American Bandstand
Dick Clark and the Making of a Rock 'n' Roll Empire
ISBN13: 9780195130898ISBN10: 0195130898
Paperback,
368 pages
Mar 1999,
In Stock
Price:
$16.95 (01)
Winner of the ARSC Award for Excellence in Historical Recorded Sound Research and the Ralph J. Gleason Award for Best Book on Popular Music
Description
"I don't make culture, I sell it," Dick Clark once remarked. Indeed, the man who reigned as host of American Bandstand for nearly four decades may not have invented rock 'n' roll, but he sold it to the American public better than anyone before or since. Here is the first book to tell the full story of what happened in front of--and behind--the cameras on Dick Clark's American Bandstand . Based on extensive interviews with music business figures, recording stars, and Clark himself, and featuring dozens of photographs, this is a riveting and uncensored account of a show that managed to survive countless revolutions in popular music.Few realized that behind Clark's unostentatious, "aw shucks" mask there lurked a cunning business impresario and tough negotiator. And just as there was more to Clark than his good guy persona, there was more to American Bandstand than was immediately apparent. As entertaining as it is eye-opening, American Bandstand will fascinate everyone interested in popular American culture or in rock 'n' roll history.
Reviews
"Valuable and authoritative."--Publisher's Weekly
"John A. Jackson's fascinating book shows how Clark worked the biz side of pop music to become a multimillionaire and how his show fit into 1950s American culture and society."--Jon Wiener, The Los Angeles Times Book Review
Product Details
368 pages; 36 halftones, 1 line illus; 6-1/8 x 9-1/4; ISBN13: 978-0-19-513089-8ISBN10: 0-19-513089-8About the Author(s)
John A. Jackson is the author of the prize-winning Big Beat Heat: Alan Freed and the Early Years of Rock & Roll . He lives in Amity Harbor, New York.
