it had a good beat and you could dance to it

Dick Clark died yesterday, and people have various frames-of-reference of him in their memories (New Year's, Pyramid, etc.), but if you were a teenager in the late '50s or early '60s, it was American Bandstand, particularly if you grew up in the shadow of Philadelphia, as I did.  The show was taped in Philly back in those years, and the routine for many kids was to watch it when you got home from school and you might even see a cousin or somebody you know from school dancing on camera.  That show gave a lot of singers their big break, thanks to Dick Clark, the man who for generations never seemed to age.  It was a good era.