<\/p>\n
\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Dick Clark may have left this mortal coil in 2012, but it is a fair bet if one hears the phrase, \u2018America\u2019s oldest living teen-ager\u2019, his smiling face will come to mind.\u00a0 Born on November 11, 1929, he was perfectly positioned to transition from the golden age of radio into that new fangled home entertainment medium called television.\u00a0 When Clark and Richard Robinson wrote a book entitled <\/span>Rock, Roll & Remember – America\u2019s oldest living teen-ager brings back those happy days <\/span><\/i>(1976, Thomas Y. Crowell Co.), they had no way to envision the monumental changes that would take place in the music and entertainment biz.\u00a0 With <\/span>MTV, <\/span><\/i>music file sharing, the internet, Tic Tok, YouTube, and a multitude of streaming media sources far in the future, the authors were not concerned with predicting trends.\u00a0 Their focus was definitely the previous thirty years when Dick Clark worked hard enough to become one of the most recognizable faces on the planet.\u00a0 He also turned his passion into a very lucrative business empire.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0By the time Clark passed away in Santa Monica, California (April 18, 2012), he had three wives (the first two marriages lasted a decade each spanning the years 1952 to 1971) and established his signature company, Dick Clark Productions.\u00a0 He seemed to radiate a squeaky clean image which might seem strange knowing his rise to fame came in the rough city of Philadelphia.\u00a0 Dick proved he could more than hold his own in that environment as he cultivated the many talented stars who came out of the tough area known as South Philly.\u00a0 Clark may have been a millionaire by the age of thirty, but make no mistake;\u00a0 he worked hard for every penny.\u00a0 He was not a child of privilege – he started on the bottom rung of the entertainment industry ladder and climbed to the top, one step at a time.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Dick Clark grew up in Mount Vernon, New York idolizing his older brother, Bradley.\u00a0 In June of 1943, just a week after his high school graduation, Bradley Clark enlisted in the Air Force.\u00a0 Young Dick found life without his big brother around lonely.\u00a0 He couldn\u2019t imagine at the time how much deeper this loneliness would be when he found out Bradley was killed in a plane crash just before Christmas in 1944.\u00a0 A fighter pilot, Brad was in the 371st Fighter Group and he\u00a0 volunteered for a mission during the Battle of the Bulge.\u00a0 He took off in stormy weather on December 23, 1944;\u00a0 his plane was disabled and crashed.\u00a0 Dickie found himself trying out for various sports teams in high school, perhaps trying to fill Bradley\u2019s shoes.\u00a0 Sports didn\u2019t work out for him so he immersed himself in other activities.\u00a0 Dickie spent a lot of time in his room and later said, \u201cAbout this time I discovered the magic world of the radio.\u00a0 In my room was a large Philco radio with a separate speaker that hung from the wall.\u00a0 In the afternoons before supper and in the evening when I finished my homework, I\u2019d sit, twisting the dial, finding an escape in the disembodied fantasy world that came out of the speaker.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The more Clark listened, the more things he found to capture his imagination.\u00a0 WNEW from New York was a favorite with shows like <\/span>Make-Believe Ballroom<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Milkman\u2019s Matinee<\/span><\/i> hosted by Martin Block and Art Ford, respectively.\u00a0 He especially liked what he referred to as \u2018talkers\u2019 like Garry Moore, Steve Allen, Dave Garroway, and Arthur Godfrey.\u00a0 Dickie really liked Godfrey because, \u201cHe was the first to realize that a radio announcer does <\/span>not<\/span><\/i> talk to \u2018those of you out there in radioland\u2019;\u00a0 a radio announcer talks to <\/span>me <\/span><\/i>as an individual,\u00a0 Godrey knew that people listened to the radio one to one, so that was the way he treated his listeners.\u201d\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When his parents took him to New York City to see a live radio broadcast of the <\/span>Jimmy Durante-Garry Moore Show<\/span><\/i>, Clark had an epiphany:\u00a0 \u201cWouldn\u2019t this be a great way to make a living?\u201d\u00a0 He told his parents, \u201cThat is what I want to do.\u00a0 When I write away for college catalogs, I\u2019m going to find out which ones have a radio school.\u201d\u00a0 They encouraged him by suggesting he join the high school drama club.\u00a0 It was a pivotal move as it boosted his confidence:\u00a0 \u201cNot only did I join, I wound up president of the club.\u00a0 I gave speeches, went out of my way to make new friends and acted my heart out whenever the opportunity presented itself.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Clark\u2019s uncle Bradley Barnard owned the newspaper in Rome, NY.\u00a0 Around the time Dick graduated from high school, Uncle Brad decided to open a radio station in the area.\u00a0 When his father accepted an offer to become the station\u2019s sales manager, he quit his twenty six year career in cosmetics and the family moved to Utica, NY.\u00a0 Having already been accepted at Syracuse University, Clark asked his father if he could get a summer job at the new WRUN.