11
Mar 11
Doing It For YOU
An upcoming Popular special event!
Coming up soon – we’ll have to just tolerate spoilers here – is Bryan Adams’ “Everything I Do (I Do It For You)”, which as every schoolkid knows is the longest-running number one of all time. Sixteen long weeks, to be exact.
So my review of it will be a little different from normal. I’m going to listen to it sixteen times on the trot – one for each week – and live blog as I go. (With a minute or so break between each to finish typing). The whole thing will take about 60-70 minutes 90 minutes, and at the end I’ll hand out a mark.
Of course comments will be open all this time, and I’ll announce before exactly when it’s going to happen (early afternoon on a weekday, I should think) so you commenters can follow along too. There’s still a few entries to go before that, too.
(This idea is stolen from an old comics fanzine from 1991 in which Andrew Littlefield and Hasan Yusuf did something similar, so credit to them!)
Even amongst peopple who regarded Alexis Korner as a hero seemed to regard his CCS work as some sort of “slumming-it for the money which was alright as he’s a hero so deserves it but it’s rubbish not like his work with John Mayall oh no”
#47 Tom, the beauty of TOTP was that you’d always get a mixture of good stuff and dross, and no two people’s idea of which was which would entirely match! Watching 1976 again, even if you didn’t enjoy all the songs you can savour it as a period piece.
Apparently the Story of 1976 doc got the highest Friday night viewing figures in BBC4’s history, and the “True Story” doc later on made BBC4 the most-watched channel at midnight. Nice stats to be going on with, as we look forward to the rest of 1976 week by week.
“we”
Lawrence Andrew and his unforgettable smash “I’ll Never Love Anyone Anymore.” Tarney and Spencer credited as “Tiny & Spencer.” One wonders how the show had managed to survive even until then.
Lawrence Andrew was absolute drivel – and I couldn’t see what Tarney and Spencer were doing on there given the producer’s avowal in the 1976 doc that they only played chart material. Robert Miles was pretty weak and I found Fox less impressive than I remembered. The liveliest tune was ‘Jungle Rock’ – a shame they couldn’t have included Be Bop Deluxe.
#54 Exactly the point I was making at #37, pilgrim. I’m sure Billy Smart could give us loads of examples of acts being on TOTP when they were nowhere in the chart – including all those BBC stars like Dick Emery and Bruce Forsyth who managed to get on. As for John Miles, his band was cramped into a broom cupboard and the song was edited heavily. The staging did a grandiose song no favours.
I wonder what Lawrence Andrew is doing now and whether he gets any royalties?
Punctum – it must have been around this point that TOTP’s viewing figures were the highest ever, IIRC?
The Beatles reissue series saw the first single releases of “Yesterday” and “Back in the USSR”.
The “Back In The USSR” 45 was a few months later, to promote the Rock And Roll Music compilation.
As for Lawrence Andrew and others – ah, the power of the pluggers.
Main point of Lawrence Andrew interest was the camera angles making him look at about 90 degrees to his swivel stool.
I’m gonna have to retrieve this on iPlayer, on the good ol’ Wii
Re 54: I’m pretty sure Be Bop Deluxe were on doing Ships In The Night, so maybe that’s to come next week?
I’m not knocking this venture! TOTP was always at least 25% stuff you’d ridicule at school the next day. I hadn’t heard the Tarney Spencer single since this (presumably?) sole performance and the bv hook had stuck in my head for over 30 years. 11-yr old me really liked Music by John Miles and I can see why (multipart, orch, minor into major, post Bo Rhap I’d guess) but, dear god, the lyric is trite. Noosha Fox is a pub landlady now, I think, in which case I wonder if she does b&b? Otherwise, best bits for me were the grainy 16mm promo films for Abba and Diana Ross.
“Back to 1966 for this one…” Hey Jude. Jesus.
“Nobody can find him”… Hank Mizell, the Steve Silk Hurley of rockabilly.
BE BOP DELUXE
Where’s Bill Nelson now? Red Noise should reform and perform “The Stoink”
iplayin the totp1976…
Now I remember “I’ll never love anyone anymore” and “I’m your man rock and roll”
People talk about punk killing off the prog dinosaurs, but actually it was poplite acts like these that found themselves totally unwanted past mid 1977…
Are they cutting these down? I remember them being 35 min shows!
No, we’re getting the complete shows – Hurray! The duration of TOTP expanded and contacted at times in the 1970s due to the length of surrounding programmes in the schedule.
I’ll believe we’re getting the complete shows if they don’t cut out One Hundred Ton and a Feather. Not to mention the US chart slots from the eighties. Or GG for that matter.
