American Bandstand
From The Art and Popular Culture Encyclopedia
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American Bandstand was a television show that aired in various versions from 1952 to 1989, hosted until its final season by Dick Clark, who also served as producer. The show featured teenagers dancing to Top 40-type music introduced by Clark; at least one popular musical act - over the decades, running the gamut from Jerry Lee Lewis to Run DMC - would usually appear in-person to lip-sync one of their latest singles.
From its early-1950s inception through the early 1960s, rock and roll music spawned new dance crazes. Teenagers found the irregular rhythm of the backbeat especially suited to reviving the jitterbug dancing of the big-band era. "Sock-hops," gym dances, and home basement dance parties became the rage, and American teens watched Dick Clark's American Bandstand to keep up on the latest dance and fashion styles. From the mid-1960s on, as "rock and roll" yielded gradually to "rock," later dance genres followed, starting with the twist, and leading up to funk, disco, house and techno.
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