Phil Collins has been all over the internet this past week, first for opening up how just how bad his alcoholism really was … (at one point they actually brought his family together to say goodbye to him) …
... and then making an appearance on “Tracks Of My Years,” which just may be my new favorite music program. Host Vernon Kay is putting together quite an impressive list of rock icon guests … Paul McCartney and Mick Jagger and Ronnie Wood of The Rolling Stones have appeared recently … and Phil’s interview is especially interesting. It’s also nice to see him looking so much healthier and happier at this point in his life. He may never perform again … but watching this clip is very encouraging based on all the bad news we’ve heard over the past few years. (kk)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1UefEKzjTLQ&t=1s
The Eagles have added four MORE Sphere shows, extending their stay now thru January of 2027. (One cannot help but wonder ... can an announcement for 2029 be far behind???)
New dates are January 15th and 16th and 22nd and 23rd, all Friday/Saturday shows as before. Seriously, how many more times can hell freeze over??? (kk)
On the opposite end of the spectrum, ZZ Top abruptly cancelled their appearance with Cheap Trick at The Hollywood Bowl scheduled for August 5th less than 24 hours before showtime. Citing “unforeseen personnel matters,” automatic refunds were issued for all ticket holders. No mention yet as to whether or not this concert date will be rescheduled. (kk)
Barry Manilow, who's been battling health issues for a while now, pulled a similar last minute postponement of his show in Lexington, Kentucky, on Tuesday ... which was already a rescheduled show to make up for a previous postponement. In this case, the announcement wasn't made until the venue was opening their doors to let the fans in.
I stand by my statement of the other day ... it may be time for many of our legacy artists to finally call it a day and rest on their previous laurels ... leave the fans with a cherished memory instead of an image they just can't shake. Hey, I hate to see it, too ... we all want it to go on forever ... but not at the expense of their health. They've given us a lifetime of enjoyment ... let us just hang on to that and cherish the memories. (Besides, I'm tired of having to make two or three of these announcements every time I do a posting!!! lol) kk
I was very sad to hear that Vicki Wickham, a fixture on the British music television series “Ready, Steady, Go!” has passed away.
Vicki was also Dusty Springfield’s manager for most of her solo career.
I just recently read the “Ready, Steady, Go!” book by Andy Neill, a very detailed documentation of the show’s history, weekly guests, and behind the scenes action. It truly was ahead of its time and a regular fixture on Friday nights in Great Britain. Every major music act of that era made an appearance, some making multiple returns to plug their latest record. It was unique in that the artist performed literally side by side with the audience and dancers.
Harvey Kubernik sent me this notice:
Vicki Wickham, a Behind-the-Scenes Driving Force in Pop Music, Dies at 87
She managed artists like Labelle and Dusty Springfield, and helped run the influential 1960s British TV showcase “Ready Steady Go!”
Ready, Steady, Go! The Weekend Starts Here:
The Definitive Story Of The Show That Changed Pop TV
By Harvey Kubernik © 2020
Back in March, UK television channel BBC Four broadcast The Story of Ready, Steady, Go! a documentary on the landmark and influential music show of the sixties. BMG Books just Ready, Steady, Go! The Weekend Starts Here, a comprehensive book on the subject by music writer and historian Andy Neill.
RSG! debuted on British small screens August 9, 1963, with its final broadcast December 23, 1966. The programme was conceived by former journalist Elkan Allan, then head of Light Entertainment at Associated-Rediffusion, the independent television company that controlled London’s weekday programming. Allan hired journalist Francis Hitching as producer and Vicki Wickham as assistant producer to book the talent and look for the best dancers.
RSG! beamed live from Studio 9, in the basement studio in A-R’s headquarters in Kingsway, London, and from 1964 was aired nationally over most of the ITV network. Bill Turner directed the first shows, and a line of directors followed including Robert Fleming, Rollo Gamble, Daphne Shadwell, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, and Peter Croft.
