Filmed back in late October, music fans can now see their
teen idols performing live on the big screen.
The film features hosts Jan and Dean introducing GREAT
musical acts like James Brown, The Rolling Stones, Lesley Gore, Chuck Berry,
The Beach Boys, Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas,
Marvin Gaye, The Miracles and The Supremes.
From Harvey Kubernik ...
The 60th Anniversary
of
The T.A.M.I. Show Filming in
October 2024
By Harvey
Kubernik © Copyright 2024
"Some people point to JFK's
assassination or the Beatles on The Ed
Sullivan Show or maybe Dylan going electric as the birth of the mythic
sixties, but for me, it's the ninth inning of The T.A.M.I. Show all the way.
"When the Rolling Stones hit the
stage, it's like you can feel the whole of American culture pivot in a way
that's so dramatic it borders on complete confusion, a pandemonium of the
spirit.
"And here's the thing: Everybody that
performs beforehand is wonderful, more than wonderful, the most beautiful
blend of post-war All-American Black and White musical exuberance.
"In fact, that's part of what makes
the Stones' entrance such a jarring, one-two knockout punch -- it would have been
a top notch variety show without them, a magical time captured ... but one
half-minute into 'Round and Round' you know you've entered a different space
for which a whole new something will be required. Call it erotic, demonic,
primordial, orgiastic, anarchic -- call it what you want but don't call it show
biz because there's no telling what could happen. Well ... the sixties
happened.
"The
T.A.M.I. Show is a before and after deal. The teenagers of America will
never know pure innocence again." -- Novelist Daniel Weizmann, author of The Last Songbird.
During late 2024, a documentary
re-examining the 60th anniversary of The
T.A.M.I Show is scheduled for release.
Fans of classic rock and soul rejoiced
when the legendary concert Steve Binder-directed film T.A.M.I. Show made its DVD debut on Shout! Factory in 2009. It
subsequently shipped to retail outlets as a Blu-ray, along with its
long-lost — and much requested — follow-up, The
Big TNT Show, directed by Larry Peerce, on December 2, 2016, as part of the
2-disc Blu-ray set T.A.M.I. Show / The Big T.N.T. Show Collector's Edition,
issued from Shout! Factory. The Big
T.N.T. Show was also released as a stand-alone DVD on the same day.
The package contains all the bonus features
from the T.A.M.I. Show DVD, plus new
interviews with The Big T.N.T. Show
performers singer Petula Clark, MFQ's Henry Diltz and the Lovin' Spoonful's
John Sebastian. The product is mastered from a High-Definition transfer.
One of the most heralded rock events ever
captured on film, right up there with producer Jack Good and the Rolling Stones
introducing Howlin' Wolf on the 1965 ABC-TV network music series Shindig!, the 1964 concert known as T.A.M.I. Show [Teenage Awards Music
International] presented a lineup like no other ... the Rolling Stones, James
Brown and the Famous Flames, the Barbarians, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas,
Gerry and the Pacemakers, the Beach Boys, Marvin Gaye, the Miracles, the Supremes,
Chuck Berry, and Lesley Gore. The hosts were Jan & Dean.
The production was done over two days and
nights on October 29th and 30th, 1964, on Pico Blvd. at the Santa Monica Civic
Auditorium. David Winters and Toni Basil served as choreographers.
Marshall Berle, Howard Wolf, John Landis and David Cassidy were in the
audience.
I was literally across the street one of the
afternoons, with my surfer pal Peter Piper at the Con Surf Board shop and
buying paraffin wax for our surf boards.
Aside from the five self-contained rock
groups, all the other performers were backed by a band assembled by
arranger/musical director Jack Nitzsche: Hal Blaine, Jimmy Bond, Lyle Ritz, Don
Peake, Tommy Tedesco, Glen Campbell, Barney Kessel, Nino Tempo, and Leon
Russell, along with Fanita James, Jean King, and Darlene Love, billed as the
Blossoms, provided stage vocals.
