The masses of African Americans who have been deprived of educational and economic opportunity are almost totally dependent on radio as their means of relating to the society at large…Television speaks not to their needs, but to upper middle class America…No one knows the importance of [radio deejay] Tall Paul White to the massive nonviolent demonstrations of the youth in Birmingham in 1963; or the funds raised by Purvis Spann for the Mississippi Freedom Summer Project of 1964; or the consistent fundraising and voter education done for the Southern Christian Leadership Conference and the Civil Rights Movement by Georgie Woods, my good friend in Philadelphia…In a real sense, you have paved the way for social and political change by creating a powerful cultural bridge between black and white…I salute you.
—Martin Luther King Jr., keynote address, National Association of Radio and Television Announcers Convention, Atlanta, 1967[i]

Starting in 1957, millions of teenagers across the country tuned into American Bandstand every afternoon to watch Philadelphia teenagers dance to the most popular music of the day. The history of American Bandstand, however, starts not on national television, but with the rise of rock and roll in Philadelphia through radio, concerts, record hops, talent shows, and local television. Like youth across the country, Philadelphia teenagers found meaning in rock and roll, but they did so in ways that were mediated by deejays that sought to capitalize on the music’s popularity with youth. At the same time, these deejays introduced young people to the music that helped form their teenage communities. Attending to the local roots of rock and roll, and the deejays that led this development, highlights the complex mix of commerce and community in the growth and popularization of rock and roll. In addition to showing how American Bandstand emerged from a fertile musical culture in Philadelphia, this local perspective also makes it clear that the show’s particular mix of commerce and community was not the only available option.

This section begins with Georgie Woods, a leading rock and roll deejay, who also advanced civil rights in Philadelphia. Woods’ civil rights activism developed out of his experience working with black teenagers as a deejay and concert promoter as well as his concern with the lack of black television personalities and black-owned broadcast stations in the city. Woods used his radio show and concerts to raise money for the NAACP Legal Defense fund and to promote civil rights protests, in which he also participated. Woods drew praise from Martin Luther King for his work. By merging his critiques of the media industry with civil rights work in support of the black teenagers who sustained his broadcast career, Woods offered a model for what music could achieve beyond commercial success. In addition to Woods, black deejay Mitch Thomas hosted a locally televised dance show that drew black teenagers from across the Philadelphia region and was watched by teenagers across racial lines. The Mitch Thomas Show was among the first television shows with a black host (it debuted fifteen years before Soul Train). Thomas’ show highlighted the creative talents of black teenagers and brought images of these teens into Philadelphia homes. The show also offered a mediated space for interracial association and influenced many of American Bandstand’s dancers.

Rock and roll developed in Philadelphia thanks largely to Woods, Thomas, and their teenage audiences. Dick Clark tapped into this excitement for rock and roll, first as a radio deejay, and later as the host of American Bandstand. Clark acknowledged that Woods’ and Thomas’ programs influenced the music and dance styles on his show. A talented cultural producer in his own right, Clark guided Bandstand from a local program to a national show with lucrative sponsorships. Woods, Thomas, and Clark all capitalized professionally on young people’s interest in rock and roll. The three differed, however, in their visions of what music meant to Philadelphia’s teenagers. For Woods, music became a way to raise money and awareness for civil rights. For Thomas, music offered a safe leisure space for teenagers and, through his television show, made black youth culture more visible. For Clark, music was the best way to appeal to, and become famous among, the growing youth demographic. As three of the people who did the most to shape Philadelphia’s rock and roll scene, the careers of Woods, Thomas, and Clark demonstrate how rock and roll became big business, but also how it was capable of being something more.

As the above quote from Dr. King suggests, Woods was part of a generation of radio deejays who played important roles in local black communities across the country. Deejays like “Tall Paul” Dudley White in Birmingham; Purvis Spann, Herb Kent, and Wesley South in Chicago; Spider Burks in St. Louis; Johnny Otis and Magnificent Montague in L.A.; and Jocko Henderson in Philadelphia and New York, raised money and recruited members for local and national civil rights organizations, serving as what historian William Barlow calls the “media nerve centers of the civil rights movement.”[ii] Black deejays played important community roles, more so than their white counterparts, because local radio remained the most important form of media among black consumers. Advertisers looked to black deejays to sell products and by 1963 there were over 800 “black appeal” stations, most of them white-owned.[iii] These commercial interests were important for black deejays like Woods, but they were only part of the story. Through their actions, both inside and outside of the broadcast studio, many black deejays were “local people” in the sense that historians Jeanne Theoharis and Komozi Woodard use the term. That is, they exhibited “a sense of accountability and an ethical commitment to the community” that went beyond economic gain.[iv] Martha Jean “the Queen” Steinberg, who broadcast in Memphis and Detroit, recalled that the mission of black deejays was “to serve, to sell, to inform, to entertain, and to educate our community.”[v] The localism of black radio, therefore, both constrained and enabled black deejays. Georgie Woods would never get a shot at national television like Dick Clark, but he would forge relationships with his community of local listeners that enabled him to use music to advance the struggle for civil rights.

