More Hollywood hooey sweetening the Rock n' Roll pie with honey drippings and vanilla leads to make all this "race record stuff" easy to swallow. Jimmy Clanton was better than Bobby Rydell, Fabian, and Frankie Avalon that didn't have a voice between them. But Clanton was by no means and equal to the talent that he was heading in this movie.
"I don't dig it, but I like it", says the old fogie and that just about sums it up for most of these types of white bread movies that were at least kind enough to put the real rockers and black singers in support. Hollywood never did get it and neither did anyone over 30 in the 50's.
That said, we do have these films to thank for a visual reference and time-capsule that otherwise would not exist. Thanx Alan Freed who is credited as one of the very first disc-jockeys to play real Rock n" Roll on his radio show "Moondawg", no matter their racial pedigree. That's the reason the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland (the home of Freed's station).
There is an attempt to overshadow the real stuff with a silly choir boy story and many songs that were at best mediocre Teeny-Bopper Pop, but the real stars are gleaming and cannot be covered by any of this pandering propaganda. We get in limited supply...Chuck Berry, Jackie Wilson, The Flamingos, The Cadillacs, Richie Valens, Eddie Cochran, and some others that are at least palatable.
But it shows its prejudice and the mainstreams preoccupation with suppressing this stuff, when the choir director says about RnR..."lets hope it is just a fad and will be gone by the time you grow up"...and then in the next few minutes dismisses him from the choir for singing a Pop tune while accompanied on the church organ. Most of his generation really thought that this was the Devil's music.
"I don't dig it, but I like it", says the old fogie and that just about sums it up for most of these types of white bread movies that were at least kind enough to put the real rockers and black singers in support. Hollywood never did get it and neither did anyone over 30 in the 50's.
That said, we do have these films to thank for a visual reference and time-capsule that otherwise would not exist. Thanx Alan Freed who is credited as one of the very first disc-jockeys to play real Rock n" Roll on his radio show "Moondawg", no matter their racial pedigree. That's the reason the Rock n' Roll Hall of Fame is in Cleveland (the home of Freed's station).
There is an attempt to overshadow the real stuff with a silly choir boy story and many songs that were at best mediocre Teeny-Bopper Pop, but the real stars are gleaming and cannot be covered by any of this pandering propaganda. We get in limited supply...Chuck Berry, Jackie Wilson, The Flamingos, The Cadillacs, Richie Valens, Eddie Cochran, and some others that are at least palatable.
But it shows its prejudice and the mainstreams preoccupation with suppressing this stuff, when the choir director says about RnR..."lets hope it is just a fad and will be gone by the time you grow up"...and then in the next few minutes dismisses him from the choir for singing a Pop tune while accompanied on the church organ. Most of his generation really thought that this was the Devil's music.