NRR Archives on YouTube started posting old rock and roll clips from Dick Clark’s Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show. Clips feature Johhny Cash, Jerry Lee Lewis, Connie Francis, Dion and the Belmonts, Bobby Darin, Annette Funicello, The Platters, Sam Cooke, The Everly Brothers, Conway Twitty, Ronnie Hawkins, Jackie Wilson and many others. Check out the NRR Archive link to see the clips. Here is Roy Orbison singing “Uptown” (the clip also includes Anita Bryant singing “Paper Roses”).
Dick Clark’s Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show, also known as “The Dick Clark Show,” ran on ABC at 7:30-8:00 p.m. (EST) on Saturdays (of course) from February 15, 1958 through September 10, 1960. During this same period, Clark also hosted the show for which he is most remembered, American Bandstand, which ran on weekdays. Bandstand, which in contrast to the Beech-Nut Show featured dancing, was mainly broadcast from Philadelphia, requiring Clark to travel back and forth to Manhattan, from where the Beech-Nut Show was generally broadcast.
Although the Saturday show sponsored by “the brightest and the happiest gum there ever was” may be less remembered than some of Clark’s other work, the show had a lot of great classic music. Check out Johnny Cash singing “The Rebel (Johnny Yuma)” below and then check out the other clips.
What is your favorite clip in the archive? Leave your two cents in the comments.