Vintage Rock – September-October 2019

Berry’s ’55 debut smash Maybellene (Berry

was understandably miffed). Chess had

previously listed Freed as co-writer on The

Moonglows’ hit Sincerely.

Along with his nightly radio programme

at WINS, Freed resumed his rock and roll

stage show presentations on a bigger scale

at top New York theatres, raking in huge

box office tallies. Fans outside the New York

area were exposed to Freed’s rapid patter

on a nationally syndicated radio programme

and in a series of low-budget film musicals

• Rock Around the Clock; Don’t Knock The
  Rock; Rock Rock Rock!; Mister Rock And
  Roll; Go, Johnny, Go! – that Freed co-starred
  in. He launched his own music publishing
  firm, and Coral Records even signed him to
  a contract, though he did little more than
  overdub enthusiastic interjections on lively
  instrumentals by some of New York’s top
  R&B sessioneers.
  Freed made plenty of powerful industry
  friends in New York, most notably Morris
  Levy, the gangland-tied nightclub owner
  who became Freed’s manager and head of
  Roulette Records (which Freed initially had
  a piece of ). Label bosses and distributors
  grateful for Freed’s airplay of their product
  dreamed up all kinds of novel ways to show

ONCE CLARK ASSUMED

THE HOSTING REINS

OF AMERICAN

BANDSTAND, FREED

HAD HIMSELF A

WORTHY RIVAL

their undying gratitude, even paying the

mortgage on Freed’s Connecticut estate.

Freed steadfastly described their largesse

as “gifts” for his expertise in picking hits

rather than outright bribes in exchange for

the spins.

ONCE CLARK ASSUMED the

hosting reins of American Bandstand from

the disgraced Bob Horn in 1957, Freed had

himself a worthy rival. Broadcasting out

of a Philadelphia television studio with a

cast of appealing teens at his side and rock

and roll and pop stars stopping by daily to

mime their hits, the clean-cut young Clark

made Freed look like a piker when it came

to dipping his hands into a multitude of

musical pies.

In addition to operating his own music

publishing firm (Sea-Lark) that acquired

promising songs and gave them massive

exposure on his programme, Clark owned

a piece of the local labels Jamie and Swan,

regularly featuring their artists’ latest

releases on the show. The musical guests

had to sign their performance fees for the

show back over to Clark’s company.

There’s no denying that Clark knew

how to fashion a hit. His sage advice to

songwriter Johnny Madara regarding one of

his compositions with Dave White resulted

in a smash for Philly vocal group Danny &

The Juniors. “Dick heard Do The Bop, and

he said, ‘Well, you know, the Bop isn’t that

big around the country. Why don’t you guys

rewrite the lyric, maybe make it something

about record hops?’” said Madara. “‘Do The

Bop – At The Hop!’”

Label owners and disc jockeys entered

into all kinds of shady relationships. Hy

Weiss, the garrulous owner of New York’s

Old Town Records, became known as the

inventor of “the $50 handshake”—a crude

but efficient way of greasing important DJ

palms. It wasn’t unusual for record spinners

to own music publishing firms and record

labels, promote rock and roll shows, write

songs, or cut platters and then play their

creations on the air, their listeners none the

Bernard Goldstein displays a chart that

purports to show how 27% of the records

played on Dick Clark’s TV show over a

two-year period were songs in which

Clark may have had a financial stake Bet

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