
DATE: Wednesday, November 5, 1997           TAG: 9711040051

SECTION: DAILY BREAK             PAGE: E5   EDITION: FINAL 

TYPE: Book Review 

SOURCE: BY RICKEY WRIGHT 

                                            LENGTH:   80 lines

BEHIND ROCK 'N' ROLL'S MR. CLEAN

``I HESITATE TO put this show on,'' said one 1950s-era network businessman, ``because it's just kids dancing.''

And what was he talking about? ``Bandstand,'' the object of a major craze on local Philadelphia TV.

When the stumbling, third-place ABC took a chance with the newly christened ``American Bandstand'' in 1957, it found that there was indeed a national audience for a program consisting of teens dancing to rock 'n' roll hits, and lip-synched visits by hot musical artists.

By '57, Dick Clark had replaced original host Bob Horn, after Horn was charged with statutory rape and drunken driving - hardly the image a show promoting the controversial new sound needed if it was to gain staying power. Clark, a former easy-listening radio deejay, provided just the clean-cut image necessary.

As the word ``empire'' in the subtitle of John Jackson's ``American Bandstand'' suggests, the book is much more than a nostalgic romp through the decades of pop that the show brought into American living rooms. Dick Clark is now estimated to be worth $180 million, and he owes a sizable debt of thanks to the music he helped push to respectability.

His fortunes, of course, were placed in jeopardy during the 1960 congressional hearings into DJ payola. By then, Clark's holdings included shares in many music- and record-industry companies; hits for them certainly meant cash in his pocket. The producer of ``American Bandstand'' was forced to resign, but Clark survived. Another casualty of the payola wars was radio personality Alan Freed, who had done even more than Clark to promote rock 'n' roll.

Jackson provides a fascinatingly detailed view of Clark's myriad and varied investments and how they did and didn't affect what got played on the show - and, by extension, what got played on the hundreds of radio stations that monitored its playlist closely. While Clark gained indirectly from early rock classics such as ``At the Hop'' and ``Don't You Just Know It,'' the book also lists a ``Bottom Ten'' of singles that Clark had a stake in and played incessantly, but that nonetheless flopped. Remember ``Everywhere You Go'' by the Quaker City Boys? ``Ladies' Choice'' by Patty Saturday?

Freed probably had a better ear than Clark, whose Mr. Clean image helped lift bland teen idols like Frankie Avalon and Fabian to stardom. Clark also had a hand in pushing solid music, like that of his friend Duane Eddy, but his aesthetic sense was hardly foolproof.

Threatened by the Beatles' success, he rushed to predict a drop in their popularity in mid-1964, just months after the group hit the States. That same summer their film, ``A Hard Day's Night,'' was winning over skeptics. Clark positively hated the psychedelia that came along a few years later - and which, admittedly, didn't provide much his regulars could dance to.

Jackson, while sometimes writing admiringly of Clark's achievements, is hardly a booster. In addition to the questions of personal finance, he closely examines the racial issues raised by ``American Bandstand,'' whose dance troupe was integrated later than Clark likes to take credit for. He also peeks behind Clark's clean-cut mask, giving details of divorce and drinking.

But he misses one great story from the show's last decade, when former Sex Pistol John ``Johnny Rotten'' Lydon appeared with his new band, Public Image Ltd. As the group played at full volume and in counterpoint to their recorded track, Lydon pulled enough spectators out of the bleachers and onto the stage/dance floor that the musicians were finally all but invisible.

That performance, and many others, could be seen recently on VH1's repackaged ``Best of American Bandstand'' - proof that the now-defunct dance party refuses to die. Needless to say, neither does the world's oldest teen-ager, Dick Clark. MEMO: Rickey Wright's articles on pop music have appeared in national

publications. He lives in Norfolk. ILLUSTRATION: FILE

By 1961, Dick Clark had emerged unscathed from the payola scandal.

Graphic

BOOK REVIEW

``American Bandstand: Dick Clark and the Making of a Rock 'n'

Roll Empire''

Author: John A. Jackson

Publisher: Oxford University. 336 pp.

Price: $27.50