Original network WNTA-TVWPIX-TV First episode date 1959 | Original release 1959 – 1968 Final episode date 1968 Genres Music, Variety show | |
Also known as 'Rate the RecordsTalent TeensTeen QuizThe Record WagonClay Cole's Discotek Similar The Milt Grant Show, The Buddy Deane Show, Variety show, American Bandstand, Hollywood A Go‑Go | ||
The Clay Cole Show (1959–1968) was a rock music television show based in New York City, hosted by Clay Cole.
First broadcast on WNTA-TV (now WNET) in September 1959 as Rate the Records, within two months the format was changed, and an hour-long Saturday-night show was added. In the summer months, the show was expanded to an hour, six nights a week, live from New Jersey's Palisades Amusement Park, where Chubby Checker first performed and danced "The Twist". When WNTA-TV was sold in 1963 the show moved to WPIX-TV, where for five years it was successful, thanks to first-time guest appearances of The Rolling Stones (on a program with one other guest act--The Beatles), Neil Diamond, Dionne Warwick, Simon & Garfunkel, Richie Havens, Tony Orlando, Blood, Sweat & Tears and The Rascals. In 1965 the show was renamed Clay Cole's Discotek. Clay produced a full hour with just one guest, Tony Bennett. Clay's all-star, ten-day Christmas Show at the Brooklyn Paramount Theater holds the all-time box-office record for that theater.
Cole was the first to introduce stand-up comics such as Richard Pryor, George Carlin and Fannie Flagg to a teen audience. He was the first to produce a full hour of all-black performers, his historic Salute to Motown Unlike other teen music show hosts, Cole danced to the music he played on his shows; he was also unafraid to book lesser-known performers.
In 1968, at the height of his show's popularity, Cole--unhappy with the shift in pop music to psychedelic acid rock and heavy metal--left the show.
His memoir of the early years of rock and roll and live television, Sh-Boom! The Explosion of Rock 'n' Roll (1953-1968) has been published by Morgan James. Cole died on December 18, 2010.