Host Nat Morris holding a reunion to honor the legendary dance show
TV dance shows were once a barometer of all things cool. Teens tuned in to learn the latest moves and fashion trends, to hear the newest music and to see the hippest acts.
It was fairly common for cities to air their own dance shows featuring hormonal teens burning off pent-up energy. Before going national, Philadelphia youths went hoppin’ to Dick Clark’s “Bandstand” (later known as “American Bandstand”) while Chicago hitched a ride on the hippest trip with Don Cornelius’ “Soul Train.”
In Detroit, the only way to rock nonstop was with “The Scene.” The Nat Morris-hosted show aired for 13 seasons, 1975 to 1987, on WGPR-TV (Channel 62), the nation’s first African-American-owned TV station.
While “The Scene” didn’t go on to gain national viewership, it did leave an indelible mark on Detroit-area viewers and those who danced on the show. Much like Detroit, “The Scene” was gritty and rough but filled with a whole lot of heart and soul.
Morris admits that the early days of “The Scene” were a bit ragtag at best.
“In the early days of the show, it wasn’t received quite well,” says Morris, of Detroit. “We didn’t have scripts or a teleprompter to read from. We winged it, but they kept the show on regardless of ratings, and it became one of the most remembered shows on the station.”
Now, more than 20 years since the show last aired, Morris, who also was the show’s executive producer, has organized “The Scene Reunion” party Saturday at Bert’s Warehouse Theater at Detroit’s Eastern Market. Morris wants to thank fans who keep the show’s memory alive.
The reunion also will offer fans the opportunity to mix and mingle with their favorite dancers, enjoy live dance and musical performances and pick up souvenirs.
In the beginning, Morris co-hosted “The Scene” with Ray Henderson before becoming Soul Brother No. 1. Morris was the wizard who took viewers to “Geektown” five days a week.
“The Scene” also attracted big names in music, such as the Spinners, the Manhattans, George Clinton and Ready for the World. And celebs like James Brown, Stevie Wonder, Teddy Pendergrass, Luther Vandross, Billy Dee Williams and James Earl Jones each stopped by for quick on-air interviews.
“When ‘The Scene’ gained notoriety, it became one of those mandatory stops for celebrities because they (celebrities) could promote their projects on radio and TV,” Morris says.
Yolanda Davis-McGrier says she wouldn’t miss the event. Davis-McGrier, who not only danced on the show from 1975 to 1982 but also helped select its dancers and its music, says she wants to honor Morris and the memory of the show.
“Nat will kill me if I don’t come,” jokes Davis-McGrier, a scale technician for the city of Detroit. “He really cared about the kids. I was always fond of Mr. Morris because he was tuned in to each dancer and tried to keep everybody happy. ”
Morris says there’s been talk of a reunion since 1995, but it took somber reminders that tomorrow is not promised that provided the catalyst.
“Ten popular dancers are no longer with us. One just passed this month,” Morris says. “Many of us are ages 40 and up. I don’t have a lot of time. I will be 64 July 19. I wanted the dancers and all of those connected to the show to have a reason to come together for something other than a funeral.”
While Morris has an obvious emotional connection to the show, he was reluctant to become its host at first.
“I came from Flint to Detroit in 1972 to do radio. TV wasn’t in the plan,” says Morris, who was initially hired to work at WGPR-TV’s sister radio station ,WGPR-FM. “In radio you can wear a T-shirt and sandals to work, and no one knew your face when you left the station. I remember not wanting to see it (the show), and I hoped that nobody else was watching.”
Oh, but people were watching.
Tina Nelson of Detroit says she was a loyal watcher of “The Scene” from 1978 to 1983. She says at 6 p.m. very little got in the way of her watching.
“I was front and center by the TV. I loved the dancing, the music, the clothes,” Nelson says. “As a kid in high school, what do you think a kid would rather watch, the news or a dance show? It was just exciting to hear music from Detroit being played. Unlike ‘Soul Train,’ which was playing Top 40, ‘The Scene’ was playing techno music like Cybotron and Kraftwerk.”
With its growing popularity, area teens flocked to the studio hoping to be selected to dance on the show.
One such teen was Daphne Andrews-Williams, who now lives in New York and operates Daphne’s Divine Dance studio there.
