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Post by Simon B Kelly on Apr 19, 2012 13:34:44 GMT
Another sad day for music fans: www.imdb.com/news/ni26535831/So, what's going to happen to his archive and all the programmes he bought the rights to?
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Post by Kev Mulrenan on Apr 19, 2012 13:54:40 GMT
I believe they were sold a few years ago, maybe around the time of his stroke.
Highly influential, albeit with an ego to match it, it would be interesting to know what DC shows exist.
There are scatterings of kines from the 60's from shows such as Bandstand, Where The Action Is etc. but the quality is bad.
He was the promoter, allegedly, that got the Kinks banned from the US.
He made a lot of dough selling snippets of his shows for infomercials like Time Life, as it's hard to sell cds of 60's artists without a bit of non-still material to plug them.
His attitude to screening stuff was not very generous. For the 50th anniversary of Bandstand we had a few very short clips, with a massive frame around a tiny picture and a massive ab logo. Not exactly ideal viewing!
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Post by Deleted on Apr 19, 2012 15:00:55 GMT
Like his British counterpart Dave Clark, Dick was notoriously stingy with his archive, and like Dave, would never reveal just what shows he actually had. We still don't know for sure what exactly Dave has of RSG! and nobody seems to know how much exists of American Bandstand. Dick managed to escape unscathed from the Payola scandal that sent Alan Freed to jail.
He cashed in his chips 3 or 4 years ago, selling off his entire archive to some company and we've barely seen a thing, so maybe Dick still had the power to dictate how it could or couldn't be exploited.
Indeed nearly all the b+w American Bandstand footage I've seen is of appalling picture quality and whenever he sold clips he always had the logo burnt into the corner of the screen as well just to remind you where it came from.
I don't sound like I'm being very nice about him! I know he was revered and respected by many and I just hope the archive he kept all those years can start being opened up for those of us who are still interested to enjoy.
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Post by Kev Mulrenan on Apr 19, 2012 15:32:24 GMT
I don't sound like I'm being very nice about him! You aren't the first and won't be the last! He was a hard-nosed businessman with an enormous ego.
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Post by dennywilson on Apr 19, 2012 21:04:41 GMT
... I just hope the archive he kept all those years can start being opened up for those of us who are still interested to enjoy. I'd like to know what exists and what doesn't! What is generally known, most of the AMERICAN BANDSTAND Philadelphia era shows are missing (ABC was the sloppiest of the 3 Major Networks when it came to kinescopes in the 1950's) , and some of the pre-1970 Shows as well. Not sure on the status of weekly THE DICK CLARK (Beachnut) SHOWS. Earliest Color Video Tape AB is 1967 - No B&W VTs known to exist. ABC Stopped making kinescopes in 1970 so from that point all the shows exist in Color - Some 1967-1970 shows exist only as B&W Kinescopes. WHERE THE ACTION IS,IT'S HAPPENING/HAPPENING,and GETTING TOGETHER all exist as Kinescopes - no VT. (WTAI was never aired in Color)
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Post by bleslie7 on Apr 20, 2012 8:09:45 GMT
One thing I would have to say about Dick was how successful his whole business empire DCP was - and sold to Daniel Snyder, a baseball team owner from what I recall - around 5 years ago.
Unfortunately the sale has led to precious little footage emerging from those archives (no different from when Dick ran it), so of course a lot of rumours and mis-information has been spread regarding the state of the music archives over the years including things like flood and fires damaging the stored material - although I believe the flood story to be accurate.
DennyWilsons description is fairly accurate to the best of my knowledge, and I can add that I believe the vast majority of Where The Action Is shows do survive (all on kinescope). Bandstand is a bit of a mixture with some periods stronger than others, but much 1960's material previously on colour videotape now survives only as B & W kinescopes. There is also a large gap from the early 70's as well.
As far as that Saturday Night Beechnut show goes, most of the shows definitely survive on kinescope - and condition is fairly acceptable for film!! There is a whole wealth of late 50's artists represented on these shows (which ran from 1957 to 1960) but still they lay gathering dust in the archives!!.
I know all about the nightmare that the musical clearance process can be in terms of broadcasting and releasing material on DVD, but the way this is going the material, especially from the late 50's is going to mean very little to anyone still left alive as time marches on. It is a great tragedy, given the survival rate of these DCP shows compared to TOTP for example. Apart from a VH 1 special some years back on USA cable TV in which various parts of episodes were shown, precious little has happened since the 1980's and the videotape days. No-one is listening to anyones pleas to get this material screened or released!! The dust in the archives grows thicker day by day!!
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Post by Richard Marple on Apr 20, 2012 17:41:59 GMT
Sad news about Dick Clark.
The non-issue of much of the back catalogue sounds like the situation with the Cameo Parkway masters, where the owner wouldn't release anything on CD for many years.
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Post by Stephen John Connett on Apr 23, 2012 12:06:33 GMT
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