Rocking the tube

Rock music and television have had an uneasy alliance over the last four decades. They’ve been wary of each other and have tried to make it work, but for the most part, it’s been a shotgun marriage of convenience.

Yet rock’s march of progress would have been far slower without TV -- the Beatles and Elvis had Ed Sullivan to thank for their instant mega-ton impact.

That’s what makes “American Pop,” the Museum of Television & Radio’s new series about popular music on television, such a fascinating history lesson.

The museum’s first batch of shows are great examples of what happens when TV, the most lumpen prole of mass media, bumps headfirst into pop music, which for the first 25 years of its existence was the rear-guard province of youth culture.

“Television played a huge role in shaping youth-oriented pop culture into what became pop culture in the 1960s,” says the museum’s curator, Arthur Smith, who organized the series. “But in those early TV shows, you can definitely see a divide between the old and new culture.”

Smith, a huge music fan who stumbled upon many of the shows while trolling through the museum’s archives in his spare time, decided to mount “American Pop” to shake the cobwebs off an impressive collection of rare broadcast nuggets.

“Working on different projects, I started to get a sense of just how well music is represented in the collection,” says Smith, “but it’s never been programmed in a way that’s easily accessible.”

The first two installments of “American Pop,” a series that will run periodically over the next few years, feature a cross-section of obscure delights such as “Inside Pop -- The Rock Revolution,” a CBS News special from 1967 in which classical music maestro Leonard Bernstein gives a master class in rock with help from Frank Zappa, Roger McGuinn, Janis Ian and Brian Wilson, who delivers a gorgeous solo rendition of the Beach Boys’ song “Surf’s Up.”

Eleven years after Elvis’ appearances on “The Ed Sullivan Show,” the chasm between the old-line establishment and teen culture was still wide enough to warrant a show like this, in which the unwittingly patronizing Bernstein tries to add a patina of respectability by presenting rock as high art.

“The CBS show is an amazing look at a time when the culture was so monolithic that the old guard had to explain what was interesting about the new guard,” says Smith. “I can’t imagine a show like that happening now. There is no dominant figure like Bernstein that stands for the cultural establishment now.”

“Soul Survivors,” the first installment of “American Pop,” features two performers so powerful that they cut right through the plastic, low-fi limitations of the medium.

James Brown’s historic Boston concert, which was televised less than 24 hours after the 1968 assassination of the Rev. Martin Luther King Jr., is a rare example of music and television teaming up for the greater good.

The show, in which Brown tries to provide some measure of calm for an agitated crowd at a time when riots were flaring up all over the country (100 conflagrations erupted nationwide, yet Boston remained calm), is an extraordinary example of music television at its most raw.

“That’s a very intense program, the grittiness and immediacy of it,” Smith says.

“American Pop” also features a barn-burning Al Green performance from a 1972 broadcast of the public television show “Soul,” whose intimate nightclub setting made it TV’s greatest showcase for R&B; artists during its brief early-’70s run.

“That show points up the technical limitations of capturing live music on television,” says Smith. “The sound is bad, but it throws the ability of the musicians into sharp relief. Green’s voice is just amazing. And there’s a short interview segment as well that is really revealing.”

Green’s “Soul” appearance is the apotheosis of music television; MTV arguably represents its nadir. MTV signaled the death of spontaneity for TV rock, and a new era of market-researched, spoon-fed cool.

But in the beginning, it was fumbling toward a definable style, and the seams were still showing. “American Pop” will screen MTV’s Aug. 1, 1981, debut, complete with cheesy pastel sets, awkward VJs and videos from Styx and Pat Benatar.

“There are all kinds of technical difficulties,” Smith says of the channel’s inauspicious bow. “Dead air when they’re switching tapes, VJ patter not matching up correctly with the songs. We think of it as the standard for sophistication now, but back then it resembled a public access cable show.”

If you want to witness the sorry decline of music television, tune in to MTV.

If you prefer to bask in a the nostalgic cathode glow of the American Pop series and view TV rock at its most sublime and absurd, keep an eye on the museum’s evolving programming schedule.

“There is such a wealth of stuff that we’re gonna keep it open-ended,” Smith says.

One thing is certain: There will be no screening of Janet Jackson’s breast.

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‘American Pop’

What: Series of shows examining the relationship between pop music and television. “Soul Survivors” screens through April 8. Bernstein and MTV screens from April 9-May 30.

Where: Museum of Television & Radio, 465 N. Beverly Drive, Beverly Hills

When: Wednesdays-Sundays,

1 p.m.

Price: Admission is free; suggested contribution: $10 for adults, $8 for students and seniors; $5 for children younger than 14.

Info: (310) 786-1025