The show’s main presenter was the paternal figure of BBC and Radio Luxembourg DJ, Keith Fordyce, but it was his sidekick, the “Queen of the Mods”, Cathy McGowan, who was the show’s real figurehead. Each week RSG! introduced the new popular music at the time including The Beatles, the Rolling Stones, the Who, Manfred Mann, Dusty Springfield, as well as such then-unknowns as Rod Stewart, Donovan, David Bowie, Marc Bolan and the Jimi Hendrix Experience.
RSG! was an essential television ritual for the newly hormonally-charged British teenager. It epitomized the spirit of youthful optimism that gripped Britain in the mid-sixties, and became a style guide barometer to popular culture trends.
“On Friday nights in England in the mid-sixties, you didn’t do anything until you’d checked out the music, the dances and the fashions on Ready, Steady, Go!, beamed live from a London studio,” stressed author and music journalist Richard Williams in a 2020 email.
“You could see the Stones, the Beatles, the Yardbirds, Lulu, Donovan, Them, Sandie Shaw, the Who or the Animals playing to an audience as cool as they were. Jimi Hendrix and the Beach Boys made their first British TV appearances on RSG! Visiting American soul singers were treated like gods. One entire show was devoted to James Brown, another to Motown artists: the Miracles, the Supremes, Stevie Wonder and Martha and the Vandellas, introduced by Dusty Springfield. The show had the greatest slogan: ‘The weekend starts here!’ And it truly did.”
For many years, Dave Clark from the Dave Clark Five, who purchased the rights to the programme in the seventies, was restrictive and protective about licensing footage. In 2018 BMG’s management secured rights from Clark.
Ready, Steady, Go! The Weekend Starts Here achieved its place in British television history when, in 2000, the British Film Institute revealed the industry’s favourite British television programmes of all time, as polled in the BFI ‘TV 100’ poll. RSG! was voted into the listings at No. 62 and No. 8 in the Lifestyle/Light Entertainment category.
During 2011, as part of Ray Davies’ Meltdown Festival on London’s South Bank, original show editor Vicki Wickham produced a highly-acclaimed RSG! evening which revisited the original spirit of the show by presenting classic and contemporary performers staged with an evocative backdrop designed by Nicholas Ferguson.
Ready, Steady, Go! has never been documented in full detail before - until now. Thanks to exclusive contributions and unseen photographs and memorabilia, author Andy Neill fully examines Ready, Steady, Go! from quintessential Swinging London accessory to its current iconic status as the most legendary popular music programme of all time.
The book displays recently-penned essays from artists, managers who appeared on the show including Mick Jagger, Andrew Loog Oldham, Pete Townshend, Ray Davies, Chris Stamp, Donovan, Lulu, Barbara Hulanicki and others.
Also featured are Forewords from the show’s original editor Vicki Wickham and acclaimed director, Michael Lindsay-Hogg, exclusive contributions from those directly involved in the show’s production (presenters, directors, dancers, set designers, etc.) as well as illuminating and evocative insight from contemporary viewers whose lives the show touched.
The text is interspersed with hundreds of colour and black & white images – the bulk of them previously unpublished alongside original ephemera and memorabilia (tickets, contracts, letters, etc) as well as illustrations from the groundbreaking set designs and title sequences. Of particular interest is a never-before-published and fully researched complete guide to all 173 episodes, including songs performed and artists’ appearances. (Only 5% of the programme survives. Read and weep at what has been lost!)
“Before I started writing and compiling the book, I was aware of the important part RSG! played in promotion and exposure for new records, dances, and fashions,” underscored Andy Neill in a July 2020 missive to me.
“While undertaking the considerable research involved, I really got a sense of how the show became an important part of the switched-on British teenager’s life, particularly in its peak years 1964 and ’65. Whereas rivals like Thank Your Lucky Stars and Top Of The Pops were static – merely presenting an artist or group on a podium in front of some tacky scenery, RSG! made the performer and the audience equal participants, removing the real or imagined barrier between them.
“The fact that the show wasn’t tied to any stringent formula like TOTP made it that much more adventurous, particularly when RSG! went all-live in April 1965 and moved out of central London to the larger Studio One in Wembley with Michael Lindsay-Hogg as director.
“He was roughly the same age as the musicians and singers and was a fan of the music so he could relate on a much more realistic level. It’s a sad irony that virtually nothing has survived from this crucial part of the show’s development as it really was way ahead in presenting the music as you would hear it in a club or ballroom.
