Philadelphia Daily News from Philadelphia, Pennsylvania • Page 39

Arts THE PHILADELPHIA DAiNEWS FEATURES 3 Soaps now mirroring the crimes of your life by Carolyn Kinsey JockO: A Phila. original His radio style rapped up fans the fact that the topic is being hotly debated across the country as the Supreme Court re-examines the landmark Roe vs. Wade decision. "Abortion is such a volatile issue now, yet when faced with a choice on daytime, they allow characters to miscarry," said Lynn Leahey, editor-in-chief of Soap Opera Digest magazine, which has been reporting daytime trends for almost 20 years. "But they have made progress," she continued.

"Years ago, it was the sign of an evil character if they even thought about abortion, and then they were usually punished for it. Today, they do discuss the option, but usually stop short of exercising it" In years past, daytime has also been criticized for a lack of gay and minority characters. But progress is being made in the area of minorities, at least. NBC's "Santa Barbara" was the first to showcase a Hispanic character, Cruz Castillo (played by A Martinez), who has been a front-burner since the show's inception. This is another in a series of reports exploring the legend and lore of pop music in Philadelphia.

Jocko Henderson relaxes outside his Mount Airy home in 1979 by Mark de la Vina Daily News Staff Writer To Jocko Henderson, the chime of a doorbell often turned out to be the sound of a hit record. At any given moment, a vocalist or a record promoter would drop by his Germantown home to ask the powerful disc jockey to give a listen to a freshly cut record or a just-penned tune. booking concerts and broadcasting from Pep's at Broad and South streets, bringing in such acts as Otis Redding, James Brown and the Orioles. With future Beatles and Rolling Stones manager Alan Klein, he later leased the State Theater at 52nd and Chestnut streets, booking performers such as Dionne Warwick and the Shirelles, both part of Greenburg's Scepter roster. But demand for Henderson in New York City as a disc jockey and concert organizer forced him to channel his energy up the seaboard.

"Jocko's Rocketship" television show, an afternoon program broadcast from a Newark, N.J., studio, kept him busier than ever. "We had 25,000 kids lined up around the block for one show," he recalled. "And only 90 of them would be able to dance on it." MUSICAL Recently, millionaire C.C Capwell (played by Jed Allen) withdrew his membership from an exclusive country club because it frowned on his Hispanic date, Santana An-drade (played by Wanda DeJesus). Another difficult area for day But early one day in 1957, some guy was pushing his luck with the accommodating 1 1 1 Lucci New York Daily News Two white thugs beat a black teen into a coma because he talked to a white girl at a health club. A young woman accepts a male friend's offer of a ride home from a local bar.

Once there, he forces her to have sex, telling her she was "asking for it." A 16-year-old girl loses her virginity to a boy who does not use a condom. She ends up going for an HIV test, sweating out the results. More teles of crime and love gone bad from the pages of tabloid newspapers? Not quite. These stories are playing out every weekday on daytime television and creating quite a stir for their approach to serious issues. The bias-crime story line on ABC's "All My Children" is perhaps the most disturbing, because it's right out of the headlines.

Young Terrence Frye (played by Dondre Whitfield) is alone, finishing up his job at the health club, when confronted by two white men. "We should teach him some respect," says one, reaching for a metal bar. As the story unfolds, they also use the racial epithets "nigger" and "jungle bunny," words rarely heard on prime time, much less daytime TV. "Racial prejudice has always been a very important issue for me," explained Agnes Nixon, creator and head writer of "All My Children" as well as creator of ABC's "One Life to Live" and "Loving." "As a young-child in the South, I remember sitting on the bus and watching the elderly black people having to go to the back and stand. It filled my soul with pain." Her brushes with racism as a child have prompted Nixon to script a number of reality-based stories over the years, but she's discouraged that society has evolved so little.

"I would have thought we'd have grown up by now," she lamented. "It's just shocking that it still goes on." The "AMC" bias story line is especially gratifying for Whitfield, who, as Terrence Frye, has since emerged from his coma and identified his attackers. "It's amazing, but some people are under the impression that these types of crimes dont happen, when they are on the news every day," said- Whitfield, 22. "If our job las actors! is to mirror life, like Howard Beach or Bensonhurst, then maybe the people involved in those incidents will watch this and see themselves. Maybe they'll say, 'Hey, I was wrong.