Georgie Woods’ Rock ‘n Roll Show
While Bob Horn’s televised Bandstand still played white pop music and copies of black rhythm and blues songs performed by white artists, deejays like Georgie Woods and Mitch Thomas started playing rhythm and blues music and calling it “rock ‘n’ roll.”[vi] Woods and Thomas held rock and roll concerts in large arenas and hosted record hops at skating rinks and recreation centers in addition to their daily radio shows. Vocal harmony groups in the city’s black neighborhoods, moreover, performed at these neighborhood shows and developed singing styles that influenced and were influenced by what they heard on the radio. Beyond the walls of American Bandstand’s studio, then, black broadcasters and teenagers made Philadelphia a vibrant rock and roll scene.

While radio was the most important medium for the development of rock and roll in Philadelphia, Georgie “The Guy with the Goods” Woods became the city’s most prominent black broadcaster. Woods was born in rural Barnett, Georgia in 1927, the ninth of eleven children. Like many black families in the area, Woods’ family faced consistent threats from the Ku Klux Klan, culminating when the Klan burned a cross in his family’s yard. While his father continued his work as a preacher in Georgia, Woods’ mother moved the family to Harlem in 1936 to escape this racial violence and to find better employment and educational opportunities. After his mother died, Woods dropped out of high school at fourteen to work, and later spent two years in the Army before returning to New York City. Woods got his start in radio with WWRL, a black-oriented station in New York, and came to Philadelphia’s WHAT in 1953 after one of their deejays quit.[vii]

Although Woods was less experienced than WHAT’s other popular black deejays, Doug “Jocko” Henderson and Kae Williams, he distinguished himself by pitching his show to teenagers. Influenced by the popularity of Alan Freed’s radio program in New York, Woods started describing his program as “rock ‘n’ roll,” a black slang term that Freed brought into the mainstream. Freed’s large interracial rock and roll audiences impressed Woods. In January 1955, for example, Woods described these interracial audiences in his weekly column in the Philadelphia Tribune, “Rock and Roll with Georgie Woods”:

There is a change taking place in the music industry of America, especially in the so-called rhythm and blues field. Today, as never before, white teenagers are buying rhythm and blues tunes. Reason—the younger generation is away from the old idea that rhythm and blues music is strictly for Negroes. In this writer’s opinion, Rock and Roll music is the rhythm of America and there are many who will agree. Here’s an example of how the change in taking place. In New York City a disc jockey by the name of Allan [sic] Freed…plays only rock and roll music and yet he has more white listeners than Negro listeners…he gave an affair at the St. Nick’s arena and…it went like this: The affair was a complete sellout—30,000 strong for both shows at $2.00 per, and each nite there were more whites in attendance than Negroes…A change for the better is taking place and I for one can’t see any wrong in that change.[viii]

For Woods, “rock and roll” did not refer to a new type of music, but rather to a larger consumer market for rhythm and blues music. Already a popular radio personality, Woods started billing himself as the “King of Rock ‘n’ Roll” and organized his first rock and roll stage show at The Met in North Philadelphia in April 1955. This first concert was followed by shows in Center City at The Academy of Music and the Mastbaum Theater. [ix] Each of these shows featured a mix of rhythm and blues singers like La Vern Baker, big bands like the Buddy Johnson Orchestra, and vocal harmony groups such as The Roamers. More importantly for Woods, each concert sold out. The Academy of Music show, the Philadelphia Tribune reported, “was packed and jammed with over 5,000 yelling, screaming high school students.”[x] Woods’ used his radio show to promote these concerts, and this cross-promotion prompted a dispute with station management that led him to leave WHAT and sign with the rival black-oriented station WDAS.[xi] He maintained his popularity after switching stations and with each of these concerts Woods established himself as the leading rock and roll personality in Philadelphia.[xii]