“Groups like the Stones, the Who, the Yardbirds, Manfred Mann, George Fame and singers like Dusty were able to really show what they were about next to the latest Mod fashions and dances. The only music show I can think of that came close to capturing a similar excitement was Shindig! but that was presented like a traditional showbiz-type revue – similar to what Jack Good had already done in England in the late fifties with Oh Boy! – with choreographed dancers and variations of guest acts and musicians together on a huge stage with the audience at a distance. With RSG! it was like you were watching a tightrope walk – with the show going out live, anything could go wrong and it frequently did!”
“I was a dancer on The Beat Room, which was on BBC2 in 1964,” songwriter, boasted songwriter and music business veteran Kim Fowley in a 2006 conversation. “In 1966, I appeared and sang on Ready, Steady, Go! Otis Redding being booked on Ready, Steady, Go! in September 1966 was a seismic event for the UK and must-see TV.”
“Otis developed an English audience slowly and it began to mushroom with, funnily enough, a song that was not a hit for him in the US - his cover of the Temptations’ ‘My Girl,’ a massive hit in the UK taken off the Otis Blue album,” recollected author Rob Bowman, a Prof. at York University in Canada.
“When Otis played England in the fall of ‘66 the word of mouth on those gigs was extraordinary, and of course he was given a whole show on Ready, Steady, Go! It wasn’t just two songs on Ready, Steady, Go! He did a whole half-hour devoted to him with guests Eric Burdon and Chris Farlowe.
“The impact of that was furthering, if you will, the gospel of Otis Redding among an English audience that was already prone to looking at America for black culture. Going back to trad jazz, the blues revival, the Mod fascination with soul music and eventually mainstream Britain’s fascination with soul music. It’s just a logical extension of that. The Northern soul thing happened a little bit later.”
Like visionary director/producer Jack Good before him (both studied at Oxford), Michael Lindsay-Hogg viewed and lensed rock ‘n’ roll as a dramatic subject. Michael’s first job, at age 16, was serving as an apprentice for John Houseman’s repertory theatre company in Stratford, Connecticut.
“I started out as a child actor and fell in love with the theatre,” Michael told me in a 2019 interview. “The first jobs I had were in Shakespeare on stage. And that’s how it started and I tried very much to bring some of those elements to Ready, Steady, Go!”
“RSG! was a black and white programme,” reinforced Michael Lindsay-Hogg. “A lot of the great comedies and dramas from the forties and fifties were in black and white. In England we had no colour.
“I had no worries from the people above me. Elkan Allen was the creator and always encouraged me to go further. Very helpful. And I think people were stunned by the comparative substance of the rock ‘n’ roll that was on television,” asserted Lindsay-Hogg.
“1963 was a revolution. It was the kids who had been children in World War II. The world was opening up for them. They could have long hair if they wanted too. And it was the discovery of the Pill for pregnancy. And so a whole nation was open for young people and freedom. There was long hair, the Pill and music. The paper was ready to be lit and the match came,” ventured Lindsay-Hogg, who along with John Lennon, Andrew Loog Oldham, Vicki Wickham, Mick Jagger and other bold Brits embodied the confidence of a new London.
“There were new managers in rock ‘n’ roll and around Ready, Steady, Go! Don Arden, Andrew Loog Oldham, and Kit Lambert and Chris Stamp, had been assistant stage managers or involved in acting.”
In my 2004 book, Hollywood Shack Job: Rock Music In Film And On Your Screen. Andrew Loog Oldham recalled. “RSG! represented the time when we were in the business we wanted to be in and RSG! on a Friday night the Green Room was the meeting place of all those similarly blessed. Vicki Wickham booked the show from late 1963 to December 1966. In 1965 Michael Lindsay-Hogg directed it, and tried new techniques like stop action and freeze frame while the band was on camera.
“Suffice to say I still communicate with both of them so that tells you a lot. You were dealing with nice people. None of the people had an agenda. On the show, the visuals propelled the music.”
