Dick Clark

Highly Appreciated

DICK CLARK
 
 
Dick Clark  (November 30, 1929 – April 18, 2012) was an American radio and television personality, as well as a cultural icon who remains best known for hosting American Bandstand from 1957 to 1987.  He also hosted the game show Pyramid and Dick Clark’s New Year’s Rockin’ Eve, which transmitted Times Square’s New Year’s Eve celebrations.  Episodes he hosted were among the first where blacks and whites performed on the same stage and among the first where the live studio audience sat without racial segregation.  In his capacity as a businessman, Clark served as Chief Executive Officer of Dick Clark Productions.  In 1973, he created and produced the annual American Music Awards show, similar to the Grammy Awards.  Due to his perennial youthful appearance, Clark was often referred to as “America’s oldest teenager”.  (More from Wikipedia)
 
 
Enough by Bohemian Vendetta got some local radio play and even had a spot on Dick Clark’s “Rate-a-Record” on American Bandstand.  This was, er, enough to get the band some better gigs; they opened for Vanilla Fudge and also another Long Island band the Vagrants.  (The Vagrants had a regional hit song with Otis Redding’s “Respect” before Aretha Franklin’s version of “Respect” propelled them from the charts; bandmembers included Leslie West, later a member of the hard rock band Mountain). 
 
(April 2011)
 
 *       *       *
 
Rich Rotkin and Arnie Marcus were never involved in any of their recordings, but – together with Phil Stewart – they were the public face of the Rip Chords, since Ernie Bringas was unavailable, and Bruce Johnston and Terry Melcher were much too involved in record production to tour with a band.  These Rip Chords had an appearance on Dick Clark’s American Bandstand and joined his Caravan of Stars; they were even in a Hollywood movie, A Swingin’ Summer
 
(July 2011)
 
*       *       *
 
Fact is, disco music was just fulfilling Dick Clark’s immortal description of rock and roll:  “It has a good beat, and you can dance to it”.  
 
(March 2012)
 
*       *       *
 
Paul Revere and the Raiders were the house band for one of Dick Clark’s television shows, Where the Action Is from 1965 to 1967.   
 
(June 2012)
 
*       *       *
 
Ultimately Rumblewas released by Link Wray in 1958. 

 

The song was banned in several major radio markets, including New York and Boston (perhaps self-censorship would be a better term, since it was mostly the DJ’s who took it upon themselves not to play the song) due to the fear that its rough sound glorified juvenile delinquency.  Even Dick Clark sort of tip-toed around the controversy when the song was introduced on American Bandstand:  He never actually mentioned the name of the song. 

 

(February 2013)

 
*       *       *
 

Ritchie Valens released just two 45’s but still showed incredible versatility.  His first, “Come On, Let’s Go” is now regarded as a straight-up rock and roll classic, but it failed to chart.  Writing in 1998Billy Vera recalls “first hearing [Come On, Let’s Go] on Alan Freed’s TV Dance Party, a local New York equivalent of Dick Clark’s American Bandstand.  It was a record which really grabbed my teenaged ears.  I had never heard anything quite like it.  It had a much ‘thicker’ sound than anything by Elvis, Chuck BerryGene Vincent or even Eddie Cochran.  For thickness, the only thing that came close was Bo Diddley.” 

 

(June 2013/1)

 

*       *       *

 

Bobby Darin took his first hit song, “Splish Splash to #3 in the nation, and it was a major boost for his career. 

 

This was in the days of the “payola” scandals, where disc jockeys and others were secretly paid under the table to promote and play particular songs so that they would become hit records.  Once a practice that was winked at, the traditional music establishment began a crusade against payola in an attempt to derail the newly popular rock and roll music, and it very nearly worked.  Major figures who were caught up in the scandal included Alan Freed, one of the country’s most prominent DJ’s who played a major role in popularizing rock music (and is one of several who claimed to have coined the term “rock and roll”), and Dick Clark, though he was more cooperative in the investigations and was able to preserve his reputation (not to mention his job). 

 

(April 2015/1)

 

*       *       *

 

At the studio, the Juvenaires were told that they would be singing back-up for John Madara; but as it turned out, his record company turned down the song Do the Bop. Artie Singer took the song to Dick Clark, who suggested that they change the name to “At the Hop”, since "bop" was considered old-fashioned by then. (Cyndi Lauper would later revive the term in a completely different context in her 1984 hit song She Bop).
 
The band changed its name to Danny and the Juniors and. after performing as a last-minute substitute on American Bandstand, had a #1 hit for 7 weeks with At the Hop (beginning in January 1958, and breaking the record among vocal groups). In a classic example of so-called payola, Artie Singer (who also has a writing credit for At the Hop) had to sign over one-half of the publishing credits for the song to Dick Clark (Clark sold the rights to the song prior to the Congressional payola hearings in 1960).
 
(August 2015)

Last edited: March 22, 2021