American Bandstand: Dick Clark and the Making of a Rock 'n' Roll Empire
Nearly 30 years before MTV, a Philadelphia television show called Bandstand debuted featuring teenagers dancing to the hit of the day. When the original host was fired for drunk driving and becoming too friendly with his audience, the show was handed to an ambitious young man named Dick Clark. In short order, Clark went national and turned the show into the most important vehicle in the burgeoning rock'n'roll industry. While Clark barely escaped a payola scandal and is blamed for whitening the music by promoting his own series of contrived teen idols, he is nonetheless the most important nonperformer in rock'n'roll's history. Jackson's (Big Beat Heat, Schirmer, 1991) telling of the story of Dick Clark's 40-year reign as "The World's Oldest Teenager" is fascinating not only as a history of music and television but as a cultural portrait of our country's most tumultuous decades of social change. This is an essential purchase for libraries with patrons who remember Clark and American Bandstand?and that's just about everybody.?Dan Bogey, Clearfield Cty. P.L. Federation, Curwensville, Pa.Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.