\u00a0 His dad told him he would have to run it by his uncle, but Dickie was sure he was soon to be the next Martin Block.\u00a0 Rightly so (as the new guy), he found himself on the bottom-most rung of the career ladder.\u00a0 His first job was printing promotional flyers on the mimeograph machine.\u00a0 The second week, Dickie was in the mail room stuffing envelopes and distributing interoffice memos.\u00a0 He quietly shared his desire to work on the air while enthusiastically emptying wastebaskets and doing any chores handed to him.\u00a0 Hardly a diva, Clark recognized the path to his dream job was to always work hard no matter what task he was told to do.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0The day his father told him he would be pinch-hitting for the vacationing FM announcer, Dickie was pumped.\u00a0 FM was rather new and did not share the prestige of AM but that didn\u2019t matter – he was about to become a real on the air radio guy.\u00a0 When the time came, he had his weather forecast in hand and cupped his free hand over his ear until the engineer pointed at him:<\/span><\/p>\n \u201cI lowered my voice to sound as resonant as possible.\u00a0 My father told me later it sounded more like Shakespeare than the weather.\u201d\u00a0 By the end of the summer, Clark said, \u201cI surprised everyone with the professional style I had developed.\u00a0 They let me do station breaks and the news on WRUN-AM.\u00a0 When fall came, I was off to school.\u00a0 Many of the guys were twenty-five or twenty-six and just back from the war.\u00a0 I was seventeen and floundering around, trying to drink my share of beer and get used to mature life.\u00a0 I majored in advertising and minored in radio.\u201d<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Clark\u2019s advisor told him to not take any radio courses until his sophomore year so he sought out the three studio,\u00a0 WAER-FM.\u00a0 This student run station was located in a Quonset hut in the middle of the campus.\u00a0 Like most new DJs, he started with a short time slot (in his case, interviewing foreign students, many of whom spoke little English) and progressed through a variety of shows.\u00a0 The final semester of his senior year, he applied for a job at local station WOLF – he began there as weekend relief but was soon working full time in radio while finishing school.\u00a0 The dollar and hour wage and the desire to not be the permanent host spinning country music on <\/span>The WOLF Buckaroos, <\/span><\/i>Dick returned to WRUN hoping to get a full time slot.\u00a0 It did not take long before he realized he didn\u2019t want to be seen as the guy who got the job working for his dad.\u00a0 It was time to strike out on his own.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0His next stop was at a local Utica TV station, WKTV where he picked up some tricks of the trade that would help advance his career.\u00a0 Dick wanted to be a news announcer but started his TV gig writing ad copy, moving scenery, and (again) hosting a country music show, <\/span>Cactus Dick and the Santa Fe Riders.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Passing a monitor one night, he stood in awe watching newscaster Bob Earle deliver the news while looking at the camera –\u00a0 it was almost like he had the script memorized.\u00a0 When Clark inquired how he did this, Earle showed him his secret helper, Elmer.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Elmer was a tape recorder located in a room next to the studio.\u00a0 Earle explained, \u201cI record the news on tape before the broadcast.\u00a0 I run a cable to an earphone and play the tape when I do the news.\u00a0 That way I repeat it as I hear it in my ear.\u00a0 I do 15 minutes of news without batting an eyelash.\u201d\u00a0 When Dick became a newscaster at the station, he did Earle one better.\u00a0 He got his own \u2018Elmer\u2019 and rigged it with a foot switch so he could turn it off and on from his spot at the desk.\u00a0 During a break, Clark would pass the earphone to Stu, the sports guy, who had recorded his part at the end of Dick\u2019s tape. \u00a0 On one occasion, Stu altered the news feed to include some salty language supposedly uttered by President Truman.\u00a0 Dick didn\u2019t recognize the passage coming through the earphones and when he saw Stu grinning from ear to ear, he ended up ad libbing his way out of the newscast without getting them both fired.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Clark\u2019s next step up the ladder came when he was given an audition at WFIL-TV in Philadelphia by program director Jack Steck.\u00a0 Steck handed Dick an announcer copy and told him to go over it before the audition.\u00a0 With Elmer set up at the side of the studio, Dick recorded the\u00a0 copy that purposefully included tongue twisters like, \u201cAnd here\u2019s Nikolai Rimsky-Korsakov\u2019s <\/span>Scheherazde\u201d.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>\u00a0Having announced classical music selections in college, this did not rattle him at all so he waltzed through the script.\u00a0 When he did it \u2018live\u2019 for Steck (with Elmer\u2019s help, of course), the PD\u2019s jaw dropped as he stood in the control window staring at Dick for a few seconds.\u00a0 Steck wrote a memo about the audition he shared with Clark years later:\u00a0 \u201cThe kid is good, and despite his college education he seems to be smart.\u201d\u00a0 Steck didn\u2019t have any openings in the WFIL-TV staff but he did offer Dick a summer replacement job on WFIL radio.