During a 2016 dialogue Andrew further elaborated, “For one it was obvious that ‘this thing of ours’ was not going to disappear. We had come in following the Twist, Davy Crockett, skiffle, and trad jazz. Skiffle and trad jazz had been very important; they had been the BBC and the establishment’s last chance to control the key to what music we got to hear. You had during 1957-1958 The Six-Five Special; hosted by Pete Murray (God bless him!) and Jo Douglas which invited us all to deck up in jeans and sweaters and be really daring with our shirt collars turned up.
“There were villains, there was mayhem, action and if we had not had pirate radio, I might not have had a hit with Marianne Faithfull's ‘As Tears Go By.’ The BBC would not touch it, they said Marianne could not sing. Mind you, that's what they'd said about Mick Jagger a year earlier when the Rolling Stones failed their BBC live audition. They said ‘The singer cannot sing.’ The BBC was the enemy, a limp-wristed arm of the government trying to keep kids on a rationed musical diet of trad jazz and skiffle.”
“On RSG! Andrew had some ideas about lighting and shots,” offered Lindsay-Hogg. “One evening at the Ad-Lib club I met up with Andrew and we agreed to debut a couple of new songs he was hyped about, including ‘Satisfaction.’
“When the Stones did ‘Paint, It Black,’ we put camera effects on Mick’s face and made it darker and darker,” Lindsay-Hogg emphasized. “We were broadcasting live. It felt dangerous and primitive.
“The cameraman, Bruce Gowers, later did the great video of Queen’s ‘Bohemian Rhapsody,’ which was a very calculated video.
“With RSG! it was about as much about the technique as the performer. In the early RSG! stages, I was always thinking about the performer and somehow marrying the technique to them. If the performer was Mick Jagger and John Lennon you don’t want to get in the way too much.
“Mick is a very bright person and he always has been,” observed Lindsay-Hogg. “And Mick, when he was a younger man, was as keen to know what was going on in the world. He read a lot, or at least he said he did, and was into movies. And Andrew was very much interested in movies and presentation.
“He had been trying to figure out how to make a movie with the Rolling Stones, which Mick and Keith were interested in. Because in those days, even though rock ‘n’ roll was coming to mean what it came to mean, movies were still sort of the art form going back to comedies. So Andrew was always trying to find a book or a script. And Mick went on to act in Performance and Ned Kelly.
“RSG! went off the air in 1966 when the video became music promotion for the record to be out. 1967 was a difficult year for The Rolling Stones. The set-up drug arrest in Redlands. Touring was becoming a headache.
“And so did we know what was gonna happen to rock ‘n’ roll in the sense that we know that it was ultimately going to blast through the roof? We thought it would.
“When I worked with the Beatles and the Rolling Stones, they were really the first videos which tried to take the form a little further. Like the Beatles playing out in the fields. Following me was a long line of very interesting visual attempts with music.”
Director Michael Lindsay-Hogg directed Rolling Stones’ promotional video clips after 1966: “Jumpin’ Jack Flash’,” “Child Of The Moon” and some of the band’s videos well into the seventies. He helmed the Beatles’ “Hey Jude” and “Revolution” and the group’s film Let It Be.
The heroic efforts of RSG! in 1965 ushering in pop and soul/R&B music to the UK should also be hailed. Vicki Wickham coordinated an hour-long special exclusively devoted to The Sound of Motown and an enthusiastic Dusty Springfield hosted the show. Tamla Motown label recording artists Martha and the Vandellas, the Supremes, the Temptations, Stevie Wonder, the Miracles, and bandleader/conductor Earl Van Dyke.
The relationship forged and cemented between the UK EMI Records distributed Tamla Motown Records products and touring artists were never lost on label founder Berry Gordy, Jr.
In 1995 I interviewed Gordy inside his Bel-Air California mansion for HITS magazine when he was promoting his autobiography To Be Loved. We discussed the love affair the UK has always had with his catalog and the pivotal support of Dave Godin, founder and secretary of the Tamla Motown Appreciation Society, Clive Stone, along with the crucial TV spots on RSG!
