There’s a YouTube link to prove it :))

Have fun my Bowie chums, Mat :))

*Bowie was originally pronounced ‘Booie’, as Tony Orlando pointed out. The name was taken from that of Jim Bowie, who David Bowie believed to have invented the knife of the same name. It was actually invented by his brother Rezin (Feel free to check!) Hope this helps :)

Way better than the “Shirl Bass” shows that had only songs and no comedy and were very painful to me.

I’d say that they were much more at home with real R&B than any of the Italian Pop performers would ahve been. The latter wanted to end up as mini-Sinatras, singing “Fly Me to the Moon” at a casino somewhere; Dion never really had that dream (although his managers saddled him with some of that type of material in his early ’60s heyday). Jay Black or Johnny Maestro could never have even imagined, much less wanted, to give the performance Dion gave in “Dady Rollin’ (In Your Arms),” to pick an obvious example. That’s my take on it, at least.

Particularly in terms of Cilla and Lulu, this generally consisted of the hapless “stars” having to sing hoary old show tunes while being untidily thrown around the stage by the Young Generation and then expected to appear in “hilarious” comedy sketches with Frankie Howerd. Even Cliff did the “comedy” stuff.

The alternatives were Val Doonican in his worthy rocking chair and, lest we ever forget, the highest-rated of all these programmes, The Black And White Minstrel Show.

(whence meltzer’s and kogan’s — and probbly xhuxk eddy’s — concept of the FREE LUNCH — the aesthetic ambush you had no reason to expect) (kogan’s context for this being the related fact that where such surprise is absent, where the alleged radicalism of [whatever] is routinised, then its effect is often diminished and sometimes merely assumed) (ie by virtue of being deliveredin the context of the avant garde, something may be assumed to be much more darin than it actually is content-wise)

er anyway

I didn’t realise Dawn had a TV show, but I have to disagree with Doc Mod and express a certain nostalgia for cheesy pop star TV vehicles – in the UK we had Lulu, Cilla and of course Cliff (probably a few others I’ve forgotten) which strike me in childhood memory as having been altogether less cynical than current Saturday night TV fodder. (And occasionally surreal – remember Cilla’s duet with Bolan on “Life’s A Gas”?)

Speaking of Dawn, can anyone explain an odd clip I saw on a Channel 4 lists show a while back? – they’re just finishing “Tie A Yellow Ribbon” when Tony Orlando spots a figure in full Ziggy Stardust regalia in the audience. “Is that really you?” he asks, before exclaiming, “Ladies and gentlemen, DAVID BOWIE!!”

Years later, I came across (and agreed with) Chuck Eddy’s description of it in his 2nd book as a precursor to Santa Esmeralda, and that opened the song up for me a little, plus I actually turned into one of those cheesy wedding djs who virtually lives and dies by all-ages crowd pleasers, so I imagine if I had been 20 years older (and a DJ) in the early seventies it would’ve felt like a lifesaver. (Plus the idea of my parents out there on a dancefloor dancing to maraca-inflected pop makes me not just a little wistful 30 + years later.) I’d probably grade it a 6 myself, but I agree with wwolfe that “Candida” is the better record, maybe because its hook is less obvious?

It’s sort of interesting seeing so many of the regular comment-givers going “I lost interest at this point”. I wonder if conversley we’ll soon be getting new folks attracted by T-Rex and Slade googling staying around here for the fun.

A better example of this style from Orlando was the previous hit, “Candida,” which added a welcome touch of class struggle in its lyrics, courtesy of Toni Wine (who also functioned as “Dawn” in the studio for that recording). She turned up here not so long ago as the female half of the Archies. That record was still diminished by Tony’s unerring gift for being a total dipshit.

Not sure what I was doing ( well I do , know but hate to admit it & yes, the soundtrack was ” Sticky Fingers”) but I checked local radio charts for this time and I was equally out of the loop with AM radio in North America.

Just to add to the ” Knock Three Time” mystique and it popularity there was also a ” line ” dance that was part of this numbers popularity. Not unlike ” Achy Breaky Heart”, I am sure this song probably crossed over in North America and went big in the country charts , and finding it’s way into honky tonk history.

The subsequent (and wretched) “Tie a Yellow Ribbon” was about getting out of prison. (Even if Americans seem to think it’s about coming home after going off to wars started by the two Georges and thus put them all over the place and not just on trees.)

Unrequited love can make a fool of anyone, but this is incredible foolishness–and indeed it borders on obsessive stalking, even though it’s probably more a case of pathological shyness and lack of proper socialization. It’s hard to calI it romantic. I suppose it must have been all the lurkers out there who identified with this one.

You won’t get her knockin’ and a-tappin’, wishin’ and a-hopin’. (But you might just get the police paying you a call for your suspicious behaviour.)

I’ve never really understood the early seventies fuss over TO and Dawn (ok, Dawn weren’t bad but there talents could have been better used). As to the television show, this was the dawning (pun intended) of the cheesy pop star comedy/variety hour, which reached its nadir with the Sonny and Cher show, in which even a spectacularly awful divorce could be performed before a laughing studio (and home) audience.

If I’ve become a sporadic contributor as of late, it’s simply because we’re entering a period in which I gradually lost interest in pop music, nearly altogether. Yes, in the seventies, Doctor Mod attempted to become an opera singer! I’m glad punk came along at the end of the decade–I think it saved popular music before this sort of thing could finish it off.