blackcat

Yes, just watched it on the iplayer, poorish fare this week. Very mellow music from The New Seekers, to Mr. Big - who sound to my ears like Smokie mark two! - and I am getting a bit bored of David Soul myself. Starsky And Hutch was more interesting than this! The best record was probably the one they played out with, as Ritchie mentioned, Rolls Royce - all 50 or so seconds of it! Even Legs & Co could not muster much excitement in their routine to one of the Eagles slower sounding numbers. Let's hope for better as TOTP progresses throughout the year. Easy trivia question this week, Andy Fairweatherlow did indeed have a flop with his record in early 1977, as Fiesta has pointed out, but he did have more success - and made far better music in my view - with which 1960's outfit? Again, no cheating by looking it up on Wiki now!

Thanks fiesta, will check out that website.

Well done fiesta, I know where you were coming from with Adam Faith - used to manage Leo Sayer at one stage, I believe. Adam Faith and Roger Daltrey later appeared in the McVicar film together. And in my view, two rock stars who could act very well.

The documentary did not really tell me anything new musically, apart from the fact that Peter Noone (of Herman's Hermits) apparently SUPPORTED the Vietnam war in the sixties! Bit of a brave stance for a musician to take at the time, one would have thought. Of far more interest was a kind of fly on the wall documentary about the Beatles first US tour. The documentary is still available on interactive at the time of writing. First time I had seen the Ed Sullivan performance by the Fab Four in their entirety, so interesting from that point of view.

No, although the rocker in question has worked with Adam Faith in a film setting. Don't want to say too much more about it, otherwise I might be giving it all away. :cool:

Maybe that tells a story, then! Times were changing.

Some good middle of the road music again this week! Leo Sayer, Donna Summer, even 10 c.c., all with gentleish tunes. Seventies chart music seemed to be stuck, at the highest level, in a kind of middle of the road rut for some periods during 1976 and 1977! Good to see Slade, with their last hit before they seemed to be sunk by punk for a while. The guide also said that Gary Glitter was due to appear on the programme. For some reason, can't remember seeing him on it. Wonder why? :unsure: Thin Lizzy were probably the main highlight for me this week. Roll on '77! Julie Covington the next number one I assume. Probably not David Cameron's favourite song at the moment! Trivia question this week - Leo Sayer wrote songs for which rough voiced sixties vocalist during the early seventies? Tougher trivia question than my last one, I reckon. B-)

Sorry, my mistake, was probably thinking of The Crystals or some other girl group from that era. I was right about "It's Johnny's Birthday" though - the writers of Congratulations did, according to one source I have read, successfully sue George for breach of copyright on that track. Poor George!

It was a good single, a good start to his solo career. Technically speaking, released before the Beatles officially broke up, in April 1970. I wonder if John contemplated crediting the song to "Lennon and McCartney" :o Doubt it, somehow! His first two solo albums, the Plastic Ono band album and Imagine, were good too, and achieved good commercial success. After that he went off the boil a bit, until a return to some kind of form with Double Fantasy. He never achieved anywhere near the commercial success as a solo artist as he had with The Beatles, his first UK number one single sadly came after his passing, and he only had the one US number one single post fab four - Whatever Gets You Through The Night - while he was alive. I have a theory that, commercially speaking, Lennon lost a bit of selling power when he came under the influence of Bob Dylan's music in the mid sixties. Look at all the big selling songs John wrote in the Beatles eary career - Help, A Hard Day's Night, I Feel Fine, Ticket To Ride, Please Please Me - all of these big selling singles were either mostly written by John or mainly written by John with a bit of help from Paul. Even some of the early Beatles album tracks which were written by John had that great sing-along commercial appeal, such as I Should Have Known Better, If I Fell, There's A Place, It's Only Love, No Reply Some of these tracks would have topped the charts had they been released as full blown singles. But it seems to me that once he came under the influence of Mr. Zimmerman and others of his genre he lost a bit of commercial bite with his writing. His work on the Revolver album, for example, is a case in point. Tomorrow Never Knows is a great work, but never likely to make the album sell as Paul's songs on the album, such as Got To Get You Into My Life or Here There And Everywhere. And the same thing certainly applies to his late sixties work, and a good deal of his solo stuff. His music from 1966 was more complex, but less commercially appealing, in my view, with the odd exception, such as All You Need Is Love and Imagine. John was a great artist, shame that his life was cut short in such a tragic and cruel way. Loved his music a lot, whether ultra commercial or just highly creative.

