New Jersey Shore Towns Hoping To Get A Piece Of Lucrative “Birthplace Of Rock” Merchandising
There’s a scrap brewing on the Jersey Shore, and it’s centered on which town–Wildwood or Gloucester City–is the real home of rock and roll, or at least the first Bill Haley show:
Now officials and residents in Wildwood, which in recent years has put a high polish and a healthy dose of kitsch on its 1950s- and ’60s-era motels to promote tourism, are saying that their town near the southern tip of New Jersey in Cape May County is the birthplace of rock ‘n’ roll.
After all, for a few summers Dick Clark held record hops in Wildwood while he was the host of “American Bandstand.” And there are plaques where the HofBrau once stood, as well as the site of the former Rainbow Club (now a nightclub called Kahuna’s), where Chubby Checker first performed “The Twist.”
But Gloucester City, another New Jersey town, about an 80-mile drive northwest of Wildwood, wants to cut in right there. And on Saturday, Mr. Richards and other Comets plan to headline a show in Gloucester City, in Camden County along the Delaware River, to commemorate an 18-month span in the early 1950s when Mr. Haley led the house band at the Twin Bar.
The thing is, though, at the time that band was Bill Haley and the Saddlemen– not the Comets — and it started out playing traditional country-and-western music.
The two towns will also have to jockey for position with Philadelphia and Cleveland–not to mention the Mississippi Delta, Memphis, and New Orleans–but one of the Jersey towns does can at least claim one victory over its in-state opponent:
“Ladies weren’t allowed in the front room of the bar, but they could go back in back where the Saddlemen played,” said Mr. Martarano.
Congratulations, Gloucester City! You can, if you feel like it, call yourself the birthplace of the groupie.