As he promoted these large stage shows, Woods also hosted smaller dances and concerts in the city’s majority black neighborhoods. Although teens paid only twenty-five or fifty-cents to attend the record hops, and one or two dollars for the larger concerts, these events helped to supplement Woods’ radio salary of $25 a week.[xiii] Beyond this financial motivation, the concerts and record hops also established a closer relationship between Woods and his teenage audience. Woods recalled that “anyplace where a number of people could gather, we [held a dance]. It wasn’t just one special place […] we used playgrounds, gyms or auditoriums to do the dances.”[xiv] Combining recorded music, live performances, and dancing, these neighborhood events were “community theaters,” which music scholar Guthrie Ramsey describes as central to the cultural experience and memory of black music.[xv] As rock and roll was starting to take off nationally, these local concerts and record hops established black community spaces as the local sites through which this music could be experienced. These events often featured vocal harmony groups made up of teenagers from the neighborhood.[xvi] A North Philadelphia group called The Re-Vels , for example, performed frequently at the Richard Allen Community Centre in their neighborhood.[xvii] Weldon McDougall, who lived in West Philadelphia and sang with the Philadelphia Larks, remembered that these talent shows provided a rare opportunity to venture into other neighborhoods:

You didn’t go to too many different neighborhoods to go to any dance. Because again, they didn’t want you to mess with their girls. You had to have a good reason [to go]. Like the Larks, we’d sing in community centers and also we would sing in talent shows in other parts of the city, like in North Philly at the Richard Allen projects, which I lived in [when I was younger]. So when they said they had a talent show over there, I said ‘oh man, let’s go over there’…now here I am from West Philly going to the Richard Allen projects, and we didn’t have cars so we caught the trolley. And we’d get off and walk on over there. And lo and behold here comes a gang. And they said, ‘What are y’all doing around here?’ And we said, ‘We’re in the talent show.’ And they said, ‘Y’all can’t sing. The best group in the world is the Re-Vels.’ They lived in the Richard Allen projects. And they said, ‘We gonna kick your ass if y’all can’t out sing the Re-Vels.’ They said, ‘sing something.’ So then I broke out, and they said ‘man, y’all sound pretty good.’ And they said ‘listen, we’re gonna come to the talent show, but I don’t think y’all can sing as good as the Re-Vels.’ And what it really was, these guys, they liked us, so we weren’t in danger of getting beat up. But they still didn’t like us enough to beat the Re-Vels, so they would come to the talent show and they’d be hollering and screaming. It was exciting you know?[xviii]

Like the Re-Vels and the Larks, several other singing groups formed among teenagers in the city’s black neighborhoods. These vocal harmony groups were part of “the forgotten third of rock n’ roll.”[xix] Stuart Goosman, Robert Pruter, and Philip Groia have shown that vocal harmony took off in Baltimore, Washington, D.C., Chicago, Los Angeles, and New York as it did in Philadelphia. These singing groups, usually comprised of blue-collar young men from urban neighborhoods, drew from pop, blues, and novelty songs to create a smooth form of R&B that reached national popularity with groups like the Orioles, Clovers, Cadillacs, Cardinals, Flamingoes, and Moonglows. At the local level, vocal harmony groups practiced in street corners, school hallways, recreation centers, and any available neighborhood space. Many groups became famous in their communities without ever recording an album.[xx] The Philadelphia Tribune ran pictures and stories about local groups such as the Guy Tones, the Dreamers, the Opals, Ronald Jones and the Classmates, and the Satellites.[xxi] At a time when discrimination limited educational and employment opportunities for black youth, and stories on juvenile delinquency appeared frequently in the mainstream press, these “local teens make good” articles highlighted music as a productive activity that could lead to a career and financial success. Indeed, several recreation centers and church groups also put on talent shows for teenagers as a way to curb juvenile delinquency and gang violence.[xxii] While most vocal groups only performed at neighborhood showcases, several groups signed recording contracts and released singles, while other individuals, like Weldon McDougal, used their music experience to go into music promotion or production.[xxiii] Regardless of their level of commercial success, each of these groups contributed to the development of rock and roll in Philadelphia.

