In July 1950, Arthur Murray’s wife, Kathryn, stepped in front of the television camera at the CBS studio to film the first of five fifteen-minute television spots that Arthur had purchased in order to promote his chain of dance studios. By the end of the third spot, he had purchased an additional half-hour summer series on ABC. By 1952, the Murray’s had signed their first sponsor, General Foods, and millions of American viewers had fallen in love with the show and were filling up dance studios around the country to learn how to dance. The show, called the Arthur Murray Dance Party, ended up running for another decade and was paramount in building the reputation of the Arthur Murray studios as the place to go to learn how to dance for white America. (Segregation was still in effect in most of the country, and it would have been highly unlikely to see black students attending dance classes, even though it was the black culture of America that provided much of the raw material that ultimately ended up being taught at these studios.)
Very few live television shows were ever recorded and saved during this period in history, and most of the Arthur Murray Dance Party episodes have been lost forever. However, there are a few that have remarkably survived and have ended up on the Internet. One shows Buddy Holly and the Crickets performing “Peggy Sue” in 1957 and is featured below.
There are some interesting things to notice about this video. One is the manner in which Kathryn introduces the “Rock and Roll specialist.” ( I guess they were not referred to as musicians yet by many people.) The understood “official” starting date of Rock and Roll music is 1955, when Sun Records took a gamble on a new artist and released “That’s All Right Mama” by Elvis Presley. By 1957, when Buddy Holly appeared on the Arthur Murray Dance Party, there had been enough time pass for very critical observations of this new type of music to surface, as well as the wild dancing that it inspired with the country’s youth.
The second interesting thing to notice is how the elegantly-dressed dancers on the set stand completely motionless behind Buddy Holly, having been told to not let their hips move during the performance. Rock and Roll and “proper” white society had yet to figure out how to relate to each other, but the Murray’s were certainly on the forefront of figuring out how to teach young Americans how to dance “properly” to Rock and Roll music by embracing Buddy on the show.
Resources used:
http://www.arthurmurray.com/history.asp
1990 Welch, Richard. Rock'n'Roll and social change. History Today, Vol. 40, Issue 2, Pp.32.
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