If you were a teenager or young adult in the late 1950s through late 1980s, chances are the music you listened to, the dances you did, and the clothing and hairstyles you wore were largely influenced by a television show hosted by Dick Clark called "American Bandstand."

Some may not be aware that Clark got his debut in broadcasting and show business in the Mohawk Valley and was heard and seen across most of our region in local broadcasts.

"I like what I do. That’s the secret," Clark told an audience of about 900 people who packed into the Hunt Union Ballroom at the State University College at Oneonta on Oct. 20, 1977, regarding his success.

Clark’s success got started in 1956 when he got the job as host of the immensely popular local program in Philadelphia before it was broadcast nationwide. "American Bandstand" remained on the air until October 1989.

Clark was born in November 1929, the second son of Richard and Julia Barnard Clark, in Bronxville, just north of New York City. Richard was a sales manager for a New York-based cosmetics firm. The family moved to Mt. Vernon, an even more affluent suburb of the day.

Dick’s parents took him to a live radio broadcast in New York with Jimmy Durante and Garry Moore as he reached his early teens. Dick also joined his local high school drama club, and it soon became evident that show business was what he wanted to do "" despite his father’s dissuasion.

Around the time of Dick’s high school graduation, his father had had enough of the cosmetics business. They had relatives near Utica and were encouraged by Dick’s uncle, Bradley Barnard, to move to the Mohawk Valley.

Barnard owned the Rome Sentinel newspaper and the ABC-affiliated, Utica-based AM radio station WRUN. Today that station is a carrier of Northeast Public Radio, based in Albany. Richard Clark accepted a job offer from Barnard to become the radio station’s promotional manager.

The elder Clark knew of his son’s interest in a radio career. Barnard approved of Clark’s son as a summer replacement at WRUN, where the college-bound student worked in the mailroom, ran the mimeograph machine and longingly eyed the broadcasting microphone. Dick got his first chance reading hourly weather forecasts for a vacationing announcer.

Clark got his degree at Syracuse University and worked at the college radio station, WAER. In his senior year, he got a weekend job at a Syracuse AM station, WOLF.

Richard Clark hoped his son would eventually replace him as promotional manager at WRUN. But Dick wanted to work outside his father’s shadow. Dick returned briefly but left WRUN in the fall of 1951 and took a newscasting job in television at WKTV, today’s NewsChannel 2.

Dick Clark then attained his skills in speaking in front of a camera without a script by using a wire recorder, a state-of-the-art earpiece in the early 1950s. Clark also played host to a WKTV program of country and western music called "Cactus Dick and the Santa Fe Riders."

While Clark wanted to get out of his father’s shadow, it was Richard who made a call to an ABC television affiliate in Philadelphia, WFIL, to get his son an audition. Dick Clark was hired in May 1952, but it was still a few years until his career got a jolt.

A live show called "Bandstand" had debuted in Philadelphia in October 1952. The original host, Bob Horn, was fired in July 1956 for a drunken-driving arrest. After a temporary replacement by the show’s producer, Clark became the permanent host. Clark badgered the ABC network to take the popular show to a national level. The show became "American Bandstand" with a national audience Aug. 5, 1957.

Clark’s visit to Oneonta about 20 years after his call to fame was a time for reflection by the TV icon. Clark recalled how the show made stars of such personalities as Chuck Berry, Johnny Cash, Fats Domino, Johnny Mathis, Bobby Darin, Connie Francis, Frankie Avalon and Stevie Wonder.

Speaking at SUCO, Clark remembered how teens on "American Bandstand" created dances and dictated the nation’s style in teenage dress from the 1950s until the age of "The Hustle" and popular disco dances, along with polyester suits. "Saturday Night Fever" soon became a popular movie and music soundtrack.

This Weekend: If you wanted to just get away from it all for awhile, the A&S Railroad could help in 1869.

City Historian Mark Simonson’s column appears twice weekly. On Saturdays, his column focuses on the area during the Depression and before. His Monday columns address local history after the Depression. If you have feedback or ideas about the column, write to him at The Daily Star, or e-mail him at simmark@stny.rr.com. His website is www.oneontahistorian.com.