Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The bandstand is a sacred place.
History was made the day Chubby Checker went on 'Bandstand' with 'The Twist.'
The best practice you can get is on the bandstand, but in between gigs I feel I have to stay in shape.
The whole American pop culture started in Philadelphia with 'American Bandstand' and the music that came out of that city.
We got on American Bandstand, where kids would dance to a record and then rate it. We called ourselves Tom and Jerry. I was Jerry.
MTV essentially killed 'American Bandstand' and 'Solid Gold,' because music videos are an easier way for pop artists to gain television exposure.
Being on 'Bandstand' was like getting a Nobel Prize. From 3 o'clock in the afternoon until 5:30, nobody was on the street. They were watching 'Bandstand.'
You've got to learn your instrument. Then, you practice, practice, practice. And then, when you finally get up there on the bandstand, forget all that and just wail.
When I was 5, 'American Bandstand' had a lot of good artists on there, man. That's when I really started falling in love with the jams: Gladys Knight & the Pips, Patti LaBelle, Bootsy Collins, Parliament.
My early childhood memories center around this typical American country store and life in a small American town, including 4th of July celebrations marked by fireworks and patriotic music played from a pavilion bandstand.
I have similar feelings, actually. The intimacy of a club: you can see the people, you can almost feel them; you can't beat that. People will say things, and shout out, it's almost like they're up on the bandstand with you.
My granddad was an evangelist, and my grandma, she was as tough as nails. She watched 'American Bandstand' every day when she was in her 80s, 90s. She loved rock music. I never had anyone in my family that was anti-rock n' roll.
Whoever is playing with me, they participate in the arrangement; I learned from Craig Street to really pool the stories and the skill and the voices of everybody around you on the bandstand to build an arrangement in the moment.
Some of the wise boys who say my music is loud, blatant and that's all should see the faces of the kids who have driven a hundred miles through the snow to see the band... to stand in front of the bandstand in an ecstasy all their own.
Dick Clark's 'American Bandstand' spread the gospel of American pop music and teenage style that transcended the regional boundaries of our country and united a youth culture that eventually spread its message throughout the entire world.
When the great jazz and blues clubs closed - joints where the cash register rang loudly and there wasn't ESPN on TV over the bandstand, and people smoked cigarettes and drank whiskey and hollered 'Play on!' - When those places closed, I was pretty much done.
I've known the glory of the stage and the glory of the spotlight. I still crave it. I want to be on 'American Bandstand' and 'Soul Train' as a solo artist. As a producer, songwriter and arranger, I help other artists say what they want to say. But on my records, I say what I want to say.
One week before my 17th birthday, I had a blind date with June Rose, a television actress on network soap operas, a model, and a regular on the popular Dick Clark's Saturday night 'American Bandstand' show from New York. We were married five years later, one week after my graduation from Columbia.