Since today is New Year’s Eve, I thought I’d put up some links to a guy who is not only known for his Rockin’ New Year’s Eve celebrations, but he also played a very important role in this country’s rock ‘n roll culture. And that man is Dick Clark, who’s best known for hosting American Bandstand for 31 years, from 1956 to 1987. Below are a half a dozen links to the man known as "America's oldest teenager” and then there’s the MBIP Coming Attractions for the first week in 2018! 2018...how the fuck did that happen?
Dick Clark Timeline: His Life & Business - Wow, I forgot about all the shows this guy produced and hosted! One very interesting thing to note here is that he devoted an entire show to The Beatles the day before they made their debut on The Ed Sullivan Show. He knew enough to beat Ed to the punch!
Dick Clark Survives The Payola Scandal - The “Payola Scandal” cost DJ Alan Freed his career, but Dick Clark was savvy enough to testify and skated out of there with his career intact.
Integrating American Bandstand - An interesting story about how three black teen couples integrated American Bandstand back in 1961.
Dick Clark's 'Where The Action Is' was the coolest thing on TV 50 years ago - Dick Clark is best known for American Bandstand and the Rockin’ New Year’s Eve specials, but my favorite show he ever produced was Where The Action Is, featuring Paul Revere and the Raiders. My brother Jim and I used to race home after school to watch this Dick Clark production!
Dick Clark: 'You're a Liberal and I'm a F---ing Whore,' the TV Icon Once Told a Famed Rock Music Editor - This is a great feature article written by Ben Fong-Torres who tells his memories of interviewing Dick Clark for an issue of Rolling Stone in 1973. I once interviewed Ben for an oral history of Rolling Stone I wrote and you can listen to that here if you like.
TV Emperor of Rock ’n’ Roll and New Year’s Eve Dies at 82 - Dick Clark died in 1982 and Bruce Weber wrote his obituary for the New York Times.
Tomorrow I’m putting up a post of three New Year’s Eve celebrations I’m attending, but those haven’t happened yet, so I don’t have any photos of that to put up here for a teaser graphic. Instead I’ve got a photo of this week’s restaurant where the eleventh week of steak happened, Jim’s Bistro! So what kind of steak did I have? Well tune in Tuesday and you’ll find out! Wednesday MBIP presents the perfect winter evening: A visit to the PNC Winterfest 2018 and then a bowl of piping hot Kilkenny Irish Cheddar Soup at Kenny’s Westside Pub. Thursday will be another random People of Peoria person and for Fast Food Friday I think I’m going to go to Burger King, but that could change so don’t quote me on that! Anyway, have a fun last day of 2017, Happy New Year, blah, blah, blah, yada, yada, yada and we’ll see you all tomorrow!
Related Posts: Sunday Links: The Grinch, Phil Spector and The 365 Bar Blog.