Mitch Thomas, Television Pioneer
If Georgie Woods’ became the most prominent rock and roll personality in Philadelphia and teenage singing groups and their fans provided the energy that fueled the music’s growth in the city’s neighborhoods, Mitch Thomas brought black rock and roll performers and teenage fans to television. Born in West Palm Beach, Florida in 1922, Thomas’s family moved to New Brunswick, New Jersey in the 1930s. Thomas graduated from Delaware State College and served in the Army before becoming the first black disc jockey in Wilmington, Delaware in 1949. In 1952, Thomas moved to a larger station (WILM) that played music by black R&B artists. By early-1955, Thomas also had a radio show on Philadelphia’s WDAS, where he worked with Woods and “Jocko” Henderson. When a television opportunity opened up in Thomas’ home market of Wilmington, Thomas got the call over these better-known Philadelphia-based radio hosts.[xxiv]

The Mitch Thomas Show debuted on August 13, 1955 on WPFH, an unaffiliated television station that broadcast to Philadelphia and the Delaware Valley from Wilmington.[xxv] The show, which broadcast every Saturday, featured musical guests and teens dancing to records. In its basic production the show resembled Bandstand (which at the time was still a local program hosted by Bob Horn) and other locally broadcast teenage dance programs in other cities. The Mitch Thomas Show stood out from these other shows, however, because it was hosted by a black deejay and featured a studio audience of black teenagers. Otis Givens, who lived in South Philadelphia and attended Ben Franklin High School remembered that he watched the show every weekend for a year before he finally made the trip to Wilmington and danced on the show. “When I got back to Philly, and everyone had seen me on TV, I was big time,” Givens recalled. “We weren’t able to get into Bandstand, [but] The Mitch Thomas Show gave me a little fame. I was sort of a celebrity at local dances.”[xxvi] Similarly, South Philadelphia teen Donna Brown recalled in a 1995 interview: “I remember at the same time that Bandstand used to come on, there used to be a black dance thing that came on, and it was The Mitch Thomas Show […] And that was something for the black kids to really identify with. Because you would look at Bandstand and we thought it was a joke.”[xxvii] The Mitch Thomas Show also became a frequent topic for the black teenagers who wrote the Philadelphia Tribune’s “Teen-Talk” columns. Much in the same way that national teen magazines followed American Bandstand, the Tribune’s teen writers kept tabs on the performers featured on Thomas’ show, and described the teenagers who formed fan clubs to support their favorite musical artists and deejays.[xxviii] The fan gossip shared in these columns documented the growth of a youth culture among the black teenagers whom Bandstand excluded. It was one of these fan clubs, moreover, that in 1957 made the most forceful challenge to Bandstand’s discriminatory admissions policies.[xxix] Although many of these teens watched both Bandstand and Thomas’ program, as Bandstand grew in popularity and expanded into a national program, The Mitch Thomas Show was the only television program that represented Philadelphia’s black rock and roll fans.

WPFH’s decision to provide airtime for this groundbreaking show was influenced more by economics than a concern for racial equality. Eager to compete with Bandstand and the afternoon offerings on the other network-affiliated stations, WPFH hoped that Thomas’ show would appeal to both black and white youth in the same way as black-oriented radio.[xxx] The station’s bet on Thomas was part of a larger strategy that included hiring white disc jockeys Joe Grady and Ed Hurst to host a daily afternoon dance program that started at 5 p.m., after Bandstand concluded its daily broadcast.[xxxi] While The Grady and Hurst Show broadcast five times a week, it was the weekly Mitch Thomas Show that proved to be the more influential program.

Drawing on his contacts as a radio host and the talents of the teenagers who appeared on his show, Thomas’ program helped shape the music tastes and dance styles of young people in Philadelphia. In a 1998 interview for the documentary Black Philadelphia Memories, Thomas recalled that “the show was so strong that I could play a record one time and break it wide open.”[xxxii] Indeed, Thomas’ show hosted some of the biggest names in rock and roll, including Ray Charles, Little Richard, and the Moonglows. Thomas’s show also featured several vocal harmony groups from the Philadelphia area.[xxxiii] Like Woods, Thomas promoted large stage shows in the Philadelphia area as well as small record hops at skating rinks.[xxxiv] In a 1986 interview with the Wilmington News Journal, Thomas remembered that these events were often racially integrated, “The whites that came, they just said, ‘Well I’m gonna see the artist and that’s it.’ I brought Ray Charles in there on a Sunday night, and it was just beautiful to look out there and see everything just nice.”[xxxv] The music and dance styles on his show also appealed to the white teenagers who danced on American Bandstand.[xxxvi] Because the show influenced American Bandstand during its first year as a national program, teenagers across the country learned dances popularized by The Mitch Thomas Show.

