Definitely pleased that American Bandstand was the type of show that it was, on national television.

Until cable TV made Soul Train available via WGN in a large part of medium population and small population America, American Bandstand was the only show on TV or radio in a large part of the mostly white U.S. where people could listen to music (not all of the music on a particular show but part of the list of songs) from performers that were not played on their local pop music stations, particularly those R&B performers who had not already achieved mainstream pop station status.

American Bandstand also did this for other types of performers such as new romantic/new wave performers who would have qualified, if they were lucky, for MTV "light rotation" status. One example is "Tenderness" by General Public.

Dick hosted the show with a classiness, civility, and enthusiasm that reinforced the Rainbow Coaliton mentality and the positive contributions & value of multiple kinds of danceable music (and even music that was not that danceable, such as metal i.e. Def Leppard) and the nonsnarky--thus nonsadistic--value of dancing to contemporary music as a healthy recreational activity.

These facets of Dick Clark's still live, permanently (but unfortunately not exclusively) for a portion of the worldwide population, if you consider the present state of pop music, from Kanye to Justin Timberlake to Pitbull to Katy Perry.

It is interesting how American Bandstand contrasted in 1981 and 1982 to the psychopathic "disco music is dead" (thus danceablemusic is dead implication) trend that SO saturated a significant portion of the white population in those years of the Reagan/Bush era white man backlash.
In any event, this list includes examples of music performers whose success was mostly limited to R&B stations but still performed on American Bandstand.

9.9

Ashford & Simpson

Kurtis Blow

The Boys

The Brothers Johnson

Chic Con Funk Shun

DeBarge

The Dazz Band

Sheila E

The Gap Band

Jesse Johnson's Revue

Harold Melvin & the Blue Notes

Evelyn "Champagne" King

Lakeside

The Mary Jane Girls

Teena Marie

New Edition

Raydio

Rufus

Rick James

Rose Royce

Skyy

Johnnie Taylor

The Whispers

Yarbrough & Peoples

In any event, Dick and his team as American Bandstand did a good job each

time they assembled a diversified show, which was frequently the result.

MickyDolenz said:

You Gotta Love William Shatner.

2001 interview

RIP Dick Clark

Class act and pop culture legend all around!

Dick Clark was one of the nicest guy around in showbiz. RIP.