While studying ballet and other forms of dance, Andrews-Williams from 1975 to 1979 also danced on “The Scene.” She says the show was an outlet for youths with natural dance talent or masters of street dancing.
“Dancing on ‘The Scene’ gave me the confidence to pursue my dreams,” she says.
But being a popular dancer on the show also had its drawbacks, said Andrews-Williams. “I remember I was at Northland Mall doing some Christmas shopping with a boyfriend at the time, when I noticed people staring and pointing at me. They began surrounding me and I had to leave the mall.”
“I would get letters from prison,” says Maria Kwiatkowski, a dancer on the show from 1984 to1987. “One time some of the dancers visited a junior high school and the kids got so excited they were pulling my hair out of my head and pulling at my clothes.”
The Detroiter was a curvy blonde who unwittingly dripped with sex appeal as she worked her curves in sassy ensembles. Kwiatkowski was a bit like the Jessica Rabbit. You can imagine Kwiatkowksi uttering the animated siren’s famous phrase, “I not bad, I am just drawn that way.”
“I didn’t know what I had” says Maria by phone. “I used to pick on myself. I was so hard on myself. My first time on the show I wore a black unitard and red shoes,” Kwiatkowski says. “It looked like something Wonder Woman would wear. Many of the girls dressed like they were going to church. I was watching ‘Soul Train’ so I was always wearing something crazy.”
Fashion is important to Detroiters. And no one took fashion more seriously than “Scene” dancer Fred Anderson, aka Fast Freddy. While many dancers dappled in the latest fashion trend, Anderson kept it stylishly Detroit.
“It’s dressing head to toe and flashy,” says Anderson of Detroit’s fashion sensibility.
“I dress to take the garbage out. My father would say the best reason to dress is no reason at all — just because you wake up.”
Anderson, who danced on the show for 10 years, was a choreographer at Motown in the late ’60s and traveled with a group called the Professionals that opened for acts such as Edwin Starr. And Anderson, a father of two, is still grooving and teaching others to do the same at senior and community centers throughout Detroit.
The “Scene” was also a music incubator, known for playing a distinct frenetic brand of dance music.
“When music was played on TV it seems like it slowed down, and you didn’t get enough movement from the dancers,” Morris says.
“But when the music was fast, the dancers would really shake it good.”
Local DJs like David Humphries, aka “Hump the Grinder,” answered the call, creating blood-pumping mixes.
“Detroit hasalways beena high-energy city when it comes to music. People from other cities always thought we had lost our minds on the dance floor.We never cared what the rest of the country was doing,” says Humphries, who started mixing tracks on “The Scene” from 1982 to 1984.
“Nat definitely gave us all the freedom in the world.Whatever we were doing in the streets of Detroit, that’s what he wanted from us.”
Humphries adds that Morris introduced techno music to TV.
“A lot of the new techno artists could not get their music played on the radio, so Nat paved the way for several techno artists to expose their sound on ‘The Scene,’” Humphries says. One such DJ, Morris says, was Juan Atkins. And he says music producer Don Was was behind such early ’80s tracks as “Are Your Ready to Throw Down” and “Flamethrower” by rap duo Felix and Jarvis. The group featured Morris’ nephew, Felix Morris.
Today, shows like “The Scene” are few and far between.
“Dance shows used to have a function; they were serving a need,” says Jerry Herron, a professor of English and American studies, specializing in American contemporary culture, at Wayne State University. “Kids watched how the dancers moved, how they dressed, how they wore their hair. With the advent of MTV, those great dance shows became less relevant.”
But the relevance and importance of “The Scene” and the history of WGPR continues, says Bruce Harper, technical director at WDIV-TV (Channel 4). Harper got his start at WGPR, as did others like former TV news anchors Amyre Makupson and Shaun Robinson, who now is co-anchor and correspondent for the entertainment TV show “Access Hollywood.”
In a quest to preserve WGPR’s legacy, Harper is in the early stages of forming a foundation dedicated to the expensive task of archiving and digitizing the station’s aging tapes.
“The further I get away from my days at WGPR, the more important they become,” says Harper, who started at the station in 1977. Blacks walked into other stations with years of experience, thanks to WGPR.”
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