While the traveling shows of stars were eagerly awaited, they were rare and wonderful events in the lives of Birmingham’s teenagers, who wanted more than a once-a-year rock ’n’ roll fix. So they looked to other entertainment venues. Although television in the 1950s is usually considered to be a force of cultural conformism which illustrated a classless, lily-white version of the American Dream in its family friendly programming, it did provide an important outlet for new music. Elvis Presley’s controversial appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show might have outraged many viewers, but the size of the viewing audience (a quite amazing 82 percent share) made it clear to the entertainment business that rock ’n’ roll was far too popular to be ignored. It is not too surprising that his movements on stage — all learned from black acts he saw on Beale Street in Memphis — were deemed too provocative for the family audience. Yet it was these gyrations that made rock ’n’ roll so attractive to teenagers.
Elvis’s controversial appearances on The Ed Sullivan Show became part of his legend, and the dramatic rise of “the King of Rock ’n’ Roll” owed a lot to extensive exposure on television. Elvis’s first recording sessions in RCA’s Nashville and New York studios were fitted into a crowded schedule of live performances and TV appearances — the Dorsey Brothers’, Milton Berle’s, and Steve Allen’s nationally viewed shows — and a screen test for Hollywood producer Hal Wallis. By the 1950s television sets were installed in millions of American homes and the exposure it gave to music was quickly making it as important as radio in marketing records. Birmingham’s two television stations, WBRC and WAPI, were part of the NBC and CBS networks and carried the syndicated variety shows of Ed Sullivan and Steve Allen. The jubilation or horror that accompanied Elvis’s performance on The Ed Sullivan Show was shared all over the country. That Birmingham was part of this audience, a nation seated in front of blue-tinted screens, was part of the New South’s integration into a national popular culture.
Radio played all kinds of pop music, not just rock ’n’ roll; television networks were wary of delinquent teenagers and their music; and the major record companies were still not fully convinced that rock ’n’ roll was anything more than another passing fad. But Hollywood producers looked at the numbers and realized that the youth market might replace the adult audience lost to television. What propelled Bill Haley’s “Rock around the Clock” into the hearts and minds of American youth was not just the playing of the record at dances like the one at the Bessemer City Auditorium or in jukeboxes all over Birmingham, but in a few minutes of a movie. Blackboard Jungle (1955) was a film about a rebellious group of students at an inner-city high school tormenting an exasperated teacher played by Glenn Ford. “Rock around the Clock” only played for a few seconds in the beginning and end credits (and as a short instrumental interlude in the film), but its impact was immediate and unprecedented. Those who watched the movie in the Alabama Theatre were struck not only by the power of the song, but also by the power of its amplification as it came over the mighty sound system of Birmingham’s picture palace: it was the loudest music anyone had ever heard. Dave Bryan was there: “Oh, yeah, it was loud … It was at the Alabama Theatre, 1956, I saw it; oh, jeez, there were folks, after the first run of it, there was people coming out, around the Alabama Theatre, the word got out about it, there were people around the theater, waiting to get in. It was the start right there of rock ’n’ roll. That’s what took it right there in this town.”
This slight exposure took a B side of a little-known country band and made it into an iconic recording in American popular music. Film and rock ’n’ roll had a symbiotic relationship; the sound and look of the new music quickly appeared in films aimed at the youth market. With his record in the charts, Bill Haley appeared in two movies in 1956. These were cheap, exploitative vehicles quickly turned out by Columbia Pictures. There was no attempt to associate the new music with the threat of teenage delinquency, as was the case with Blackboard Jungle, which scared parents and theater owners alike, and Haley’s Don’t Knock the Rock, which tried its best to persuade audiences that these were good kids after all. Elvis made his first movie right after his first RCA recording sessions and television appearances. In 1956 he started a career in Hollywood that was to eventually eclipse his music. Presley’s first film gave him no opportunity to expand his rock persona, but the next year Jailhouse Rock not only produced some exciting new music, but also served as a primer for rock ’n’ roll stardom, reflecting the meteoric rise of a southern working-class bad boy in the entertainment industry. From the beginning rock ’n’ roll was obsessed with its history, a self-conscious entertainment that dwelt on its origins and focused on its transformative powers. It shifted southern musicians’ aspirations from working on local radio to appearing in films shown all over the country, from buying a new car to owning a fleet of Cadillacs.
Birmingham’s film theaters quickly got into the act by using local bands to help promote rock ’n’ roll films, and by turning their theaters into venues for amateur musicians. Budding rockers Jerry Woodard and Bobby Mizzell secured dates at the West End Theater performing there after movies such as Go, Johnny, Go and Rock around the Clock were presented. The manager of the theater said he booked them for a return appearance because “there was such a demand for the boys” by the audience. Some theaters dispensed with the traditional Saturday morning show of cowboy and adventure serials to replace it with “Teen Time” shows of rock ’n’ roll films with live music. The talent show moved from its origins in radio to film theaters and television studios as the rock ’n’ roll craze caught on.
Each movie brought more converts. Henry Lovoy experienced his initiation at the Alabama Theatre in 1957, where he saw Elvis’s Jailhouse Rock in a house packed with teenagers. Henry had been drawn to music at a very early age: “My wife had my picture in the paper on Sunday because it was my birthday. The picture … was when I was five years old and singing with the Harrison Cooper Orchestra. It was at the Pickwick Club. They used to have a lot of dance receptions, wedding receptions, and other dances. My aunt’s marriage was one of the last receptions there … It had two stages. It had a bandstand stage and a regular stage … They had Elvis movies that played at the Alabama Theatre … I remember going to the premier opening of the Elvis movie. At the end of the movie you could see this clump at the side of the stage. Bands didn’t have much equipment in those days. The band was Sammy Salvo, who was singing his song ‘[Oh] Julie.’ He had about three or four pieces with him. He was dressed up like the Elvis-type guy. He was dressed up in ’50s attire with the white buck shoes and a white coat. His hair was [combed] back … I was sitting in the mezzanine and looking over to watch him. Girls were screaming in the movie. When the movie was over, girls were screaming at him. The girls were going wild. I thought, This is the life for me!”
CHAPTER TWO
Records and Rock ’n’ Roll
The coming of rock ’n’ roll to Birmingham produced a surge of activity in the newly established commercial recording business. After World War II many new entrants to the record industry were created to take advantage of postwar innovations in sound recording, in which tape recorders