Jitterbugging
When the kids on American Bandstand were not Strolling, or
Twisting, or Chalypsoing, they were usually Jitterbugging. The
Jitterbug was a Philadelphia staple, and there were many
variations as there were Philadelphia neighborhoods. The dance
began in the 1920s in the bars of Harlem and took the steps from
the Shag and the Charleston. Although dancers did wild
improvisational solos as part of the Jitterbug, it was
essentially a partner dance. In 1927, the solos gave rise to a
new variation, the Lindy Hop, named after Charles Lindbergh, who
had just made his historic solo flight across the Atlantic. The
Jitterbug gained wide popularity in the thirties when Swing was
at its peak. During WW II, U.S. soldiers took the dance around
the world and it was recognized as quintessentially American
Joyce Shafer, Norman Kerr, Carmen Jimenez, Frank
Vacca
Well
Dressed and Well Behaved
Dick Clark's unique talent was taking the music that America was
afraid of - rock 'n' Roll - and broadcasting it while introducing
it to adults that hated it. Well dressed and well behaved, Clark
and kids on American Bandstand were instrumental in populaizing a
new kind of music that was under attack by everyone from Frank
Sinatra, ' the most brutal, ugly, desperate, vicious form of
expression, it has been my misfortune to hear; to Sammy Davis Jr.
"If rock 'n' roll is here to stay, I might commit suicide;
to author Vance OPackard, Rock music might be best summed up up
as a montony tinged with hysteria;" to Congressman Tip
O'Neil who said in 1960, "rock and roll is the type of
senuous music unfit for impressionable minds."
Hazards
One of the hazards of dancing on American Bandstand was the miles
of thick black cable that wove itself around the dance floor for
the huge TV cameras that dominated the dance floor. A white line
separated the cameras from the dancers, but the line was
constantly violated as the camera searched for better pictures of
the dancing kids. Often teens had to stop dancing to step over
the cable, an awkwardness rarely seen by the viewers at home.
Brenda
Lee Day
O
October 27, 1959, was Brenda Lee Day On American Bandstand. The
4' 11' dynamo had been performing since she was a toddler, by the
age of six had her own fifteen minute television sho and by
twelve several regional country hit songs, including Dynamite,
the song that her her nickname Little Miss Dynamite. In 1958 she
recorded on of the best rock 'n' roll Christmas songs ever,
Rockin' Around the Christmas Tree, which wasn't released until
1960, when it went to the top of the charts. I'm Sorry, Sweet
Nothin's and I Want To Be wanted were in the Top Ten the next
year. In 1962, when she was eighteen, she made Break It To Me
Gently, a ballad whose emotional message would have been
difficult for a singer twice her age.
Jerry Vale At The Autograph Table
Jerry Vale autographing
Sorting
Their Mail
(L to R) Unidentified, Justine Carrelli, Rosemary Fergione,
Arlene Sullivan
Interviewing Ronnie Burns
Ronnie Burns (son of George and Gracie) spends a little time in
the bleachers
Ivette
Jimenez, Myrna Horowitz, and Friends
s
Outside the studio with Dick Clark
