The All-Spin Zone

A new documentary shines a light on Dick Clark and Philly's payola past.

by A.D. Amorosi

AMERICAN GLADHAND: (From left) Dick Clark and the Golden Boys — Fabian, Bobby Rydell and Frankie Avalon. (CLICK IMAGE FOR LARGER VERSION)

To casual music listeners who like oldies radio, Charlie Gracie is the smiling guitarist who hit it big with "Butterfly," and Dick Clark is the American Bandstand guy who drops the ball at Times Square on New Year's Eve.

But for Philly, these men are towering figures of the music business's best and worst sides. Their stories are at the heart of Shawn Swords' new documentary The Wages of Spin.

In 1952, Clark was a WFIL AM jock. He popped up on TV occasionally, when subbing for Bob Horn, then-host of Bandstand. Clark became the show's full-time host in 1956, not long after Horn was ousted due to personal problems. Clark pushed the show toward national acclaim, and the ABC network picked it up the next year.

American Bandstand, as it came to be known, was filmed at 46th and Market until it moved to Hollywood in 1964. Clark was just becoming a big fish when you first started hearing the word "payola."

Payola means pay-to-play — record labels making deals with radio and TV stations to air their music. A congressional oversight subcommittee investigated the matter in the early '60s, shining a light on Clark's monetary investments in labels and music publishing, starting with his time in Philly. Though Clark was never charged with illegal activities, ABC made him divest his recording and publishing interests. He was shown to have been favoring his vested interests over other artists and pushing other radio guys to do the same.

But everybody big in the record business seemed to screw everybody little in the record business back then. When Gracie refused to play ball, his career got derailed.

"I really didn't and don't have a great affinity for '50s music," admits director Swords, a Coatesville native. "I like the sound but have far greater interests." His decade-old Character Driven Productions had filmed a self-penned fiction flick (Love, Friendship and Hypocrisy) and a documentary on Gaelic music (Blackthorn: It's an Irish Thing) before he turned his camera on Gracie. That doc on the Philly rockabilly legend, Fabulous, got Swords interested in the dirty inner workings of the music industry and how records got played.

"Several artists we interviewed for Fabulous had horror stories about getting ripped from royalties and performance fees," says Swords. "Label owners, talent reps, etc. — they were doing whatever they had to do to get a record played or an artist they were interested in exposure. But, when talent started generating lots of revenue, most didn't want to pay what was really owed them."

Gracie's mainstream career was destroyed because he sued for royalties that he earned. To Swords and the industry insiders he spoke to — on camera and off — it seems like the guitarist was made a scapegoat to deter others from the same course of action to get royalties they were owed. But it wasn't just a problem with Charlie. The list of fucked-over '50s artists in The Wages of Spin is extensive.

The film looks deeply into the ways Clark's vertical integration in the record publishing business, record pressing business and talent representation screwed over many a little guy. Congressional records show that Clark had a piece of 30-plus music-related companies, Gracie's Cameo label included. This made it unlikely for an artist to get full royalties. Spin also looks at the aforementioned Horn, the one-time Philly broadcasting great who was ruined by several drunk-driving charges and inflammatory charges of statutory rape and corruption of a minor.

Think of The Wages of Spin as a cousin of the VH-1 exposé, though there are a few happy endings. There's last weekend's formation of the Featured Artists Coalition with members of Radiohead and Pink Floyd fighting for musicians' rights. And the announcement that Gracie will be getting his long-overdue Philly Walk of Fame plaque on Oct. 23.

And Spin does feature many of South Philly's "teen idols" in their heyday. There's the pompadour-ed finest (Fabian, Frankie Avalon), the men who made them (Bob Marcucci), the songbirds (Connie Francis) and the up-and-coming scene legends (DJ Jerry Blavat), all looking for a better life.

"Working-class Philly kids were poor, lived in congested households and hung out on street corners. Singing on a street corner was free and alleviated the boredom of not having any money — and got you attention," says Swords. Their proximity to Bandstand was a grail of sorts. And Clark — according to Spin interviewees Len Barry, Dovels' Jerry Gross and radio man Ed Hurst — became the conduit to a better life. That is, if you paid in to the system.

"Proximity to the Bandstand studio was the primary reason that music took off the way it did in Philly and why so many Philly artists became prominent in the late '50s and early '60s. That and the fact that the independent record labels they were signed to had a pipeline to Clark," says Swords. But for every plus, there was a minus. And for every dollar a Philly kid might've made, he probably had to pay some to Clark.

"Clark had financial interests in most if not all of the independent record labels in Philly, so he favored artists and records that he generated revenue from," Swords says.

There are still bumps in the road. Last week, Swords claimed his Spin screening's original location — West Philly's Enterprise Center where Bandstand originally filmed — had been canceled due to problems he encountered with George Manney, a local director currently filming his own local music documentary, Philly Pop Music: The Lost Pioneers. Manney said "no comment" when asked about the problems between them. But while Spin includes negative and critical takes on Clark, Manney's PPM is highly positive and features footage sanctioned by Dick Clark Productions.

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For all of Spin's spit-downs of Clark, Swords claims that few inflammatory accusations had to be left out. Spin stayed away from personal and family issues and addressed factual history. Clark's "ownership" and "partnerships" — including his 25 percent piece of "Butterfly" — are in the records from congressional hearings of 1960 to establish payola legislation. Spin focuses on the public record, abuses of position and unethical relationships among music industry insiders and artists getting screwed out of money that was rightfully theirs. They didn't attempt to interview Clark in his current state — he is a post-stroke victim who has difficulty speaking. Swords even has surprisingly deep feelings for America's oldest teenager.

"I have great empathy for him and what he's been going through the last few years, but this is a story of nefarious activity that transpired in the late '50s and how he and others exploited their positions for their own self-enrichment." To Swords and Spin, Clark isn't rotten to the core, misanthropic or consummately evil. People weren't walking on eggshells when he was around; Swords says Clark was just greedy, always concerned with making money and cultivating a positive image.

"I don't think I'd ask Clark anything if I could," says Swords. "I don't think I would get a straight answer. But, if he did listen and was receptive, I'd ask him to set up some sort of fund for artists from the '50s and '60s who helped enrich his bottom line. A lot of them have had tough lives or are living in squalor or something close to it."

(a_amorosi@citypaper.net)

The Wages of Spin screens Sat., Oct. 11, noon, 2, 4 and 6 p.m., Elaine C. Levitt Auditorium, 401 S. Broad St., 610-590-0444, characterdrivenfilms.com.