1959
“For Better or Worse”
Rin-n-n-n-n-g… the alarm stunned adults from sea to shining sea. The initial tidal wave of Baby Boomers hit teenagedom, and overwhelmed America with the potential danger of such a huge mass of flesh. The last isolated sparks of life, excitement and rebellion in mass media had to be rooted out and extinguished before the whole country went up in flames.
Congressman Oren Harris called on the House Legislative Committee to probe into the rumors about cheating on big money quiz shows and payola in Top 40 radio in October of 1959.
The court subpoenaed Charles Van Doren and he fled into hiding. On November 2nd, Charles finally appeared before the subcommittee and he admitted, “I was deeply involved in a deception.” Van Doren went on to describe how he received the answers and adlibs ahead of airtime, and the coaching by show personnel to make the sham look good (building up tension and suspense for the audience, etc.). The news shocked Eisenhower, who righteously declared, “that was a terrible thing to do to the American public.” Dave Garroway broke down and cried on the “Today Show”. NBC fired Van Doren, and CBS canned Louis G. Cowan (creator of the “$64,000 Question”) from his new job as Network President of CBS.
The Quiz Show Scandals provided an arena for an all out, official government attack on Rock & Roll. The music establishment, represented by the American Society of Composers, Authors and Publishers (ASCAP), supplied the ammunition. From the time of its formation in 1913 until the R & R explosion in 1955, ASCAP owned a virtual lock on the music market in America. But, new Rock composers and publishers didn’t belong to ASCAP, and royalties from radio stations and record sales eluded them, and instead wound up in the hands of the much younger BMI (Broadcast Music Incorporated). ASCAP looked down its nose at Black Rhythm & Blues (Then called “race music”) and Rockabilly, and considered both genres simplistic trash. This noise couldn’t possibly be worthy of membership in such a glorious organization as ASCAP. The tiny audiences for such music was hardly worth bothering with prior to “Rock Around the Clock”, but then the two styles merged in the form of Elvis, and crossed over into ASCAP’s territory on the pop charts. At first, the music establishment just denounced the din as crude and vulgar, but as Rock began to dominate the charts, they realized the severity of the situation. ASCAP cried “Monopoly!” But, it was hard for the public to take them seriously, since everyone knew that ASCAP had been guilty of that very same crime throughout their history.
The public ignored the first accusation against BMI, and ASCAP issued a second one. This time they cried “Payola!” Record Execs scratched their heads. Bribing radio stations to play your songs had been Standard Operating Procedure in the Music Industry for the last forty years, and there were no laws against payola (or the rigging of game shows) on the books. But now, the time had come to clean up America, and ASCAP found receptive ears high up in government.
ASCAP claimed that greedy DJs only played this “non-music”… this “subversive tool of Godless communism and the main source of the breakdown of morals among our youth” because of payola.
In response to the charges, management now carefully selected safe music for Top 40 stations, and DJs ran scared as the payola investigation searched for new targets. By the end of the year, Alan Freed prepared his case, rather than his next tour. Clean-Teens lip-synched on Bandstand (even though the heart of R & R is live performance), and Television switched from live shows to videotape in primetime. Censors now controlled all popular media.
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By the start of 1959, only two great superstars remained on the Rock scene, and a month later… only one. Morality junkies considered Buddy Holly as extremely dangerous, but couldn’t define his crimes. Buddy appeared to be a clean-cut, goofy-looking kid with thick glasses. The Texas boy looked more like the class nerd than a rebellious sex symbol, and the lyrics of his songs could hardly be called vulgar. But, my, oh my, Buddy could rock. Music fundamentalists couldn’t even accuse him of amateurism, because Holly was an accomplished musician and innovator. He formed the first three-piece, White band to feature a lead/rhythm guitar, bass and drums line up (Buddy Holly and the Crickets) and this became the basic formula for Rock & Roll bands ever since (often with a second guitar or keyboard added). Holly also popularized the Fender Stratocaster, later to become the favorite tool of superstars like Hendrix and Clapton. No other musician before him understood the possibilities of a recording studio like Buddy. He was the first to double-track both vocals and guitar, and the first rocker to add strings to a song in postproduction. His ingenious studio work in the Fifties can only be matched by the new directions in which the Beatles took Rock in the late Sixties. Crickets begat Beatles. The younger generation proudly acknowledged their parentage. The Fab Four worshipped Buddy and emulated his style, honored the Crickets with their name, and covered “Words of Love” early on.