“GRAZING IN THE GRASS” * Friends Of Distinction * RCA VICTOR (1969)
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These were the records you bought. Many went on to become some of the most popular singles heard played on AM Top 40 radio, November of 1971, on WKNR, CKLW, WXYZ and conservative album-oriented, easy-listening WJR.
On the FM side, some of these tracks were in the rotation on WKNR-FM, WRIF-FM, WCHD-FM, WGPR-FM and WLDM-FM, Detroit, 1971.
Tracks listed for this 11/13/71 chart feature randomly selected by the author.
From the MCRFB NEWS archive: 1967
Radio Frank Hub for Auto Tape Player Units and Cartridges in Dearborn for 1967
DETROIT — A “please handle” policy on tape cartridges has created a booming business for Radio Frank, a Dearborn-based, 2-way mobile phone and tape outlet here. “First, we tried keeping the cartridges back of the counter,” said owner Frank Meckrock. “But we now we put them out front where customers handle them. First thing you know, the customer is picking up two or three extra cartridges he never intended to buy.”
If Radio Frank returned the cartridges behind the counter, “business would drop 50 per cent,” Meckrock said. Pilferage is rare, but if a clerk suspects anyone of thinking of pocketing a cartridge without paying for it, the store clerk gives them extra special service and attention.
Radio Frank, relying heavily on radio promotion, has been moving anywhere from 1,000 to 2,000 tape cartridges a month and installing player units at the rate about 200 per month. Most of the business — “about 25 to 1” — is 8-track, Meckrock said. The firm promotes heavily on radio, mostly on weekends when people “have got money in their pockets,” including the major deejay shows of CKLW and WCHB in Detroit.
Tom Shannon on CKLW does an excellent job in marketing cartridges, Meckrock said. The radio advertising pulls 30-40 people into the store on a Saturday. About the middle of May, business tapered off a little bit . . . “there were only three to four cars waiting at a time in line in the alley behind our building to have units installed. We used to have 30-40 cars waiting out there like, for a car wash,” he said. Radio Frank installs units in six cars at a time, “doing this, all day.”
Overall, however, business has been very good. The firm is located on Michigan Avenue in Dearborn, in “Ford Country.” Executives at Ford Motor Company get their cars free and all have tape cartridge players; they buy a lot of their cartridges from Radio Frank. The firm was mostly involved in the car radio business until about four years ago when it started selling 4-track units and cartridges.
“I thought at one time that the 4-track business was good,” but 8-track has far passed it.” he said. Meckrock got into the 8-track business in August 1965.
When he used to buy on 4-track cartridges, he bought the music he like personally. Some of those cartridges were still around, he says, and now he buys only the product that would sell. END
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(Information and news source: Billboard; July 1, 1967)
The Dick Clark Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show was Dick Clark’s second attempt at a prime time show. His first, a prime-time version of American Bandstand, ran only 13 weeks. The Beechnut Show was much more successful lasting almost 3 years.
The Dick Clark Saturday Night Beechnut Show was broadcast live, on ABC-TV, Saturday nights from the Little Theatre in New York City. Every weekend, Dick Clark commuted from Philadelphia to NYC to do the “Beechnut” show. There was actually two shows done each Saturday. The first was a rehearsal show where the artists could sketch out their performances and Clark could line everything up. This would have a different audience then the second show which was the one that was televised. 
Beechnut Gum was actually picked up as a sponsor for the third episode to the conclusion of the show’s run. The artists that appeared usually “lip-synched” to their records. Very few actually performed live.
This is the only show to be able to make the claim of having Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens and the Big Bopper as guests (though on different episodes). All three were killed together in a plane crash on February 3, 1959.
Amazingly, Elvis Presley and Ricky Nelson, two of the biggest stars of the period, never appeared on the show. The first show aired on February 2, 1958 with guests Jerry Lee Lewis, Chuck Willis, Johnny Ray and the Royal Teens. The final show aired on September 10, 1960. MORE . . . .
A MCRFB Note: For our previous third installment four video posting of ‘Saturday Night Beech-Nut Show with Dick Clark,’ on MCRFB (March 28, 2014), go here.
Above information provided by TV.com. For the complete 1958-1960 Dick Clark Beech Nut Show summary and artist-appearance listing for every show, go here to TV.com.
About the IFIC button seen worn by attendees in the Beech-Nut show audience? Well, it stands for ‘FLAVOR-I-F-I-C.’ As in Beech-Nut chewing gum! Special thanks to Edward Bowman for sharing that ‘trivia’ bit of information with Motor City Radio Flashbacks.
Motor City Radio Flashbacks will be showcasing many of these *rare* Dick Clark video presentations here on this website from time to time. In this fourth installment, we present four video classics (below) from the Dick Clark Beech-Nut show as was first broadcast on national television during that memorable late-’50s into the ’60s rock and roll era:
Chuck Berry (July 18, 1959). Bobby Darin (March 19, 1960). Little Anthony & The Imperials (January 02, 1960). The Coasters (March 7, 1959).
