c. King and Goffin "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. 2013. 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. The plan faltered, and the station suffered significant operating losses over the next year.26Ibid. [3] Ibid., 147; Jackson,American Bandstand, 30-31, 99-101, 107, 145-47; Lehmer,Bandstandland, 74-75. A. J. Fletcher and Fred Fletcher's Capitol Broadcasting Company, which owned WRAL, received a TV license in 1956 and Lewis played an important role in convincing the Federal Communications Comission (FCC)that WRAL-TV would serve African American viewers.33Clarence Williams, "JD Lewis Jr.: A Living Broadcasting Legend," Ace: Magazine of the Triangle, SeptemberOctober 2002, 1214, 70. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_33', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_33').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Unlike The Mitch Thomas Show and Teenarama, Teenage Frolics aired on a VHF (very high frequency)station with a network affiliation (WRAL-TV had a primary affiliation with NBC and a secondary affiliation with ABC).34"WRAL-TV," 1960 Broadcasting Yearbook,A73 tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_34', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_34').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Despite these network ties, WRAL proved challenging in other ways. None. Rather than a strict whites-only policy (like at Baltimore's Buddy Deane Show, made famous in John Waters' Hairspray), Bandstand used other means to block black teens from the studio. Victoria Spivey appeared in King Vidor's 1929 movie Hallelujah, one of the first studio pictures to feature an entirely black cast. Blues are here to stay." Here again, the advertisement incorporated the studio audience, with one young woman holding the radio while Grant praised its features. These interpolated commercials, common in radio and television in this era, offered sponsors daily visual evidence of teenagers' eagerness to consume and encouraged The Milt Grant Show's viewers to participate in the same rituals of consumption. 1967], Lewis Family Papers, folder 140. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_45', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_45').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); As television production became increasingly centralized in Los Angeles in the 1960s, Teenage Frolics was part of the everyday life of black teenagers in the Raleigh area. In her study of the landmark black television show Soul!, that ran from 1968 to 1972,Gayle Wald argues that the show "created a television space where black peoplecould see, hear, and almost feel each other." But what did hurt me was the fact that I had originated the song, and I never got the opportunities to be in the top television shows and the talk shows. It became one of the biggest rock n roll records of all time.6. d. Chuck Berry, An important component of the Beach Boys' success was: Counter to host Dick Clark's claims that he integrated American Bandstand, my research revealed how the first national television program directed at teens discriminated against black youth during its early years and how black teens and civil rights advocates protested this discrimination.8Matthew Delmont, The Nicest Kids in Town: American Bandstand, Rock 'n' Roll, and the Struggle for Civil Rights in 1950s Philadelphia (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2012). Thomas continued to work as a radio disc jockey through the 1960s, until he left broadcasting in 1969 to work as a counselor to gang members in Wilmington. "49"WOOK-TV," 1965 Broadcasting Yearbook,A10. not limited to "only white" dancers. We may earn a commission from links on this page. While a few women, notably Victoria Spivey and Edith Wilson, lived long enough to return to the stage during the 1960s blues revival, the likes of Bob Dylan, Led Zeppelin and the Rolling Stones were far more interested in the hardbitten men of the Delta. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_8', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_8').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Like American Bandstand, the local programs I explore in this essay brought dynamic music cultures to eager audiences and advertisers, while they also traced the boundaries of inclusion and exclusion in their cities. Sterling, Christopher and John Michael Kittross. | Lewis (WRAL), May 29, 1967, Lewis Family Papers, folder 140; "Nero, the Mad," letter to J.D. a. accusations of Communism When North Carolina began desegregation from 1969 to 1971, many black high schools were closed or were converted to elementary schools or junior highs. At the same time, WPHF's Wilmington studios were only thirty miles from Philadelphia, a city that,historian Matthew Countryman notes, many black people called "Up South. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_50', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_50').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Both of these options were cost prohibitive for many of the African American viewers WOOK hoped to reach. Male country blues resonated with rock's singer-songwriters in a way that the classic blues never could. Enter your comment below. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_5', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_5').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); Part of the power of television for civil rights activists was how the medium exposed excessive acts of physical violence to audiences outside the South. Seventeen (WOI-TV's teen dance show), 1958. Clarence Burton Jr., defending the station and raising a question about the teen dance show that predated Teenarama. Official Sites Dick Clark's Memory of Integrating American Bandstand Less obviously, the Iowa teens were also emulating teens on The Mitch Thomas Showa black teen dance show that broadcast locally from Wilmington, Delaware, to the Philadelphia areawhose version of the Stroll influenced the American Bandstanddancers. Which folk music group had a hit song with a cover of Bob Dylan's "Blowin' in the Wind"? The failure of the station that broadcast The Mitch Thomas Show underscores the tenuous nature of such unaffiliated local programs. History of R&R CH 3 Flashcards | Quizlet b. protesting the Korean War ", Gertrude "Ma" Rainey was one of several black women who dominated the classic blues African-American culture's first mainstream breakthrough (Credit: Getty Images). 2. If you would like to comment on this story or anything else you have seen on BBC Culture, head over to ourFacebookpage or message us onTwitter. Eustace Gay, "Pioneer In TV Field Doing Marvelous Job Furnishing Youth With Recreation,". a. the Ronettes It elevated flops while ignoring the music that black consumers had actually enjoyed. A journal about real and imagined spaces and places of the US South and their global connections. Eventually Black teens were allowed. Roger Beebe and Jason Middleton (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2007), 226251; Coates, "Filling in Holes: Television Music as a Recuperation of Popular Music on Television,"Music, Sound, and the Moving Image 1, no. American Bandstand was "44Anonymous ("102 Pilot St.), letter to J.D. a. "6Quoted in Bodrogkozy, Equal Time, 2. tippy('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_1562_1_6', { content: jQuery('#footnote_plugin_tooltip_text_1562_1_6').html(), placement: 'bottom', theme: 'sosp', arrow: false, allowHTML: true }); 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. Only a handful were still making blues records in the 1930s. The role of the A&R man was to organize and coordinate the professionals involved in recording. Footage features black and white rock n roll stars performing their latest hits--both on daily American Bandstand at WFILs Studio B and ABCs Saturday night version of American Bandstand, The Dick Clark Show, broadcast live from New York City.