Despite its popularity among black and white teenagers, Thomas’ show remained on television for only three years, from 1955 to 1958. The failure of the station that broadcast The Mitch Thomas Show underscores the tenuous nature of unaffiliated local programs like Thomas’. Storer Broadcasting Company purchased WPFH in 1956.[xxxvii] Storer frequently bought and sold stations and, at the time of the WPFH acquisition, Storer also owned stations in Toledo, Cleveland, Atlanta, Miami, and Portland (OR). Storer changed WPFH’s call letters to WVUE, and hoped to move the station’s facilities from Wilmington closer to Philadelphia. Their plan faltered and the station suffered significant operating losses over the next year.[xxxviii] Thomas’ show was among the first victims of the station’s financial problems. While advertisers started to pay more attention to black consumers in the 1950s, a “product-identification” stigma lingered throughout the decade, preventing many brand from sponsoring black programs.[xxxix] WVUE cancelled The Mitch Thomas Show in June 1958, citing the program’s lack of sponsorship and low ratings compared to the network shows in Thomas’ Saturday timeslot.[xl] Shortly after firing Thomas, Storer announced plans to sell WVUE in order to buy a station in Milwaukee (FCC regulations required multiple broadcast owners to divest from one license in order to buy another). Unable to find a buyer for WVUE, Storer turned the station license back to the government, and the station went dark in September 1958.[xli] The manager of WVUE later recalled to broadcasting historian Gerry Wilkerson: “No one can make a profit with a TV station unless affiliated with NBC, CBS or ABC.”[xlii] As Clark and American Bandstand celebrated the one-year anniversary of the show’s national debut, local broadcast competition brought The Mitch Thomas Show’s groundbreaking three-year run to an unceremonious end. Mitch Thomas continued to work as a radio disc jockey through the 1960s, until he left broadcasting in 1969 to work as a counselor to gang members in Wilmington.[xliii]

Thomas’ short-lived television career resembled the experiences of African-American entertainers who hosted music and variety shows in this era. The Nat King Cole Show (1956-57) failed to attract national advertisers and lasted only a year. Before Nat King Cole, shows hosted by black singers Lorenzo Fuller (1947) and Billy Daniels (1952) and the variety program Sugar Hill Times (1949) also faired poorly. Among local programs, the Al Benson Show and Richard Stamz’ Open the Door Richard, both had brief periods of success in 1950s Chicago. Two other local dance programs featuring black teens proved more successful than The Mitch Thomas Show. Teenage Frolics, hosted by Raleigh (NC) deejay J.D. Lewis, aired on Saturdays from 1958 to 1983, and Washington D.C.’s Teenarama Dance Party, hosted by Bob King, aired from 1963 to 1970. Most famously, Soul Train started broadcasting locally from Chicago in 1970 before being picked up for national syndication from 1971 to 2006. Fifteen years before Soul Train, however, Mitch Thomas tried to bring the creative talents of black teenagers to television.[xliv]

Georgie Woods viewed Thomas’ breakthrough television show as a first step in securing more black-oriented, black-produced, and black-owned media. As Woods grew in popularity through the 1950s, he became increasingly vocal about these goals. Starting with these critical appraisals of the media industry, Woods used his platform as a broadcaster to become a prominent civil rights activist in the early-1960s. Woods’ early work as Philadelphia’s “king of rock and roll” made this later work possible. As Woods’ radio show and concerts continued to attract larger audiences, rock and roll thrived in Philadelphia. Teenage vocal harmony groups and their fans kept the music going at the neighborhood level and Mitch Thomas highlighted the talents of these musical artists and teenage dancers every Saturday afternoon. On the eve of Bandstand’s national debut in 1957 the television show was part of the local development of rock and roll in Philadelphia, but the most influential performances took place outside of Bandstand’s television studio.