\u00a0 Dick thought it over and decided WFIL was closer to New York than his other TV offer in Schenectady so he called Steck back and took the job.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Contrary to what many people think, Dick Clark did <\/span>not<\/span><\/i> invent <\/span>American Bandstand, <\/span><\/i>the TV show he is most remembered for.\u00a0 He started his WFIL radio gig doing station breaks between Mary Margaret McBride and Tennessee Ernie Ford.\u00a0 He also spent a lot of time in the announcer\u2019s lounge smoking, reading the paper, and listening to the ABC radio network feed.\u00a0 This is how he described his job at WFIL as a twenty-one year old:\u00a0 \u201cFor about six months, I did this old form or radio.\u00a0 Occasionally, I got the chance to do one of the voices in a radio drama or narrate a local origination.\u00a0 Most of the time I did station ID\u2019s, commercials, and newscasts.\u201d\u00a0 He also got a Saturday off in early June to wed his longtime girlfriend Bobbie who had recently graduated from college.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When WFIL-TV and radio studios consolidated into a new facility, Clark was offered the chance to host a radio program called <\/span>Dick Clark\u2019s Caravan of Music.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 The station wanted to develope more of their own shows so they would be more local and less dependent on network programming.\u00a0 While the music Clark played was dated and not likely to attract a young following, he did hone his skills as a pitchman selling everything from pots and pans to Mrs. Smith\u2019s pies.\u00a0 Bob Horn had a radio show called <\/span>Bob Horn\u2019s Bandstand<\/span><\/i>, a concept WFIL had \u2018borrowed\u2019 from an similar show on WPEN.\u00a0 Like the WPEN show, Horn would spin \u2018younger\u2019 tunes and let kids in the studio to dance and occasionally tell him where they went to school.\u00a0 WFIL-TV decided the old English movies they played in the afternoon were not making the grade, so they asked Horn to turn his radio show into a similar TV program simply called <\/span>Bandstand.<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0They set up the show\u2019s template and got Horn a partner named Lee Stewart.\u00a0 The show worked but the partnership did not – there was no chemistry.\u00a0 Once they dumped Stewart, they paired Horn\u2019s show with Clark\u2019s radio show.\u00a0 Horn would start his radio <\/span>Bandstand<\/span><\/i> with a couple of songs, then cut away to do the TV version with Clark filling the three and a half hour gap between the beginning and the end of the <\/span>Bandstand<\/span><\/i> radio show.\u00a0 Clark got his first chance to fill in for a vacationing Horn on the TV <\/span>Bandstand<\/span><\/i> and knew right away he could really progress in his career if he could only get out of the radio side and work the TV version.\u00a0 Fate intervened when Horn was arrested for drunken driving and landed in jail.\u00a0 With WFIL\u2019s owner, the Philadelphia <\/span>Inquirer, <\/span><\/i>conducting a high profile campaign against drunk driving, Horn all but wrote his own termination letter.\u00a0 With Horn exiled from radio and television, Clark\u2019s soon to be partner, Tony Mamarella, filled in as the <\/span>Bandstand<\/span><\/i> host before it was offered to Clark.\u00a0 Tony would become the producer and Clark was on board when ABC finally decided to try running the program nationally, hence the name change to <\/span>American Bandstand.<\/span><\/i>\u00a0 Everything you probably remember about Dick Clark\u2019s <\/span>American Bandstand<\/span><\/i> began to take shape in July of 1956.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When the payola scandal investigation was started by a congressional commission in 1960, the focus seemed to be aimed directly at Dick Clark.\u00a0 When the scope of the \u2018pay to get your record played\u2019 (hence, \u2018payola\u2019) scandal came to light,\u00a0 ABC made it clear that Clark would have to divest of any of his musical sidelights to continue on their network.\u00a0 His ties to music publishing and production (he owned shares of a record pressing plant at that time) were severed so he could continue to work on TV.\u00a0 He figures it cost him somewhere around $8 million in 1960s dollars – a huge but necessary sacrifice to keep his day job.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Clark never took a dime or twisted anyone\u2019s arm to get their records on his show.\u00a0 Unfortunately his producer Tony did (unbeknownst to Dick) which no doubt made Clark \u2018guilty by association\u2019 in the investigator\u2019s minds.\u00a0 When the congressional hearings began, it was obvious they were gunning for Dick Clark.\u00a0 Their charge seemed to have less to do about money changing hands than the cultural impact of his show.\u00a0 In their opinion,\u00a0 payola was putting inferior music (rock \u2018n\u2019 roll) on the air to the detriment of \u2018good music\u2019 (think Perry Como, etc).<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0One of the representatives grilling DJs and music executives was John Bennett of Michigan.\u00a0 Born in Garden and raised in Watersmeet, Michigan, Bennett operated a law firm in Ontonagon for many years before being elected to the House of Representatives.