“As far as the UK is concerned, it is very, very special to me. Because, actually, we were, I think, more popular there than we were in our own country, you know, for a long time, it seemed. I think the appreciation was different,” volunteered Gordy. “They were not blasé about our music early on. Way back, the pirate ships and all that stuff, they discovered the sound and they were always very important to me when I’d go over there.
“They were just together. I loved their creativity with what they did with our album covers and how they just did it. And when we first went over there with the fan clubs, and the signs and stuff that they had for us. So the UK has always been special for Tamla Motown.
“And when The Beatles Second Album had three of our songs - “Money (That’s What I Want),” “You’ve Really Got A Hold On Me,” and “Please Mr. Postman” - it just indicated to us that they obviously had been listening to our music and they were aware of it, enjoying it and loving it.
“‘Tears Of A Clown’ by Smokey Robinson and The Miracles went to number one in England, I believe, and we hadn’t even released it here... They were on top of everything.
“It’s always been very important to me. England, the Continent, Europe, a very loyal audience but a very deep-feeling people. They certainly are not fickle in their musical tastes. Fans are fans and they are great. I wanted them.”
In November, 1974, for Melody Maker, I interviewed Bobby Rogers, a member of the famed Miracles, and Tamla Motown fixture since their inception in 1958, when Bobby joined up with his sister Claudette, Ronnie White, Pete Moore, and William Smokey Robinson.
"I really loved touring with the English groups, back in 1963 and 1964,” exclaimed Rogers in our conversation at a Hollywood recording studio. “We used to tour with the Rolling Stones and people like Georgie Fame. 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 in ’64. Mick Jagger would ask me about what I'd thought of the album James Brown Live At The Apollo, which was his favourite LP. He mentioned that he'd like to record a Marvin Gaye song for the next album by the Stones. 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. He said his name was George and he was in a group named the Beatles. 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 favourite song was 'Get Off My Cloud’.”
"The extremely
early Eighties found myself cruelly stranded in Vancouver, British Columbia for
nigh on a whole rainy year without my guitars (long story)," reports
multi-media maven Gary Pig Gold.
"But immediate emergency employment on the local 7-11's night shift soon
enabled rental of one of them new-fangled VCR's with which to fill my few
waking hours, along with three – count 'em! – complimentary VHS
cassettes thrown in as part of the deal.
"So, buried deep behind all the well-worn Ghost Wars and Starbusters tapes
behind said video store's counter I spotted and naturally chose not one, not
two, but again, if you're counting, all three of the recently
released Ready. Steady, Go! video compilations painstakingly
assembled by the one, the only Dave Clark. And while that wily guy, true to
form, spliced several stray DC5 clips into the proceedings, there
remained enough authentic RSG footage to keep me more than
amused and astounded until I'd saved up enough dough to abandon my basement
bedsit and head straight back to Surf City.
"Dave's Ready, Steady, Go! Volume One tape, for example, featured the Searchers' pre-Byrd folk-rock template 'What Have They Done To The Rain' alongside a stylishly lip-sync'd 'Baby Please Don't Go' from a fresh-from-Belfast Them, plus Lulu's 'Shout,' Gerry's 'Ferry,' and the savage young Animals hoping for a hit – 'cause we need the bread, y'know' says Eric Burdon – 'Baby Let Me Take You Home.' But it was Georgie Fame's absolutely fab 'Yeh Yeh' which kept the rewind button punched until it was time to load in Volume Two (to watch The Beach Boys mangle their 'When I Grow Up' intro, then the Rolling Stones pantomime 'I Got You Babe' with terrifying results) and finally on to Volume Three (Jerry Lee on his 'High Heel Sneakers' ...say no more). "Now what impressed me watching this all circa 1983 – and what I can only imagine literally stunned yer typical UK teen two decades prior – was the low-budget yet high-art studio staging of these performances, with each live audience hanging over under sideways and sometimes even down the always frantic, often flummoxed singers and players themselves. Not to mention Michael Lindsay-Hogg's direction and in particular supersonic editing techniques which put even a typical Shindig! episode to slight audio/video shame. Yes, suffice to say this is material which then, and all the way to today, rises completely above and beyond one's standard 'Soundtrack of the Sixties' stuff to brilliantly reflect just what that golden age of socio-musical youth-quaking in its natural habitat was strictly about: It was hard. It was loud. And it was fast. And the Weekend... it was only the Start!"