Sound engineer Dave Hassinger served as
audio consultant, and the Steve Barri / Phil (PF) Sloan songwriting team composed
the theme song.
Director Steve Binder, a native of Los
Angeles, attended Los Angeles High School, subsequently departed the University
of Southern California before graduating to apprentice under host Steve Allen,
who pioneered a variety show.
Binder, barely in his twenties, then took on
Jazz Scene USA, bringing live
performances by musical masters to a network audience.
Steve understood the unique requirements
of lighting and blocking for musicians in an optimal setting. Once The T.A.M.I. Show was screened in
Britain and the United States theatrically in 1965, the flick informed every
subsequent rock concert feature film.
[It had a very brief December, 1964, exclusive run in Los Angeles area
movie houses].
Binder is an Emmy and ACE
award-winning producer, director, writer, educator, and Golden Globe nominee. The Los Angeles Times called
his first feature film, The T.A.M.I.
Show, “the greatest of all rock 'n' roll films.”
He directed the weekly January 12,
1965 - April 11, 1966 television music series for NBC-TV, Hullabaloo. Viewed today, it is clear that he understood the unique
requirements of lighting and blocking that showcased rock and pop musicians in
an optimal setting.
In 1968, Binder conceived, directed, and
then co-produced with engineer Bones Howe, ELVIS, The
‘68 Comeback Special. TV
Guide called this landmark event “the second greatest musical moment
in television history next to the Beatles' debut on The Ed Sullivan Show.”
“When I played Elvis the edited 60-minute
version of the show in a projection room at NBC and at the first screening of
the show we had a lot of the staff that did the show, the entourage in the
room, it was packed,” recollected Binder in a 2008 interview we conducted.
“When it was over, Elvis told everybody to
get out of the room and he wanted to see it again with just me in the room with
him. Elvis said to me in that room, ‘Steve, it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever
done in my life. I give you my word I will never sing a song I don’t believe
in.’”
"Going back to The Steve Allen Show and Hullabaloo where I was collecting people all the way through my
career that I wanted to have in my team and work together with," Binder
explained to me in our 2008 interview.
"And in those days, technically, union
wise, you unless you had a union card you weren’t supposed to participate. I
learned together the difference between making records and television audio. It
was a perfect marriage. Even in lighting I would bring in rock ‘n’ roll guys
who did concerts with guys bred on television and movies. All of a sudden, they
were learning about the contemporary music business.”
"I met the Stones in 1964,"
remembered Jack Nitzsche in a 1988 interview I published in Goldmine magazine.
"Andrew Loog Oldham [the manager of
the Rolling Stones] called me up. He and
the group had met Phil Spector and Andrew and the Stones wanted to meet me. Brian Jones was in a three piece suit and
tie. It was at RCA studios and I was
working with Edna Wright, Darlene Love’s sister. A little later, Andrew and the
Stones started working at RCA.
"I got them into The T.A.M.I. Show. I put the
band together and did all the arrangements.
I was the musical director. I had
told the producer, Bill Sargent, the Stones were going to be big. I felt the Stones could close the show,"
underlined Jack.
“Bill said ‘James Brown is going to close
the show.’ We all stood at the side of
the stage watching James Brown do his act.
People were standing and screaming for James. (Legend has it that James told the Stones,
‘You’ll never be able to follow this.’).
Then the Stones came out and all the girls started crying. It was a whole new emotion!
"After the filming, the Motown acts
all asked for copies of my charts that I used for the house band," Jack
smiled.
Dave
Hassinger who engineered the Andrew Loog Oldham-produced 1964-1967 albums with
the Stones at the RCA studios in Hollywood was the audio consultant for The T.A.M.I. Show.