[i] Martin Luther King Jr., “Transforming a Neighborhood into a Brotherhood,” keynote address, National Association of Radio and Television Announcers Convention, 1967. Quoted in Barlow, Voice Over, 195.
[ii] Barlow, Voice Over, 211. On the importance of radio deejays in black communities, see Ward, Radio and the Struggle for Civil Rights in the South; Mark Newman, Entrepreneurs of Profit and Pride: From Black-Appeal to Radio Soul (New York: Praeger, 1988); Johnny Otis, Upside Your Head!: Rhythm and Blues on Central Avenue (Hanover: Wesleyan University Press, 1993); Otis, Listen to the Lambs (1968; Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2009); George Lipsitz, Midnight at the Barrelhouse: The Johnny Otis Story (Minneapolis: University of Minnesota Press, 2010); Magnificent Montague, Burn Baby! BURN!: The Autobiography of Magnificent Montague (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2003); Richard Stamz, Give ‘Em Soul, Richard!: Race, Radio, & Rhythm & Blues in Chicago (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 2010); Cantor, Wheelin' on Beale.
[iii] On the development of “black-appeal” radio, see Barlow, Voice Over, 108-33; Newman, Entreprenuers of Profit and Pride, 79-92; and Weems, Desegregating the Dollar, 42-55.
[iv] Theoharis and Woodard, “Introduction,” in Groundwork, ed. Theoharis and Woodard, 3.
[v] Quoted in Barlow, Voice Over, 124.
[vi] Philadelphia deejay Georgie Woods used “rock and roll” to describe the artists who performed at his concerts and the music he played on his radio show. While this music can also be described at rhythm and blues, throughout this chapter I use rock and roll because it was the term preferred by Woods and the common term used by the Philadelphia Tribune. For example, see Georgie Woods, “Rock and Roll with Georgie Woods,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 25, 1955; “The George Woods Rock ‘N Roll Show,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 23, 1955; “Rock ‘N Roll,” Philadelphia Tribune, July 30, 1955.
[vii] James Spady, Georgie Woods: I’m Only a Man (Philadelphia: Snack-Pac Book Division, 1992), 15-19, 40-41; Chris Perry, III, “Leading Philly D-J’s Writing for Tribune,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 22, 1955.
[viii] Georgie Woods, “Rock and Roll with Georgie Woods,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 25, 1955.
[ix] “The George Woods Rock ‘N Roll Show,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 23, 1955; “In Person George Woods Rock ‘N Roll,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 8, 1955; Archie Miller, “Fun and Thrills in Philly,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 29, 1955; “Big Rock and Roll Show at Mastbaum,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 10, 1955; “All New Rock ‘N Roll Show,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 13, 1955.
[x] John Albert, “Georgie Woods’ ‘Rock and Roll Show’ Draws 5,000 At Academy,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 18, 1955.
[xi] “Mystery Shrouds Rift Between DeeJay George Woods and WHAT,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 15, 1955; “‘King’ Woods on New Throne,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 14, 1956.
[xii] “Georgie Woods Takes Over Top Spot at Station WDAS,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 24, 1956.
[xiii] Spady, Georgie Woods, 94-95.
[xiv] Quoted in John Roberts, From Hucklebuck to Hip-Hop: Social Dance in the African American Community in Philadelphia (Philadelphia: Odunde Inc., 1995), 46-47.
[xv] Guthrie Ramsey, Jr., Race Music: Black Cultures from Bebop to Hip-Hop (Berkeley: University of California Press, 2003), 4. On dance spaces in Philadelphia, see Benita Brown, “‘Boppin’ at Miss Mattie’s Place’: African-American Grassroots Dance Culture in North Philadelphia From the Speakeasy to the Uptown Theater During the 1960s” (Ph.D. diss, Temple University, 1999).
[xvi] “Teen-Agers Welcome Disc Jockeys,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 12, 1954.
[xvii] “Crediting the Philadelphia Tribune [Re-Vels picture],” Philadelphia Tribune, August 2, 1955; “Smiles of Appreciation [Re-Vels picture],” Philadelphia Tribune, May 19, 1956; Art Peters, “Huge Crowd Sees Talent Contest at Allen Homes Auditorium,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 14, 1957; “Guest Artists,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 17, 1957; “If You’re Confused,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 7, 1958; Dolores Lewis, “Philly Date Line,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 4, 1958.