The surprising thing is that Phil Spector produced both George Harrison's My Sweet Lord and The Chiffons He's So Fine. You would think that Spector, at some stage, would have turned around to George and told him that My Sweet Lord Sounded an awful lot like an old Chiffons record he had already produced! I have not got George's All Things Must Pass album, but I am told that there is another example of alledged copying on that, with the track "It's Johny's Birthday" sounding very much like Cliff Richard's Congratulations. One check on youtube or some other source might confirm that allegation. Probably the most successful cover version in recent years has already been mentioned in this thread - Whitney Houston's multi million selling I Will Always Love you was originally done by Dolly Parton, and all things considered, I prefer Parton's version.

Don't know how many Beatles fans use this part of the forum, I am a fan myself, and just thought that I would highlight the mini documentaries that now exist on youtube, and that were available when the Beatles albums were remastered in 2009. My favourite Beatles album is Revolver, and here is the documentary for it: bmA58PEOokY&feature=related Only a few minutes each documentary, but I feel that they showcase each album really well. For those who are only casual Beatles fans, like myself, and can't be bothered to trawl through the anthology series for information and opinions on each album, these mini-documentaries are, in my view, a must.

Just went through this thread, and I am sure someone said that Live And Let Die by Guns & Roses was not a cover version! Certainly was, original was by Paul McCartney and Wings in the seventies, and done for the James Bond film of the same name. My contribution? George Harrison's Got My Mind Set On You is often assumed to have been written by George himself - not true! Original was by an artist called James Ray.

Thanks for your contributions, fiesta and common sense. Certainly one of my favourite Status Quo songs. Before leaving the subject of last week's programme, mention should be made of the great Stevie Wonder. Two of his best known songs were around in early 1977, I Wish, which they played out the programme with, and David Parton's version of Isn't She Lovely, which Stevie originally wrote for the birth of his daughter. I have not actually got the Songs In The Key Of Life album. Will have to rectify that fault - sounds like it is a cracking piece of work by the genius that is Stevie Wonder.

Yes, well done suedehead. Used to be a time when such feats were considered remarkable achievements, just as going straight in at number one was considered relatively rare. Not anymore................

Thanks for your insights euro music, much appreciated. As for the programme last night, did not think it was that bad for a start of a year. David Soul at number one - I was a big Starsky and Hutch fan at the time, so I did not object to that - Liverpool Express had their usual high standard middle of the road song, and nice to see Pussycat again, although their follow up to Mississippi lacked the same commercial appeal, of course. I believe Liverpool Express evolved from some sixties merseybeat band, if I remember correctly. Possibly from "The Merseys" themselves. Nice to see Quo with one of their better numbers as well. Trivia question for you all - David Soul, by the end of 1977, had had one number two and two number one records in the charts, (with his first three releases) and was thus a whisker away from equalling a then unique Uk number one chart record set by which merseybeat band of the sixties? No cheating by looking up the answer, now! A reminder that this was a record with some substance then, long before Westlife came along with their impressive first seven number one singles in a row! (YAWN)!

Thanks Billy H, and thanks to suedehead and grebo about the Relax banned single. Had the Sex Pistols got to number one, they would probably have just played the record at number two, which would have been Rod Stewart anyway! By the way, I did converse with someone on another forum about the conspiracy theory concerning The Sex Pistols and Rod, and he said that it was - like most conspiracy theories - a load of sh*te! He said that all the available evidence of the time shows that Rod Stewart was easily outselling The Sex Pistols in Jubilee week.

