advertisers were eager to reach teenagers, and his show offered daily access to young consumers. "13Quoted in John Roberts, From Hucklebuck to Hip-Hop: Social Dance in the African American Community in Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Odunde, 1995), 37. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_13', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_13').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); The Mitch Thomas Show also became a frequent topic for the black teenagers who wrote the Philadelphia Tribune's "Teen-Talk" columns. While Des Moines, Iowa, may be a long way from the South geographically, television connected Iowa teens to music and dance styles flowing from Delaware, Georgia, South Carolina, and elsewhere. Among these four programs, only one recording is known to exist,a 1957 episode of The Milt Grant Show recorded to sell the show to sponsors. Thus the first black singer to record anything also became the first to record the blues. and black dancers (like American Bandstand had already been doing), As labels such as Okeh, Paramount and Columbia rushed into the so-called "race records" market, they snapped up dozens of women like Smith, ("Queen of the Blues"), including Gertrude "Ma" Rainey ("Mother of the Blues"), Bessie Smith ("Empress of the Blues"), Ida Cox ("Uncrowned Queen of the Blues"), Ethel Waters, Sara Martin, Edith Wilson, Victoria Spivey, Sippie Wallace and Alberta Hunter. Delmont also explores Washington, DC's whites-only program. I didn't get the exposure. Philadelphia Evening Bulletin, George D. McDowell Collection, Special Collections Research Center, courtesy Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia. Fred MacDonald, Blacks and White TV: African Americans in Television Since 1948 (Chicago: Nelson-Hall, 1983), 1721, 5764; Jannette Dates, "Commercial Television," in Split Image: African Americans and the Mass Media, ed., Davis and Barlow (Washington, DC:Howard University Press, 1993), 267327; Christopher Lehman, A Critical History of Soul Train on Television (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2008), 28; Richard Stamz, Give 'Em Soul, Richard! Lewis (WRAL), June 24, 1967, Lewis Family Papers, folder 140; Daniel Jackson, letter to J.D. "Afro-Americans who lived in communities as diverse as Chicago, Norfolk, and Buxton, Iowa, congregatedsometimes along class lines, but always together," Earl Lewis argues. Clark was the host of American Bandstand in the late '50s through the mid-'60s. One musician even claimed Rainey and Smith were romantically involved at one point. Why were they then relegated to the sidelines, asks Dorian Lynskey. Clark brought African-American performers to national television in an era when such performances were rare. Law Klein Collection, courtesy Special Collections Research Center, Temple University Libraries, Philadelphia. Lewis (WRAL), n.d. [ca. d. Ricky Nelson, A distinctive vocal feature of the Everly Brothers was: d. opposing Vietnam, Which of following can be said about Bob Dylan and Joan Baez during the folk revival? He turned instead to the flamboyant women who had honed their craft on the vaudeville and tent-show circuits, where the blues would be mixed up with comedy songs and dramatic routines professional entertainers who knew how to delight a crowd. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_21', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_21').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Vera Boyer and Otis Givens show off their dance steps on The Mitch Thomas Show, Wilmington, Delaware, ca. Please enable Javascript and reload the page. As WOOK-TV prepared to come on the air in 1963, the Afro-American newspaper received a letter from Rev. and Black Power Television (Durham: Duke University Press, 2015), 217, 72. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_70', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_70').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); While Soul! . Interested in submitting your work to Southern Spaces? Every weekday afternoon, in each of these broadcast markets, these shows presented images of exclusively white teenagers. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_2', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_2').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); The teenagers in this clip from Seventeen, a teen dance show broadcast by WOI-TV to central Iowa in the late-1950s, did not need to know this history to appreciate that Willis's "Betty and Dupree" was a perfect song for dancing the Stroll, even if they did so awkwardly. Pepsi's sponsorship proved important to making of Teenage Frolics financially viable in the 1960s as it fought for airtime against more profitable national programming. There have been many cases where our leaders needed to make outcries such as Milt Grant's TV dance program, it seems to me that that was segregation. "I watch your show every Saturday and enjoy it very much," one viewer wrote. Checker himself twisted as he performed the song. Berkeley: University of California Press, 2004. Sponsors that advertised on The Milt Grant Show bought interaction between their products and the show's teenagers. And The Stroll became a big thing. "Now every phonograph company has a coloured girl recording. They feared the backlash that might happen if Black boys danced close to white girls. d. they were cover artists, Phil Spector referred to the singles he produced as: What Was The First Song Played On American Bandstand? On the crossover appeal of black-oriented radio, see Brian Ward, "Teen-Age 'Superiors' Debut on M.T. Teenarama Dance Party received top billing in this advertisement and ultimately the show's fortunes would rise and fall with WOOK's. Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2012. d. Splatter Platter, The Beach Boys' first number-one hit was: Music and Pop Culture - Chapter 3 Flashcards | Quizlet It was recorded by a girl group. Susan Jordan, letter to J.D. Gertrude "Ma" Rainey, vocal performance of"See See Rider Blues" by Ma Rainey and Lena Arant, recorded October 16, 1924, byParamount, catalogue number 12252, 78 rpm. "20Mullinax, "Radio Guided DJ to Stars." "64Quoted in Ward, Just My Soul Responding, 48. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_64', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_64').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Baker, who appeared on The Milt Grant Show while she was in town to play the Howard Theater, performed "Jim Dandy Got Married" and "Play the Game of Love" on this episode. Lewis (WRAL), n.d. [ca. d. "Dead Man's Curve", "Dead Man's Curve" was a splatter-platter hit by: ", The explosive popularity of classic blues discs was a democratic revolution. While The Grady and Hurst Showbroadcast five times perweek, the weekly Mitch Thomas Show proved to be more influential. 195657. . You appear to be using an older verion of Internet Explorer. d. Jan and Dean, Which of the following cities produced an especially high number of teen idol hits from 1957-1963? "57"Nation's First Minority Group TV Station to Broadcast Today," Chicago Defender, February 11, 1963. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_57', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_57').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); WOOK-TV never assumed a leadership role with regards to the main political issues of its era, but Teenarama showcased black youth culture for Washington viewers. Please be respectful. "Seventeen (WOI-TV's teen dance show), 1958." In fact, she won two Grammy awards that night for Best Jazz Performance, Soloist for Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Duke Ellington Songbook and Best Female Pop Vocal Performance for Ella Fitzgerald Sings the Irving Berlin Songbook.. The qualities represented by the classic female blues singers resilience, solidarity, community, fun could not compete. Matthew Delmont, "The Nicest Kids in Town." Black News and Black Views with a Whole Lotta Attitude. The first order of business was to lure disaffected Horn loyalists to his version ofBandstand. First, The Mitch Thomas Show, Teenage Frolics, and Teenarama Dance Party were important for black teens because the shows offered televisual spaces that valued their creative energies and talents. b. the Everly Brothers While performers, record companies, and music fans welcomed Teenarama's promotion of R&B, WOOK's music programing drew criticism from Washington's black press and the city's black leaders. One editorial in the Washington Afro-American complained that WOOK-radio was "monotonous" because it played "rock 'n roll 17 hours a day," and described "'Colored' radio" as having "dedicated itself to a low-mentality level of programming which dispenses musical slop to remind colored people that's all they want to hear. The guy's name was Otis and I don't remember the girl's name. This pocket Bluetooth printer lets you print your precious memories before they hit Instagram. If white teen shows sought to shore up the supremacy of whiteness in youth music culture, the black teen shows visualized black teens as equal participants in the production and consumption of music culture. For the best experience please upgrade your IE version or switch to a another web browser. Clark inherited WFIL's local television show Bandstand (1952-56) from the deejay Bob Horn, who proved that teenagers liked watching their peers dance. Archived reports of the Philadelphia Commission on Human Relations show that Bandstand was initially segregated in the early 1950s, when it was a locally broadcast show hosted by Bob Horn. All of the following are examples of death disks EXCEPT: Horn had appointed a committee of 12 youngsters to monitor the behavior of their peers in the studio; Clark expanded the size of this committee and he enforced a code of conduct that required boys to wear a suit jacket, shirt, and necktie; prohibited girls from wearing tight sweaters, low-necked dresses or pants; and banned gum, smoking, and obscene or profane