Just seemed odd when Abba’s “Fernando” was the highest new entry, and they only played (what seemed like) one minute thirty of the (presumably) then-as-yet unseen video. Also, “Save your kisses” seemed to speed up in the middle (without alteration in pitch), but that might have been the iplayer.
I don’t have a problem if they truncate the ‘oft-seen’ vids like Abba and the Beatles in favour of the complete Tarney/Spencer and Lawrence Andrew performances, but we may be in a minority regarding that one.
Purely conjecture, obviously.
Also, I wonder if Lawrence was sat at home with his grandkids saying “there you go, told yer”
Funnily enough, the act is “Laurie Andrew and Zero” on the record. That must have confused the record-buying public.
*final edit* Laurie Andrew
Profile:Brother of Keith Forsey
So, there you go.
Mark, the fact that Abba were already booked to appear in the studio the following week may have influenced the decision to keep the video short.
Also, as essentially a performance programme TOTP would always prefer to show an act performing their single for longer than the promo vid equivalent.
One slight quirk though – I guess the rule that you couldn’t appear on 2 consecutive shows (unless you were Number 1 of course) didn’t apply in 1976? Or at least not if you were as high profile as Abba?
Well, there was another rule that said that you couldn’t appear unless your single was actually in the chart. Often, that was breached, but this show seems to be a rarity in featuring two.
(re: Abba, the video wouldn’t count as an appearance)
Here’s the first of what may possibly become an ongoing series of detailed commentaries on these BBC4 TOTP repeats;
http://drunkennessofthingsbeingvarious.blogspot.com/2011/04/top-of-pops-1-april-1976.html
Look forward to more of these Billy, and you will correct “Archer” to “Andrew” won’t you?!
“Jungle Rock” came out on Charly Records, which was a specialist reissues label. Somebody wrote to Sounds about a year later seriously suggesting it as the best label to handle the Pistols’ fortunes.
Wichita #59 – the lyric to “Music” is not only trite but pretty much incidental – just eight lines’ worth of a device to punctuate the various instrumental movements. Works well for me!
COmment removed – covered in full by earlier poster – Sorry!
69, has anyone noticed the startling similarity between one of the full blown orchestral sections on Music (about 2 or 3 mins in) when it slows down, to the theme tune to Blake’s 7?
Although TOTP generally played chart music, there were often (short-lived) spots in the show dedicated to other things. There were many attempts to feature album tracks, or “new” artists, or the US charts, or even at one time a rather dubious “European” chart.
I think there must have been an editorial decison at this time to feature more new artists (possibly to get away from the “music hall” of the charts), as a look at what’s to come in the next few BBC4 TOTP’s throws up a few which most people outside of this blog will never have encountered (1776, Glamourpuss, Bo’Flyers, to name but three!)
Blatantly cheating, but a quick check on Youtube (no sound) reveals:
1) You’re right, I dont remember any of these…
2) Bo’Flyers one appearance was dated 1/1/1976, so I guess we won’t be seeing them
A few thoughts after watching on Iplayer:
Unlike there being no(?) footage of 70s footballers actually saying “Sick as a Parrot” or “Over the moon” Tony Blackburn actually says “Sensational” on this within a few minutes.
As someone who literally doesn’t remember missing a TOTP from about 7 or 8 until 15 or 16 I can’t imagine what my 11 year old self would have made of the 2 very unvisual and to a kid very boring non chart acts on that TOTP – I definitely don’t remember them – probably went back to my Subutteo or something
When it’s remembered that Tony Blackburn was always more of a soul fan (wasn’t he supposed to be responsible for certain 60s and 70s soul becoming hits)it’s probably not that surprising he’s remained opposed to something as unfunky/unsoulful as punk.It also comes back to that split in British musical tastes between those into dance sounds and rockier sounds – you’ll meet many far younger people than Tony Blackburn on the various dance scenes who would never think of punk but if they were pushed to say anything about it would be pretty dismissive too.
Anyway as a none-regular telly watcher thanks to FT for enlightening me as to these TOTP repeats…its all about the obscure performances not the videos which we’ve all seen a thousand times since (glad TOTP did cut the videos down – didn’t realise they did it at the time but it makes sense). Can’t wait for the next one …amazing television!
PS no act of the BBC’s vandalism pisses me off as much as its wiping of all those TOTP’s from the late 60s early 70s – well I can still live in hope they might all be found languishing in some obscure foreign channels vault one day…
PAGING CRAG…
No matter how much you plug my show, you’re still not getting a fucking invite. Sod off.
Love
Kirsty
*gleeful anticipation*
I need to work out when I’m actually doing this! Thursday afternoon looks possible.