\u00a0 By the time Clark went before the committee, Bennett was ready to string him up from the nearest yardarm for diluting \u2018popular music\u2019 with his distasteful payola practices.\u00a0 One of the commissioners went so far as to start referring to the problem as \u2018Clarkola; as if he had invented a form of musical graft that predated both Dick Clark and rock and roll.\u00a0 The hearings grew almost as intense as the McCarthy anti-communist hearings until one of the representatives (who had actually been to Philadelphia to witness <\/span>AB <\/span><\/i>in person) spoke up in defense of the music and the kids who prefer it to the \u2019good music\u2019 previously mentioned.\u00a0 After all was said and done, cooler heads prevailed when it was demonstrated that <\/span>American Bandstand<\/span><\/i> was not promoting the music only Clark would profit from but music teens wanted to hear.\u00a0\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0There were many fascinating side stories in <\/span>Rock, Roll & Remember<\/span><\/i>, too many to relate here.\u00a0 For instance, Johnny Carson did not like Dick Clark because the network inserted a game sho<\/span>w <\/span><\/i>Carson was hosting in the middle of <\/span>AB.\u00a0 <\/span><\/i>Clark never called out <\/span>Do You Trust Your Wife? <\/span><\/i>by name, but he did remind viewers to tune back in to his show when Carson\u2019s was over.\u00a0 Carson took it personally.\u00a0 Dick Clark may never have been on <\/span>The Tonight Show with Johnny Carson <\/span><\/i>(and yes, Carson was one to hold grudges), but he did steer his former neighbor Ed McMahon to Carson\u2019s game show when he heard Johnny needed an MC.\u00a0 It worked out pretty well for Ed.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0When songwriters were beginning to write more to the R\u2019n\u2019R crowd, an acquaintance seeking an opinion on a song brought it to Clark.\u00a0 Dick\u2019s contribution was a small rewording of the title and lyric.\u00a0 DC told the songwriter, <\/span>At the Bop <\/span><\/i>sounded old fashioned.\u00a0 Clark played host to sock hops nearly every weekend (so named because coaches insisted that dancers remove their shoes so they would not damage the gym floor) so he suggested they use <\/span>At the Hop <\/span><\/i>instead.\u00a0 He not only got a writing credit for the suggestion, but he also cemented the song as one of the iconic tunes of the early rock and roll era.\u00a0 Clark\u2019s book is available at the Ontonagon Township Library if you would like to hear more details about Dick Clark\u2019s remarkable career.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0In late 1963, Dick was offered a chance to host a game show.\u00a0 The only catch?\u00a0 It was being produced in Los Angeles.\u00a0 Clark made the jump and took the <\/span>American Bandstand<\/span><\/i> franchise with him.\u00a0 It is probably a good thing because the game show bombed.\u00a0 People back east still refer to February 8, 1964 as the day music died in Philadelphia.\u00a0 In the early 1970s, one of Clark\u2019s employees pitched him the idea of inviting old fifties artists back for a nostalgia show.\u00a0 Dick hated the idea of living in the past, but he did agree to MC one of these shows his (now) former employee organized at Madison Square Garden.\u00a0 It went so well, he launched his own oldies show in Las Vegas that opened\u00a0 in July 1974.\u00a0 Clark only had to be himself and introduce the acts, but he found it to be a tremendously rewarding experience.<\/span><\/p>\n \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0At the end of each show, Clark would stand in the spotlight at center stage and propose a toast to his audience:\u00a0 \u201cWe\u2019ve all sort of grown up together . . . so here\u2019s to you . . . <\/span>Rock \u2018n\u2019 roll is here to stay \/ They said it wouldn\u2019t last.\u00a0 You\u2019ve gotta live for today \/ You can\u2019t live in the past.\u00a0 Those good times won\u2019t come \u2018round again \/ But one thing for sure, my friend . . .\u00a0 We shared some happy days!\u201d<\/span><\/i><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Top Piece Visdeo:\u00a0 What says\u00a0American Bandstand<\/em> more than Dick Clark and\u00a0At the Ho\/?<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" \u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0Dick Clark may have left this mortal coil in 2012, but it is a fair bet if one hears the phrase, \u2018America\u2019s oldest living teen-ager\u2019, his smiling face will come to mind.\u00a0 Born on November 11, 1929, he was perfectly positioned to transition from the golden age of radio into that new fangled home […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3,11,8,9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2926","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bands-musicians","category-education","category-from-the-vaults","category-woas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2926","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2926"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2926\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2929,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2926\/revisions\/2929"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2926"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2926"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.woas-fm.org\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2926"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}