For writer, author and musician, David N. Pepperell, just the mere existence of Neill’s era-defining book and any available Ready, Steady, Go! footage is a cinematic blessing.
“The deliciousness of [host] Cathy McGowan - 'oooh super!' - the cheekiness of the early Beatles, the moodiness of the Stones, the pitch black of Them, the eternally gorgeous Dusty - such a bright and cheery scene in the 60s, such an antidote to the misery of Now.”
”In so many ways RSG! could have been called ‘Viva’ because it was so full of life, so brimming with joy and pregnant with a belief that the future could only be fabulous. Anyone who was there will shed a tear for those fantastic times when girls were impossibly beautiful, boys were dandies incarnate and the music took us all to a place where only happiness reigns.
“How could a time exist when the Beatles, Stones, Kinks, Dusty, Cilla, Searchers, Gerry, Cathy McGowan and Donovan were all in one place? This brilliant documentary shows they all were and because of RSG! they always will be.
"We didn't get RSG! here in Australia except for a few clips shown on local shows which was a great tragedy and a loss to our cultural development. Luckily these two documentaries redress that a little and give us a look into that magic time in London when everything was happening."
“As a self-taught teen photographer in the 1960s wanting to shoot live rock music,” enthused photographer/graphic artist Heather Harris, “I looked to all the media in the world as textbook. For how black and white photos (lingua franca of the era's periodicals for beginning photographers) actually reproduced, I poured over high fashion magazines, books and newspapers to see what Irving Penn, Richard Avedon and David Bailey did to retain detail in the printing processes. (It turns out Bailey did the same thing via John French. The latter's formula of solid black, solid white and a grey of 30% black looked as good in newsprint as it did in the darkroom. Anything beyond that could muddy up into ill-defined charcoals.)
“An unexpected discovery, once I turned my gaze to learning lighting from classic, older cinema, was contemporary rock television shows in prime time, afternoons were for enthusiastic but hopelessly low-budget local dance shows,” admitted the Los Angeles native who went to the Westlake School for Girls and is a graduate of UCLA.
“Before 1967's Monterey International Pop Festival showcasing a new breed of rock photogs, and the advent of ballroom venues like the Fillmore in San Francisco, and the Grande in Detroit which lit rock shows properly betwixt their superimposed light show graphics, still photographers who weren't David Gahr weren't doing a very good job documenting live rock and roll. It looked like the flashbulb hard news reportage that it usually was.
“So why did Shindig! and, once ferreted out, its antecedent Ready, Steady, Go! look so much better? One could immediately spot directional lighting with shading and shadows rather than the all spotlights on everything all the time approach, plus the cameras shooting through objects, like mic stands and booms or props which, despite pro universal excoriation of same, did not interfere with the subjects but rather intensified visual interest in them by framing it all.
“So it turns out that the talented television directors of Ready, Steady, Go! who also loved music like Jack Good and Michael Lindsay-Hogg were responsible for the look being as different as the British Invasion music itself, always a great thing in pop culture. Having sympathetic producers like Vicki Wickham to allow this wild stuff to be broadcast in the first place helped too. Thanks Ready, Steady, Go! and Shindig! for making my early visual education so fun to watch!”
I just read that for this week in 1966, WABC (aka “W-A-Beatle-C”) did not play ANY Beatles records on the air due to a station ban on Beatles music after John Lennon’s comments about The Beatles being more popular than Jesus Christ. (This included their #16 hit record this week, “Paperback Writer.”)
The ban lasted from August 2nd – August 9th. (Interestingly enough, this information does NOT come up if you google WABC Beatles ban ... but according to the WABC / Rewound Radio website, this was the case.) Being an ABC-owned radio station, I’m surprised ABC didn’t enforce this policy across ALL their stations in the United States. (Here in Chicago, that would have meant WLS.) I’m not aware of any such ban here nor do I really remember any headlines generated locally other than those from the southern so-called “bible belt” that held demonstrations and bon fires to destroy Beatles records. (ABC DID band their stations from playing “The Ballad Of John And Yoko” three years later.) The fact that The Beatles were scheduled to kick off what would be their final tour here in Chicago makes that seem a little odd as well ... but then again I was only turning 13 that month and didn't have a ticket to the concert so my memory may be a little bit fuzzy. However, I do not remember EITHER of our Top 40 giants, WLS and WCFL, instituting any sort of ban on their music.
