airwaves. Fresh off their headline-grabbing
investigation into rigged television quiz
programs, the US Congress turned up the
pressure on radio broadcasters in late 1959.
Station honchos began to panic, quizzing
their jocks as to whether they’d accepted
any cash to play specifi c songs. The ones
who admitted they had or dared to defend
payola publicly were either let go or jumped
ship before they were fi red – three at
Detroit’s WJBK alone.
American Bandstand producer
Tony Mammarella divulged he
was falsely listed as composer
of Charlie Gracie’s 1957 hit
Butterfl y, which had been
played regularly on the show,
with Mammarella picking up
$7,000 in royalties that ostensibly
went to Clark. Powerful King
Records boss Syd Nathan
complained that he was fed up
with paying off jocks, claiming
he’d been laying out $2,000 aTOMMY
“DR JIVE”SMALLS
THE GEORGIA-BORN
DJ WAS ALAN
FREED’S RIVALUnlike the way it was in Cleveland, Alan
Freed wouldn’t exclusively own the R&B
airwaves when he arrived in New York
City in 1954. There would be competition
from other DJs, notably Tommy “Dr Jive”
Smalls. His daily late-afternoon
programme on WWRL radio already had
him positioned as the man to beat.
The Savannah, Georgia-born Smalls
had been his hometown’s fi rst black
DJ when he manned the mic at WSAV in
1947 before relocating to New York in- As Dr Jive, he specialised in playing
R&B and doo-wop on WWRL, and he
presented live R&B shows at the fabled
Apollo Theater.
The rest of the country became aware
of Smalls on 20 November, 1955, when TV
variety show host Ed Sullivan allowed Dr
Jive to emcee a groundbreaking R&B
revue on his CBS-TV network programme.
Smalls opened his segment with Bo
Diddley doing his self-named smash,
followed by LaVern Baker belting Tweedle
Dee, The Five Keys delivering Ling Ting
Tong, and for a grand fi nale, sax honker
Willis “Gator” Jackson cutting loose on a
frenetic instrumental. Smalls had given
the nation’s TV viewers their fi rst taste of
honest-to-goodness rock’n’roll.
Like Freed, Smalls died young – at age
45 in 1972.
month and stating that payola was
“plain blackmail.”FREED REFUSED TO sign an affi davit
at WABC radio (where he’d landed after
WINS fi red him) stating that he hadn’t
participated in any payola shenanigans,
so he was summarily fi red in November
of 1959. He lost his programme on
WNEW–TV right after that. Similarly,
Clark wouldn’t sign anything
either until the affi davit was
rewritten to suit his situation,
but he remained employed
by the ABC-TV network
nonetheless. Meanwhile, the
Federal Trade Commission
went after a handful of labels,
charging RCA Victor, Atlantic,
Roulette, George Goldner’s Gone
and End labels, Herald, ABC-
Paramount, and Jerry Blaine’s
Cosnat Distributing and Jay-Gee
Records with payola.American Bandstand host Dick
Clark deep in discussion with
producer Tony MammarellaButterfl y was ‘written’
by ‘Anthony September’
(actually a pseudonym
of Anthony
Mammarella)Archive^Photos/Get
tyArchive^PL^ /Ala
my
Stock^ Phot
oThe payola scandal