language. Lastly, no one under age 14 or older than 18 [was] to be admitted.1. While the nationally televised dance program hosted a number of prominent black performers, the show regularly blocked black teenagers from its studio audience until it moved from Philadelphia to Los Angeles in 1964. Some commented they looked like grampas'. In July 1956, Dick Clark, a commercial pitchman and deejay with an unsullied reputation, inherited WFIL-TVsBandstandfrom scandal-tainted Bob Horn and revamped it for a national audience of teenage consumers as ABCsAmerican Bandstand, which first aired in August 1957. Blues are here to stay." It was a little more raucous. "Your records are up to date and your show is very much for teenagers. This series is guest edited by Grace Elizabeth Hale, Commonwealth Chair of American Studies, professor of history, and director of the American Studies Program at the University of Virginia. Lewis (WRAL), May 29, 1967, Lewis Family Papers, folder 140; "Nero, the Mad," letter to J.D. These shows broadcast in an era when civil rights lawsuits and protests sought to overturn policies of racial segregation in schools and public spaces in the South. American Bandstand also helped invent the demographic that still dominates popular culture: teenagers. Enter your comment below. One such woman was Gertrude Pridgett, aka Ma Rainey, who had been performing the blues for more than 20 years when she recorded her first session for Paramount in 1923 at the age of 37. Like The Milt Grant Show, Baltimore's Buddy Deane Show,the inspiration for John Waters's Hairspray film and the later Broadway musical and Hollywood film,was officially segregated and only allowed black teens to enter the studio on specific days. Broadcast icon Dick Clark, the longtime host of the influential "American Bandstand," has died, publicist Paul Shefrin said. c. Los Angeles A lot of rock and roll today is bordering on what is called 'popular music.'"52Ibid. For the writer Zora Neale Hurston, His Negroness is being rubbed off by close contact with white culture.". Mitch Thomas, J. D. Lewis, and Bob King created televisual spaces that privileged black audiences and displayed the creative energies and talents of black youth. In 1938, she co-wrote the hit song "A-Tisket, A-Tasket," which would eventually lead her to national fame. "17Black Philadelphia Memories,directed byTrudi Brown (Philadelphia,WHYY-TV12,1999), television documentary. Arguing that television provided creative outlets for some black teens during segregation, Delmont focuses on three black teen shows, The Mitch Thomas Show from Wilmington, Delaware (19551958), Teenage Frolics (19581983), hosted by Raleigh, North Carolina, deejay J. D. Lewis, and Washington, DC's Teenarama Dance Party (19631970) hosted by Bob King. Some classic blues singers sought refuge in acting Ethel Waters, pictured in 1943's Cabin in the Sky, was at one time the highest paid actress on Broadway (Credit: Getty Images). Despite living during a time when music in America was divided into two categories popular music and race music the iconic singer, Ella Fitzgerald, still managed to become the first Black artist to win a Grammy. American Bandstandfirst aired 5 August 1957 in the 3-4:30 afternoon slot. "58Nan Randall, "Rocking and Rolling Road to Respectability," Washington Post, July 4, 1965. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_58', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_58').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); In an interview with filmmaker Beverly Lindsay-Johnson, who made an important documentary on the show, Teenarama regular Reginald "Lucky" Luckett recalled, "One of the key things about the program was that it got the [teens] involved. When I started research six years ago for a book on American Bandstand, I believed, as Clark claimed, that the show's studio audience was fully integrated by the late 1950s. The decision to maintain discriminatory admissions policies flowed logically from neighborhood and school segregation in Philadelphia, the commercial pressures of national television and deeply held beliefs about the dangers of racial mixing. "59"Dance Party (The Teenarama Story), Research Narrative," Box 2, Kendall Production Records, Smithsonian Anacostia Community Museum. a. Aldon Music being sold to Columbia Pictures/Screen Gems While the Chubby Checker craze lastly only a few years, the singer is credited with transforming pop music dance from the jitterbug rock n rock style to an open dancing format, which, unlike the jitterbug, didnt require a partner.7. Jimmy Peatross and Joan Buck tell a related story about learning how to do The Strand from black teenagers inTwist, directed byRon Mann (Sphinx Productions, 1992), documentary. Unlike American Bandstand, or Soul Train, which started broadcasting nationally in 1971, The Mitch Thomas Show, Teenage Frolics, Teenarama Dance Party, and The Milt Grant Show are not well known outside of their local broadcast markets. Black Swan, the first black-owned record label, rejected Bessie Smith for being too vulgar, while a leading black newspaper, the Chicago Defender, complained that these "filth furnishers" and "purveyors of putrid puns" were "a hindrance to our standard of respectability and success". The Nicest Kids in Town: American Bandstand, Rock 'n' Roll, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1950s Philadelphia. d. the Dixie Cups, Who developed "the Wall of Sound"? . Differences in terms of station power and stability shaped the duration of each program. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_72', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_72').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Matthew Delmont is associate professor of history at Arizona State University and author ofThe Nicest Kids in Town: American Bandstand, Rock 'n' Roll, and Civil Rights in 1950sPhiladelphia (University of California Press, American Crossroads series, February 2012), andWhy Busing Failed: Race, Media, and the National Resistance to School Desegregation(University of California Press, American Crossroads series, forthcoming February 2016). tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_10', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_10').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Born in West Palm Beach, Florida, Mitch Thomas graduated from Delaware State College and served in the army before becoming the first black disc jockey in Wilmington, Delaware, in 1949.11Eustace Gay, "Pioneer In TV Field Doing Marvelous Job Furnishing Youth With Recreation," Philadelphia Tribune, February 11, 1956; Gary Mullinax, "Radio Guided DJ to Stars," The News Journal Papers (Wilmington, DE), January 28, 1986,D4. b. Jan Berry's songwriting In addition to a dress code, Clark's show required visitors to write in advance to request tickets, and these applications were screened by name and address. You are signed in as (Sign out). Recognizing the songs potential, but also that the dance in the Ballard version, with its very suggestive horizontal hip movement, wasnt appropriate for prudish national television. 1966-67], Lewis Family Papers,folder 140. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_41', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_41').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); A letter to "John D." from an adult chaperone suggests that Lewis was a well-known and approachable local television personality,"I came to your house two Sundays ago to see you. In 1970, for example, black students who attended W. E. B. DuBois High School were transferred to historically white Wake Forest High School and the DuBois High School building became Wake Forest-Rolesville Middle School.39Barry Malone, "Before Brown: Cultural and Social Capital in a Rural Black School Community, W.E.B. It is a fictional performance that only vaguely Please be respectful. It sounded like music from the margins, unloved and misunderstood. "12Otis Givens, interview withauthor, June 27, 2007. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_12', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_12').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Similarly, South Philadelphia teen Donna Brown recalled in a 1995 interview,"I remember at the same time that Bandstand used to come on, there used to be a black dance thing that came on, and it was The Mitch Thomas Show . a. the Beach Boys The Milt Grant Show is particularly interesting for how it sought to bring black music performances to television viewers while maintaining a segregated studio audience that would appeal to sponsors. Martin Luther King, Jr., "Letter from a Birmingham Jail," April 16, 1963. In Raleigh, token school integration did not begin until 1960, six years after Brown.3Sarah Caroline Thuesen, Greater Than Equal: African American Struggles for Schools and Citizenship in North Carolina, 1919 1965 (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2013), 225229. selected went together as a group. And the other people were copying the style, the whole idea. c. Sedaka and Greenfield Bradford then decided to use Smith to popularise a form of music that had been packing out venues in the South for almost 20 years. WOOK-TV only perpetuates this image. As the leading collector James McKune wrote, it was "archaic in the best sense gnarled, rough-hewn and eminently uncommercial." ", The scholar Angela Davis calls Bessie Smith "the first real 'superstar' in African-American popular culture" (Credit: Getty Images), Like rappers decades later, the classic blues singers were flashy avatars of liberation and aspiration. Philadelphia American Bandstand Regular Billy Cook shows us his style of the Fast Dance as it was called on Bandstand/American Bandstand (Jitterbug/Lindy Hop. Who was the first host of American Bandstand? It wasn't until the 1920s that record . Norma Coates, "Elvis from the Waist Up and Other Myths: 1950s Music Television and the Gendering of Rock Discourse," in. With no need for backing bands or stage costumes, the men were much cheaper, too. The scholar Angela Davis calls her "the first real 'superstar' in African-American popular culture. We had Teenarama, which was ours. Bandstand began as a local program on WFIL-TV (now WPVI), Channel 6 in Philadelphia on October 7, 1952. Lewis (WRAL), June 10, 1967, Lewis Family Papers,folder 140. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_44', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_44').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Letter fromThe Superiorsto Teenage Frolic, North Carolina, July 25, 1967. By examining these local programs this essay builds on the work of scholarsNorma Coates, Murray Forman, Julie Malnig, Tim Wall, George Lipsitz, and Brian Ward who have examined the intersections of music and television, the importance of televised teen dance shows as community spaces, and the development of rhythm and blues and rock and roll.9Norma Coates, "Elvis from the Waist Up and Other Myths: 1950s Music Television and the Gendering of Rock Discourse," in Medium Cool: Music Videos from Soundies to Cellphones, eds. Show," Philadelphia Tribune, November 19, 1957. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_18', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_18').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Thomas promoted large stage shows as well as small record hops at skating rinks.19On Mitch Thomas' concerts, see Archie Miller, "Fun & Thrills," Philadelphia Tribune, December 4, 1956; "Rock 'n Roll Show & Dance," Philadelphia Tribune, April 19, 1958; "Swingin' the Blues," Philadelphia Tribune, August 5, 1958; "Mitch Thomas Show Attracts Over 2000," Philadelphia Tribune, August 18, 1958; "Don't Miss the Mitch Thomas Rock & Roll Show," Philadelphia Tribune, July 2, 1960. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_19', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_19').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); These events were often racially integrated,"The whites that came, they just said, 'Well I'm gonna see the artist and that's it.' As Grant introduced The Four Aces' "I Just Don't Know," he exited the scene, the camera pulled back to focus on teens who flocked to pick up their free Pepsi. 1964 - The Beach Boys - "Don't Worry, Baby". As Jackie Kay puts it in her biography, "These old bluesmen are considered the genuine article while the women are fancy dress." Photograph by Will Counts. host and continued as the show became American Bandstand with Dick c. "Only the Lonely" Intresting note: in 1963 Dick Clark and Swan records had the opportunity to release the Beatles in the US under their label, but Dick took one look at . a. sweet soul According to Thomas Dorsey, the gospel blues pioneer who used to play in Rainey's band, "It collapsed I dont know what happened to the blues, they seemed to drop it all at once, it just went down.". Going National: Dick Clark and ABC's American Bandstand In the context of pitched battles over segregation and civil rights, these televised teen dance shows reveal much about the visibility of different youth musical cultures in the 1950s and 1960s. Groups like Donald and the Hitchhikers, Tiny and the Tinniettes, Little Joe and the Diamonds, Cobra and the Fabulous Entertainers, and the Dacels saw Teenage Frolics as a way to perform for other black teenagers and become known beyond their high schools and neighborhoods. Hard-drinking, hedonistic, recklessly generous and sometimes violent, she sold a record-breaking 780,000 copies of her debut single, 1923's Downhearted Blues, in just six months and bought her own Pullman railway car to travel in. Despite living during a time when music in America was divided into two categories popular music and race music the iconic singer, Ella Fitzgerald, still managed to become the first Black artist to win a Grammy. Jeffrey Crow, Paul Escott, and Flora Hatley. On race and segregation in Philadelphia, see Countryman, Up South; Countryman, "'From Protest to Politics': Community Control and Black Independent Politics in Philadelphia, 19651984,"Journal of Urban History 32 (September 2006): 813861; Delmont, The Nicest Kids in Town; James Wolfinger, Philadelphia Divided: Race and Politics in the City of Brotherly Love (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2007); Wolfinger, "The Limits of Black Activism: Philadelphia's Public Housing in the Depression and World War II," Journal of Urban History 35 (September 2009): 787814; Guian McKee, The Problem of Jobs: Liberalism, Race, and Deindustrialization in Philadelphia (Chicago: University Chicago Press, 2008); McKee, "'I've Never Dealt with a Government Agency Before': Philadelphia's Somerset Knitting Mills Project, the Local State, and the Missed Opportunities of Urban Renewal," Journal of Urban History 35 (March 2009): 387409; and Lisa Levenstein, A Movement Without Marches: African American Women and the Politics of Poverty in Postwar Philadelphia (Chapel Hill: University of North Carolina Press, 2009).
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