As you’ll see in an upcoming 60 YEARS AGO TODAY post, The Beatles landed in Chicago to kick off their final tour on August 11th and held an immediate press conference to better explain (and hopefully soften the blow) of Lennon’s comments taken out of context. They performed here the following day, doing two performances at The International Amphitheater (3:00 and 7:30 pm).
>>>Freddy Cannon Was On Dick Clark’s "CARAVAN OF STARS," And About To Appear In ALLENTOWN, PENN. Freddy's "BUZZ BUZZ" Was A #2 Hit In The Local Area. Freddy Asked Dick If He Could Close The Show -- Maybe Sell A Few More Records & Push It Up To #1. He's On The Stage Singing. Looking Out Into The Audience, Everybody Is Looking Via Binoculars. The Concert Ran A Little Late. Everybody Was Watching The Horse Races That Started & Nobody Was Listening To Freddy Sing! (FB)
Wild Wayne's memory might be a little fuzzy.
For the record, I live in the area of the Allentown Fairgrounds, where Freddy Cannon performed as part of the 1961 fair. I can currently take a local bus right to the fairgrounds from a few blocks from my house.
In 1961, horse racing had ended on the big track the main grandstands overlook, but AUTO racing was still going on. Nowadays, the track racing has been replaced with Demolition Derby, usually the last night of the event (which long ago was moved to the week ending with Labor Day)
Bob Frable (in Easton, PA)
Interestingly enough, I did some checking on this, too, and found this list of Dick Clark's Caravan Of Stars appearances for 1961 ... and Allentown, PA isn't even on the list! It shows Freddy Cannon performing in York, PA, at the York Interstate Fair. Freddy also did State Fair shows in Indiana, Michigan and New Jersey, as well as appearances in Atlantic City and The Hollywood Bowl. It looks like Chubby Checker is the only one who stuck it out for the whole tour.
For whatever it's worth, I also did a pretty extensive search of Allentown Top 40 Surveys for this time period and didn't find any with "Buzz Buzz A Diddle It" at #2. In fact, the best chart appearance I could find for it was at #29. (Maybe some PA locals have access to more charts to check?) The record came out at the end of April of 1961.
I think this is just one of those cases where the "legend" makes for a better story ... and you know what they say ... when in doubt between the legend and the truth, ALWAYS print the legend! (kk)
https://concerts.fandom.com/wiki/Dick_Clark%27s_Caravan_of_Stars_1961
Kent,
So this is International Clown Week? I didn't know that!
One of the first clown songs I thought of was one that a lot of your readers will remember as far as recording artist. That's Johnny Burnett with CLOWN SHOES. He recorded in 1962 on Liberty Records. There are probably one or two more clown related songs but I can't think of any offhand.
I read (or someone told me years ago) that Neil Diamond's CLOWN TOWN was a record he didn't care for and one did not mention it to him if you ever got into a conversation with him. I don't know if that's true or not.
Finally, as for people themselves, remember the Dave 'Baby' Cortez' 1959 instrumental hit THE HAPPY ORGAN? His real name was Dave Cortez CLOWNey.
Larry
My understanding is that “Clown Town” was Neil Diamond’s first attempt at a recording career … he recorded it in 1965, a year before early hits like “Solitary Man” and “Cherry, Cherry” opened the gates for him as a recording artist.
It never charted and didn’t sell very well and from what I understand is now a quite expensive collectible. I see a couple of copies listed on eBay for $85 - $195. (kk)
kk ...
Your Clown Pictures Reminded Me Of A Seinfeld Episode.
Kramer Didn't Want To Go To The Circus --- Because He Was Afraid Of Clowns.