I need to make a change in myself." This is a very, very important message to be a part of." In fact, soaps may be the perfect medium to raise social issues, because the drama unfolds a little every day, and viewers have time to develop an understanding for topics foreign to them. "Erica Susan Lucci had the first legal abortion on TV almost 20 years ago, and that was considered very on the edge," said Nixon, adding that the story line created problems for ier, though she's not sorry she did it Curiously, soaps have not developed abortion story lines recently, despite time has been interracial romance. Producers often abandon these story lines if viewers object CBS' "As the World Turns" has been successful by patiently spending four years developing characters Jessica (who is black) and Duncan (who is white) from friends to lovers. Actress Tamara Tunie, who plays Jessica, said her romance with Dun Jocko Henderson has been called the Inventor of rap music because of his bouncy, often Imitated patter a font of rhymes and Philadelphia to New York to host top-rated radio shows and his own television program. "Jocko's Rocket-ship" was heard in Boston, St.

Louis, Baltimore, New York City, Washington, Philadelphia, Richmond, Miami and Detroit And when Walt Disney Pictures approached Henderson about playing himself in a proposed movie about Scepter Records head Florence Greenburg, they also broached the subject of putting his own life on film. "I was partially instrumental in helping Florence Greenburg have a successful career," Henderson said. "But a film on your life? You say, There's more interesting people out there." Henderson said he recently sold the rights to his life story, and a Disney movie is in pre-production. Mario Van Peebles is being considered to play the young Jocko, he added. Henderson was born in 1918, the son of Elmer A.

Henderson a school administrator in Baltimore. He attended Tuskegee Institute in Alabama on a tennis scholarship and became a disc jockey straight out of college. Working at WSID in Baltimore in the early '50s, he was known only as Doug Henderson. But it was there that he developed his intergalactic radio persona. "It came from a friend of mine, a disc jockey named Hot Rod," said Henderson, who looks IS years younger than the birth date on his voting registration suggests.

"He was the first person I ever heard. Hot Rod was the 'Space Commander' so I changed that to 'Rocketship Commander." When Henderson arrived at WHAT (1340-AM) in Philadelphia, he also adopted the air name Jocko. "It rhymes with so many things," he explained. "Radi-o. Daddi-o.

Mommi-o. Baddest on the radi-o. Hottest show on the video." Henderson rapidly became one of the most popular radio personalities in the country, rivaling other early jocks, including New York's Alan Freed. With his successful rocket-ship shtick and his knack for picking, hits, he began to organize his soul revues at the Apollo Theater. A collection of old photos of Apollo marquees jshpws.

Jocko's name dwarfing those of Gaye or Clyde McPhatter. Around was wordplay that he spouted In between songs. can (played by Michael Swan) was accepted by viewers because, when the couple finally came together, "It made perfect sense. "They didn't just draw straws to pair up these two. They started as friends, he was OF THE CITY vr i iik vii i The doorbell was ringing at 4 o'clock in the morning and I said to myself, what the hell is this?" said Henderson in the Mount Airy home where he lives today.

"I put my gun in my bathrobe, just in case." Henderson peeked through the peephole and and saw producer Bumps Blackwell standing on his porch with a young gospel singer named Sam Cooke. "Sam said, 'You don't know me, but we think we have a hit Henderson recalled. "Anyway, I listened to the record. It was 'You Send Me." I went upstairs and got them the contract to play the Apollo Theater in New York." Three weeks later, Cooke, then 22, was performing in one of Jocko's now legendary Apollo Theater shows, and his single was fast on its way to topping the charts. Such tales are not uncommon in the Technicolor-ful career of Douglass "Jocko" Henderson, one of the most important disc jockeys in the early years of rock radio.

A Philadelphian since 1953, he's been called the inventor of rap music because of his bouncy, often imitated patter, a font of rhymes and wordplay that spouted between songs. "Jocko had a delivery that was unlike anybody else on the air," commented former Philadelphia competitor Dick Clark in 1989. "A thousand and one DJs have copied Jocko's style over the years." At the height of his popularity in the '60s, Henderson commuted from Martinez Henderson gave up full-time disc jockeying in 1969 but continued doing radio specials, anniversary shows and oldies concerts. He made a run for Congress in the 2nd District in 1978 and is now spending much of his time promoting Get Ready, an educational program he developed in 1980 that he pitches to school districts across the country. "You want to teach kids to read, fine," he said.

"But ask them about the eight parts of grammar. I'm telling you, this is how to do it." Using musical recordings featuring himself rapping on everthing from multiplication tables to American history, he hopes to get children excited about learning through a contemporary music form. It just happens to be a pops music genre that he very well mayi have invented. widowed, and gradually found they could talk to each other." Initially, Tunie said that Jessica was reluctant to act on her feelings. "Jessica was very much aware of the hurdles they would face as an interracial couple in this society," she said, "and when she finally admitted she loved him.

there were some objections." Slowly, the story line worked through that, and now they are what is known on daytime as a "super couple." Fan reaction has been "99 percent positive," according to Tunie. "You could count on one hand the negative mail we have received." But stay tuned if these two decide to have children.