Clark's influence endures today with such stars as Ryan Seacrest.

Without Dick Clark, there would be no Ryan Seacrest. Hell, afterwards "America's Oldest Teenager" there would be no "TRL," and maybe no MTV.

Clark, who died at age 82 on Wednesday (April 18) afterwards adversity a affection attack, never sang a agenda or appear an album. He wasn't the artist of a ball chic or a characterization bang-up or alike a decidedly hip guy. What he was, though, was a visionary.

And as abundant as any accomplished who played a guitar, ample out how to mix two turntables and a microphone, wiggled his achievement or invented the abutting big complete in music, Clark was active in authoritative pop music pop.



He brought bedrock and cycle into America's active apartment in the 1950s, aloof as the complete of adolescent America was abashing parents, abashing the calm radio programmers of the day and auspicious teenagers to shake, bang and roll. Admitting he dressed like a martini-swilling ad controlling and was determined about befitting a austere tie-and-jacket dress cipher on his long-running signature show, "American Bandstand," Clark lived by one simple assumption back it came to anticipation music: "It's got a acceptable exhausted and you can ball to it."

Most importantly, back he took over "Bandstand" and went civic in 1957, Clark put teenagers on TV at a time back the best accepted shows were aimed at their parents' generation, including "Gunsmoke," "I Love Lucy," "The Danny Thomas Show" and "General Electric Theater." He let them see themselves on TV, which seems like no big accord to today's YouTube-ified teens, but was a adumbration for the aboriginal bearing to abound up in advanced of the tube.

An MTV VP recalls his aboriginal job in television, alive for the backward Dick Clark.

With one of the longest runs in TV history (1957-1989), "Bandstand" became a acute stop on any above artist's promotional rounds. And with acceptable reason: The appearance drew an admirers of added than 20 actor at its peak, bisected of whom were reportedly adults. Among the acts that lip-synced their hits on the affairs and got their aboriginal above acknowledgment over the years: Chuck Berry, Sam Cooke, James Brown, Simon & Garfunkel, Johnny Cash, Aretha Franklin, Jackie Wilson, Marvin Gaye, the Jackson 5, Chuck Berry, the Doors, Pink Floyd, Prince, Kurtis Blow, Cher, Devo, LL Cool J, INXS, Bon Jovi, Run-DMC, Madonna and the Talking Heads.

Clark would babble the artists up and, alike as the years went on and the styles afflicted from the buttoned-down 1950s to the freewheeling 1960s, disco-dancing 1970s and new-wave 1980s and the show's access waned, Clark's activity for the hits of the day was unwavering. The times changed, but Clark appeared ageless, his abounding arch of beard and adolescent smile as abundant a basic of the appearance as the agog dancing of its absolute stars: the audience.

Though altercation would after acceleration over Clark's claims that he chip the appearance in 1957 (as able-bodied as a about career-derailing besom with the allurement scandals of the 1950s), what is absolute is that Clark offered a appointment for both atramentous and white artists at a time back there were few. The afterimage of atramentous and white kids dancing calm additionally aggressive one of TV's added constant music programs, "Soul Train," whose afresh asleep arch light, Don Cornelius, was sometimes referred to as the "black Dick Clark."

Ryan Seacrest, Snoop Dogg and added celebs ache Dick Clark.

Clark didn't aloof circuit the hits, though. He created the arrangement for the avant-garde multitasking media mogul, a crimson best up by his beneficiary apparent, the calm Ryan Seacrest. He helped aftermath or executive-produce added than 7,500 hours of programming, from the Golden Globes, American Music Awards and Academy of Country Music Awards, to mind-numbing prime-time boner like "TV's Bloopers & Practical Jokes." He generally boasted that his was not the alley beneath taken, but the cheesy, awash freeway arranged with apathetic couch potatoes aloof attractive for a fun diversion, which he was blessed to provide.

Clark accomplished television advisers that teenagers had the ability to advance the cultural aggravate and that they were accepting a huge appulse on music, movies, appearance and, yes, alike politics. Added importantly, "Bandstand" helped pave the way for the Top 40 radio architecture and helped move bedrock and cycle into the movies and beyond.

Clark eventually confused into bold shows, TV movies and children's programming beneath his Dick Clark Productions banner. And if you demand to apperceive why Seacrest seems like he's everywhere these canicule — from "American Idol" to "New Year's Rockin' Eve," abundant awards shows and executive-producing assorted Kardashian shows and added TV — it's because he advised at the knee of his figure and has blooming his able career on the man who laid the foundation. With backing that included aggregate from themed restaurants to a amphitheater in Branson, Missouri, it's not a amplitude to say that Clark's access accomplished into the avant-garde realms of hip-hop and pop, area moguls from Diddy to Jay-Z, Justin Bieber and Rihanna accept adapted by dipping their toes into the worlds of perfume, beverages, announcement agencies and cosmetics.

Nobody absolutely stays always young, but Clark accepted that you can break always adolescent at heart.