FB
For the “locals” on the list, here are a couple of cool shows coming up at The Arcada and Des Plaines Theatres thru the end of this month …
August 18th – Karl Green, original bass player for Herman’s Hermits, performs Songs And Stories from the Legends Stage at Rock ‘n Ravioli at The Arcada Theatre
August 21st – Quiet Riot with Vixen at The Arcada Theatre
August 22nd – Al Jardine and the Pet Sounds Band at The Arcada Theatre (3 pm)
August 23rd – Al Jardine and the Pet Sounds Band at The Des Plaines Theatre
August 23rd – George Thorogood and the Destroyers at The Arcada Theatre
August 28th and August 29th – Carla Cooke (Sam Cooke’s Daughter) at Club Arcada
August 30th – One Night In Memphis (a tribute to Elvis Presley, Jerry Lee Lewis and Johnny Cash) at The Arcada Theatre
September 2nd – Cornerstones of Rock (featuring The Buckinghams, The Ides Of March, The New Colony Six and The Cryan’ Shames) at The Arcada Theatre
September 3rd – Queensryche at The Arcada Theatre
Tickets for all events available here: https://oshows.com/events/
Timmy sent us these cool, candid, Polaroid shots of Eric Clapton and George Harrison, taken by Pattie Boyd, who was still George’s wife at the time (although they would separate shortly afterwards when she jumped ship over to Team Eric.) Photos were taken at Clapton’s Surrey Estate in 1974.
And finally, some more radio commentary from Chuck Buell … a guy who used to be there.
You can file this one under “We Used To Be Here When You Needed Us”
I have a close lifetime friend whose wife and he live in a town about 12 miles from Spokane, Washington. That means the current wildfires are "near their area" and they've had to evacuate a couple of times over the weekend. With so many others scrambling and trying to find a place to land for the night, they actually spent last night, and plan to tonight, in their car with what they could grab and two dogs a distance away somewhere along the Spokane River!
I only bring this up because part of what he texted to me a short while ago was, "our internet and cable systems are down and we're sort of in the dark about whether the fires are continuing to spread, coming our way or are being contained or anything except what we might get on our phones."
But here's the part that stood out to me; "The radio stations aren't much help either."
"The radio stations aren't much help!" That was one of the things that radio was once best at, keeping people informed in emergency situations.
Those who I spent time with at KIMN in Denver during the "Great Denver Flood of 1965," one of the worst natural disasters in Denver's history, remember how we "broke format" on our radio station and stopped playing music all together while we all were "deputized" by our news department as reporters and fanned out all over the Denver area to bring the latest news to our air while others remained in the studio and kept the city updated with the latest on the flood waters and messages from city and governmental safety officials.
I was up all night at a location or more then, watching the powerful waters literally split the city in two and then reviewed the muddy and soggy aftermath from the air in our news department's Cesna the following morning.
Now today, during a local emergency situation, you can turn on a number of local radio stations for information during a catastrophe no matter where you are and be lucky to hear Taylor Swift's or Morgan Wallen's latest hits or the most current political rant!
Because now, having just a few On Air Radio Personalities from other cities far, far away pre-recording voice tracks with no local anything, even in good times, is more economically important in trying to salvage a diminishing radio company's bottom line than to be an important lifeline for their listeners.
I was so fortunate to be on the radio when I was to play Great Music and to Serve the Public in their time of need.
And I do know that many of you have similar experiences you experienced in your Broadcast career.
CB
A lot of truth to all of this …
I guess our society has become so conditioned to the immediacy of “what’s trending now” that one forgets we don’t always have these options as our resources … especially when things don’t go according to plan.
Radio used to be far more “local” than it is today … but then again the general feeling seems to be that listeners (if, when and where you can find them) just don’t have the attention span anymore to stay tuned in and actually pay attention to what’s being said in their “white noise.”
Too bad.
Our grandparents used to depend on radio for all their news and entertainment. Then television came along and put the kibosh to all of that … MUCH more immediate and visually stimulating. And then Al Gore went and invented the Internet and things just haven’t been the same since.
Sometimes … and especially in certain situations … some good old-fashioned, home-spun logic would come in a little bit handy these days. (kk)
60 YEARS AGO TODAY:
8/6/66 – Muhammad Ali knocks out Brian London in the third round