[xviii] McDougal interview.
[xix] Anthony Gribin and Matthew Schiff, Doo-Wop: The Forgotten Third of Rock ‘N Roll (Iola, WI: Krause Publications, 1992)
[xx] On the development of vocal harmony groups, see Stuart Goosman, Group Harmony: The Black Urban Roots of Rhythm & Blues (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania, 2005); Robert Pruter, Doowop: The Chicago Scene (Urbana: University of Illinois Press, 1996); Philip Groia, They All Sang on the Corner: A Second Look at New York City’s Rhythm and Blues Vocal Groups (New York: Phillie Dee Enterprises, 1983); Montague, Burn Baby! BURN!, 67.
[xxi] On the Philadelphia Tribune’s coverage of local singing groups, see “Appearing in Tribune Home Show [Guytones picture]” Philadelphia Tribune, May 22, 1956; “Quintet Hailed by Rock and Roll Fans,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 9, 1956; “Winners of Talent Show [The Satellites photo],” Philadelphia Tribune, March 19, 1957; “Dynatones,” Philadelphia Tribune, September 11, 1956; “Teen-Age ‘Superiors’ Debut on M.T. Show,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 19, 1957; Laurine Blackson, “Penny Sez,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 3, 1957; Art Peters, “Rosen Homes Teenage Vocal Group Gets Recording Contract,” December 21, 1957; “Lee Andrews and the Hearts [photo],” Philadelphia Tribune, April 19, 1958; Gil Zimmerman, “Person to Person,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 3, 1958; “Lee Andrews and the Hearts [photo],” Philadelphia Tribune, June 7, 1958; “Fast Rising Vocal Group [The Five Sounds photo]” Philadelphia Tribune, February 10, 1959; “The Decisions,” Philadelphia Tribune, May 5, 1959; “Their Big Day [Dee Jays photo],” Philadelphia Tribune, January 12, 1960; Malcolm Poindexter, “Local Vocal Group Sets Their Sights on Stardom,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 15, 1960; “‘The Presidentials’ Set Sights on Instrumentals and Vocal Success,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 29, 1960; “The Da’prees [photo],” Philadelphia Tribune, March 25, 1961; “Chirpers [Joyettes photo],” Philadelphia Tribune, April 2, 1963; “Big Sound [The Supremes photo]” Philadelphia Tribune, April 6, 1963; “The Exceptions,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 16, 1964; “Members of one of Philly’s Swingingest Young Groups [Bobby and the Lovetones photo],” Philadelphia Tribune, June 23, 1964.
[xxii] On the recreation activities sponsored by black community centers and religious institutions, see V.P. Franklin, “Operation Street Corner: The Wharton Centre and the Juvenile Gang Problem in Philadelphia,” in W.E.B. DuBois, Race, and the City: The Philadelphia Negro and its Legacy, ed. Michael Katz and Thomas Sugrue (Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press, 1998), 195-215; “Sigma Iota Gamma Sorority [photo],” Philadelphia Tribune, November 9, 1957; Theordore Graham, “300 Youths Enjoying St. Matthew’s Program,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 16, 1957; Muriel Bonner, “St. Monica’s Teens Have Active Program,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 23, 1957; Graham, “300 Youths, Adults Hail Program at Zion Church,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 30, 1957; Graham, “Youth Recreation Haven at Tasker Street Church,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 3, 1957; Graham, “Program of St. Charles Parish Asset to Youths,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 10, 1957; Graham, “Zion Community Center Meeting Youth Challenge,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 21, 1957; Graham, “Wharton Center Program Has Aided Over 55,000,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 21, 1957; “Rho Phi Omega Fraternity [photo],” Philadelphia Tribune, December 31, 1957; Jack Saunders, “I Love a Parade,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 14, 1958; Charles Layne, “St. Rita’s Rock n’ Roll Revival a Real Swingeroo,” Philadelphia Tribune, September 26, 1961.
[xxiii] McDougal interview.
[xxiv] Eustace Gay, “Pioneer In TV Field Doing Marvelous Job Furnishing Youth With Recreation,” Philadelphia Tribune, February 11, 1956; Gary Mullinax, “Radio Guided DJ to Stars,” The News Journal Papers (Wilmington, DE), January 28, 1986, p. D4.
[xxv] “The NAACP Reports: WCAM (Radio),” August 7, 1955, NAACP collection, URB 6, box 21, folder 423, TUUA.
