American Bandstand

…on the Philadelphia-based television show American Bandstand; capitalizing on youthful good looks and a clean-cut image, he became the prototype of the pop-music teen idol created on that program. Rydell and Fabian quickly followed in his footsteps. Between 1958—when his first charting single, “Dede Dinah,” reached the Top Ten—and 1962…

…to perform the song on American Bandstand. Checker was still in high school when he recorded “The Twist,” and some music historians have speculated that Clark chose him instead of the 32-year-old Ballard because Checker would have more of an appeal to the show’s teen audience. Although both performers were…

…businessman, best known for hosting American Bandstand.

…teen-aimed television shows such as American Bandstand. For the major record companies, Presley’s success marked less the appeal of do-it-yourself musical hybrids than the potential of teenage idols: singers with musical material and visual images that could be marketed on radio and television and in motion pictures and magazines. The…

…early examples being Dick Clark’s American Bandstand in the United States, which began as a local Philadelphia program in 1952 before going national five years later, and Juke Box Jury in the United Kingdom, which premiered in 1959.

From 1957 through 1963 Philadelphia was the “Home of the Hits,” a reflection of the power of Dick Clark’s American Bandstand television show, carried nationally on the American Broadcasting Company network. The program’s format was simple: singers mimed to their records, and the show’s teenage…