Guitarist Don Peake, unlike many of
his American contemporaries on the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium stage, already
knew the Rolling Stones from a UK 1963 September 29th - November 3rd Don
Arden-produced tour he did with the Everly Brothers. Also on the bill were Bo
Diddley, Julie Grant, Mickie Most, and the Flintstones.
Don had sat with Keith Richards on many
occasions, coaching and showing him instrument tips at various stops on the
trek.
"I have picked up as many hints on guitar playing
as I can from Don Peake, who is the Everly Brothers guitarist,"
volunteered Keith Richards in a 1963 edition of New Musical Express. "He really is a fantastic guitarist, and
the great thing about him is that he is always ready to show me a few
tricks."
“I really loved touring with the English
groups, back in 1963 and 1964. We used to tour with the Rolling Stones and
people like Georgie Fame," Bobby Rogers of the Miracles emphasized in a
1974 interview I did with him for Melody
Maker.
"During the
breaks from touring, a lot of the groups would ask questions about certain
songs on our albums. I remember when we filmed The T.A.M.I. Show Mick Jagger asked me about what I'd thought of
the album James Brown Live At The Apollo,
which was his favorite LP.
“One time on a tour he mentioned that he'd
like to record a Marvin Gaye song for the next Stones album. A month later,
'Hitch Hike' was being played all over Detroit radio.
"Man, those early tours were a trip.
Endless hours of bus rides and all these skinny English dudes asking us about
the Tamla / Motown sound. I never realized how important or influential we were
on groups like the Beatles and Stones. We used to party with all the groups,
and have become good friends. You know, music travels in sort of a cycle. The
early days were beautiful. We dug all the people we played with. Back in 1965
my favorite song was 'Get Off My Cloud.’”
In a 2010 dialogue with Mary Wilson, a
founding member of the Supremes, she recalled The T.A.M.I. Show booking.
"We were happy for it. And as a group,
it took us into areas we wanted to go, which is great. I loved to tour. I went
to the Whisky a Go Go in the sixties. I always went out to see everybody, loved
seeing other acts. I’ve toured with Bill Wyman in England. And he and I always
talk about The T.A.M.I. Show. We all
thought James Brown was gonna close the show. And all of a sudden, we heard
this rumor back stage that the Rolling Stones were closing. Bill said they were
all scared. And they became great friends, which was really cool."
In 2004, I interviewed author, lecturer, and
record producer Andrew Loog Oldham. I asked him about The T.A.M.I. Show in my 2006 book Hollywood Shack Job Rock Music In Film and On Your Screen.
"Why it works for me is the fear and
loathing in Santa Monica There you go. Come on man, it’s a magic moment.
“Every other British act got 25 grand each,
there and we thought had some Stones’ muscle, but it was a package deal with
General Artists Corp.
"Seeing the Motown acts was terrific.
Seeing Jack Nitzsche and Dave Hassinger. It was the film within the film.
‘Isn’t it nice to be in this business? Everyone is working together for one
thing. The Beach Boys’ shirts were horrendous. Isn’t it nice we’re all
here?' The Stones were becoming
successful, and getting good, and wait a minute, we gotta follow James Brown?
In a 2001 interview I had with Bill Wyman,
I asked him about The T.A.M.I. Show
and the stage presence of the Rolling Stones.
“The band was great live always. Always.
The Stones were a better live band than any other band at that time. I’m not
saying they were the greatest songwriters or the greatest recording artists,
but they were the best live band wherever you went. You could go up on stage
and blow everybody away no matter who they were.
“As long as me and Charlie could get it
together, then the rest of the band could do what they’d like and it worked.
And that’s what happened in the studio, and that’s what happened live. Me and
Charlie were really always on the ball, always straight, always together and
had it down.”
In 2001, I spoke with dancer Toni Basil,
who helped choreograph The T.A.M.I. Show
with David Winters.
“I said to myself ‘How can anybody follow
James Brown?’
