Dancing in the Streets

Dancing In The Streets

Martha Reeves and the Vandellas had a massive hit with the Phil Spector produced song back in the heyday of girl singing groups early to mid Sixties. It is stuck on replay in my Jukebox brain and I don’t really mind. When it was released people were uneasy, thinking that “Dancing in the Streets” would start a rebellion. Its a powerful groove and Martha Reeves and the Vandellas women singers put their hearts into the track. Decades later I was hired to create a rock n roll radio show for Radio Bejing. This was during Reagan as president and Coca Cola was the sponsor. I imitated the energy of DJ Wolfman Jack. I had played percussion in his big band, plus a hint of KROQ’s Rodney Bingenhiemer for my on-air voice. We cut the show in a high end studio in Hollywood with instructions for me to fly to China and oversee the premier of the radio show at noon in Bejing for one hour. I prerecorded the show to illustrate to the Chinese DJ how to generate the excitement of rock n roll. At the beginning of the show was Ronald Reagan’s voice welcoming the billions of Chinese listeners.Then my voice came on introducing “Dancing in the Streets” with as much energy as I could muster. But before we shipped me to China I had misgivings about the intentions of the show. It was playing with fire. When Rock n roll first debuted on radio in the U.S. in the fifties, the kids got very excited. The first live shows in New Jersey were banned. Theater seats got ripped up. I expressed my concerns to the producers of the radio show but they dismissed me saying that they were vetting all the lyrics. I tried to explain it was not about the lyrics, it was about the beat. The excitement was overwhelming and the kids in
China had never heard rock n roll. They wouldn’t be prepared. Tiannenmen square is what happened. All the kids who gathered in the Square had their radios with them. The show aired every day at noon. The Army eventually rolled in and smashed the statue of Liberty that the college kids had built. Their bicycles were ground into mangled metal under the treads of the tanks. The producers had no idea this would happen. I had pulled out of the project at the last minute. The army shot the Chinese DJ at the console. Say a prayer for the kids.