[xxvi] Otis Givens, interviewed by author, June 27, 2007, transcript in author’s possession.
[xxvii] Quoted in Roberts, From Hucklebuck to Hip-Hop, 37.
[xxviii] On the Philadelphia Tribune’s “Teen-Talk” coverage of Mitch Thomas’ show, see “They’re ‘Movin’ and Groovin,’” Philadelphia Tribune, July 31, 1956; Dolores Lewis, “Talking With Mitch,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 9, 1957; Lewis, “Stage Door Spotlight,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 9, 1957; “Teen-Age ‘Superiors’ Debut on M.T. Show”; Laurine Blackson, “Penny Sez,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 7, 1957; Dolores Lewis, “Philly Date Line,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 7, 1957; “Queen Lane Apartment Group [photo],” Philadelphia Tribune, December 7, 1957; Jimmy Rivers, “Crickets’ Corner,” Philadelphia Tribune, January 21, 1958; Edith Marshall, “Current Hops,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 1, 1958; Marshall, “Current Hops,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 8, 1958; Marshall, “Talk of the Teens,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 22, 1958; Marshall, “Current Hops,” Philadelphia Tribune, March 22, 1958; Marshall, “Current Hops,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 5, 1958; Rivers, “Crickets’ Corner,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 22, 1958; “Presented in Charity Show [Mitch Thomas photo],” Philadelphia Tribune, April 22, 1958; Blackson, “Penny Sez,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 26, 1958; Rivers, “Crickets’ Corner,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 29, 1958.
[xxix] Art Peters, “Negroes Crack Barrier of Bandstand TV Show,” Philadelphia Tribune, October 5, 1957; “Couldn’t Keep Them Out [photo],” Philadelphia Tribune, October 5, 1957; Delores Lewis, “Bobby Brooks’ Club Lists 25 Members,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 14, 1957.
[xxx] On the crossover appeal of black-oriented radio, see Ward, Radio and the Struggle for Civil Rights in the South; Barlow, Voice Over; and Susan Douglas, Listening In, 219-255.
[xxxi] As noted in chapter one, The Grady and Hurst Show was a televised version of the Joe Grady and Ed Hurst’s 950 Club. The teens who danced during the 950 Club radio broadcast influenced WFIL’s decision to develop Bandstand. On the The Grady and Hurst Show, see Jackson, American Bandstand, 28, 48.
[xxxii] “Black Philadelphia Memories” dir. Trudi Brown (WHYY-TV12, 1999).
[xxxiii] “Teen-Age ‘Superiors’ Debut on M.T. Show,” Philadelphia Tribune, November 19, 1957.
[xxxiv] On Mitch Thomas’ concerts, see Archie Miller, “Fun & Thrills,” Philadelphia Tribune, December 4, 1956; “Rock ‘n Roll Show & Dance,” Philadelphia Tribune, April 19, 1958; “Swingin’ the Blues,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 5, 1958; “Mitch Thomas Show Attracts Over 2000,” Philadelphia Tribune, August 18, 1958; “Don’t Miss the Mitch Thomas Rock & Roll Show,” Philadelphia Tribune, July 2, 1960.
[xxxv] Mullinax, “Radio Guided DJ to Stars.”
[xxxvi] Ray Smith, interviewed by author, August 10, 2006, transcript in author’s possession.
[xxxvii] Herbert Howard, Multiple Ownership in Television Broadcasting (New York: Arno Press, 1979), 142-147.
[xxxviii] Ibid.
[xxxix] Barlow, Voice Over, 129; Giacomo Ortizano, “One Your Radio: A Descriptive History of Rhythm-and-blues Radio During the 1950s,” (Ph.D. diss, Ohio University , 1993), 391-423.
[xl] Art Peters, “Mitch Thomas Fired From TV Dance Party Job,” Philadelphia Tribune, June 17, 1958.
[xli] Howard, Multiple Ownership in Television Broadcasting, 146.
[xlii] Gerry Wilkerson, Broadcast Pioneers of Philadelphia, http://www.geocities.com/broadcastpioneers/whyy1957.html (accessed March 1, 2007).
[xliii] Mullinax, “Radio Guided DJ to Stars.”
[xliv] MacDonald, Blacks and White TV, 17-21, 57-64; Jannette Dates, “Commercial Television,” in Split Image: African Americans and the Mass Media, ed., Davis and Barlow (Washington, D.C., Howard University Press, 1993), 267-327; Christopher Lehman, A Critical History of Soul Train on Television (Jefferson, NC: McFarland & Company, 2008), 28; Stamz, Give ‘Em Soul, Richard!, 62-63, 77-78; Barlow, Voice Over, 98-103; and Clarence Williams, “JD Lewis, Jr., A Living Broadcasting Legend,” ACE Magazine, October 2002, http://www.cbc-raleigh.com/capcom/news/2002/corporate_02/williams_lewis_story/williams_lewis_story.htm (accessed August 15, 2010).

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