“Anyway, Jack [Nitzsche] pointed this out
to me, and I later heard as well, that Andrew Loog Oldham was so smart that he
staged a massive equipment breakdown as well as suggesting some camera angles.
I just knew that Andrew was saying that the Stones’ equipment broke down and
they had to wait for stage set up. We knew it was some time would pass after
James Brown’s performance.
“So, finally, maybe the tune was ‘It’s All
Over Now,’ where there is a big cymbal crash in the opening of the song and
Mick had a tambourine in his hand and I wanna tell you simultaneously with that
crash in the music Mick jumped up in the air, and as he jumped up in the air,
Brian Jones turned his back to the audience, which was the first rebellious
piece of theater I had ever seen in my entire life," marveled Basil.
“I come from vaudeville. My parents were in
vaudeville, on stage shows. You never turned your back to the audience. So,
Mick was jumping in the air, Brian had his back to the audience, and Mick hit
the ground in a crouch. Not one person ever remembered James Brown again. And
neither did I.
“Mick’s moves were fantastic. What is this?
What is he doing, ya know? As a trained dancer and even as a Go Go dancer and a
street dancer, I had never seen such moves in my life. I mean, what they really
were post-modern and right on the beat.
“It doesn’t matter what physically you’re
doing as long as you’re grabbing the beat. But Mick was doing physical moves
that no one had ever seen before. In the same way James Brown was doing
physical moves that no one had ever seen before. And Brian [Jones] had his back
to the audience for a lot of the set. He was a rebellious comet and hardly
turned around which made it extremely powerful. It helped this rebellious
theater. I really did.
“If Brian would have faced front, it would
be great, and Mick would have been great but there was a theatrical ambience
that Brian brought because he turned his back.
And the Stones didn’t take a bow, which I thought was shocking. I mean,
even James Brown came on and took a bow.
“Elvis Presley, James Brown and Mick Jagger
had some similarities regarding dance. They moved exactly to the beat. They
understood the back beat. And James, of course, understood it from a Gospel
sense. But Mick, even though his moves were very abstract, and they were almost
like where white boys do that can’t dance to the beat, but the difference with
Mick is, he did dance to the beat.
“What Elvis, James and Mick had in common
was that they were nailing the beat. They were all physically dancing to the
beat. They weren’t like guys who came before them like Frank Sinatra, or those
people who would move to the lyric. Their movements came about from the story.
Their movements didn’t come about the story. Their movements came because of
the music.
“One more thing about The T.A.M.I. Show," added Toni. "When Smokey Robinson and
the Miracles earlier did ‘Mickey’s Monkey,’ I lost my mind. That was really
something. And Jack Nitzsche was brilliant. He was the one who called the shots
of what order people went in. And man, he didn’t make a mistake. How did he
know he could put the Stones on after James Brown? To this day I didn’t know
how he had the balls to do that and how he had an idea that it could be pulled
off like it was.”
“In a stunningly monochromatic case of
Life imitating Art imitating Pop and Soul, The
T.A.M. I. Show is the living, beating, in-the-flesh reincarnation of all
those cavalcades of stars Alan Freed would assemble during the closing reels of
most each and every Fifties B-flick beginning with the word ‘Rock,” is how
music journalist Gary Pig Gold described the legendary sight and sound
collaboration in 2005.
“Indeed, in TAMI we can still see Gerry Marsden in a guitar duet to the death
with none other than Chuck Berry, Mick Jagger wisely conceding to take on the
blue-flaming Butane James Brown, the Barbarians’ five-fingered drummist
practically inventing Garage Rock, Marvin Gaye hitch-hiking after Diana Ross’
supreme eyeful, and to top it all – to HOST it all, no less – those Clown
Princes of Surf ‘n’ Roll themselves, Jan and Dean!
“Steve Binder recorded absolute history
with this screaming little film; even the briefest glance towards Dennis
Wilson’s moptop during ‘Surfin’ USA’ will tell you why.”