Mistake in the documentary, was there not? I am sure that they said at one stage that had The Sex Pistols God Save The Queen got to number one, then it would have been the first banned record to do so. Not so. There was a UK number one in 69 by Serge Gainsborg and Jane Birken, Je t'aime… moi non plus, that was banned. Only a small point, but a valid one, I think. Wonder what top of the pops did in 1969 when that record topped the charts?

By and large I liked the documentary on 1977, bit selective with some of the "new wave" artists shown. The adverts were never a big punk band in anyway, and then there was Darts............................. :unsure: Nice to see The Boomtown Rats, Stranglers, and Pistols of course. And nice that they mentioned Donna Summer's ground breaking record I Feel Love. As already stated, yes, the BBC were very late and very reluctant to put punk bands on the box in the top of the pops slot. But they did at least acquiesc to some extent in the end. Roll on 1977.................better times, better music, and some of us were a lot younger and better looking! :puke2:

Got to have this one in - if you are talking about innovative videos, this has simply got to be there - HTXyoPVOUso&NR=1

Have just watched both editions on interactive, highlight has to be Queen's Bohemian Rhapsody, what a masterpiece of a record. People will still be watching that video and listening to that song a 100 years from now, I am sure. The only thing is that I could have sworn that it was a 1975 smash. Presumably it was still riding high enough in the charts in early 1976 to warrent an entry on the end of year 1976 top of the pops. Always interesting to see a young Midge Ure fronting Slik. Malcolm Mclaren wanted him to join The Sex Pistols at one stage. Now that would have been interesting to see, one of the founding members of the Band aid project in The Sex Pistols! Still, Geldof was in an |Irish punk band of course, when all is said and done. One of Rod Stewart's records that I did like a lot was The Killing Of Georgie, and he presented the record well. So credit to Rod there. My all-time favourite Sir Cliff record has to be Devil Woman, so that was a highlight, and some of Abba's hits were obviously good to listen too, even if I have heard them so many times before! Not so keen on The Brotherhood Of Man though, obvious Abba imatators who, unfortunately, had quite a bit of success in the UK charts during a period of about 18 months. :( Always keen on Legs And Co, of course! :dance: 1976 produced some good stuff, but there was still an awful lot of dross about. Thank goodness the Wurzels did not have continued success, thank goodness JJ Barrie disappeared quite quickly, and thank goodness Denis the Greek did the same! Music was about to change, punk was about to happen, bring on the Sex Pistols and The Stranglers, is what I say. That will wipe the smile off Tony Blackburn's face! On a poignant note, Jimmy Savile presented the last Christmas edition with Blackburn. RIP Jimmy. So on to 1977. I hope they do keep showing these retro editions from that era. They can be very entertaining, and when all is said and done, some good music was being made at that time, whatever your taste in music was and is, the seventies surely offered some appealing music to you.

Loved Jethro Tull in this week's edition, the genius of Ian Anderson showing through. Don't often hear that Christmas record on the radio these days, more's the pity. One interesting facet of these 1976 shows is the number of times Abba promoted their records by using special promo clips, as they did for their December 1976 hit Money!Money!Money!. They were perhaps the first group to consistently use such promo's since The Beatles in the sixties, and such promo's no doubt helped to usher in the music video age a few years later. So Showaddywaddy at number one. Bit of a contradiction in their appearance, I always felt. Dressed in teddy boys clothes that belonged firmly to the rock and roll era of the fifties, but sporting long hair that was very fashionable in the sixties! Paul Nicholas performing Grandma's Party, with Legs and Co dancing in the background dressed up as "grannies" was a sight for sore eyes. I wonder how many of those same dancers are now real life grannies.................

RIP, sad news.

A founder member of Chicago, Alan Kath, did pass away as the result of a strange shooting incident, according to Wikipaedia: "Kath reportedly had a history of using alcohol and other drugs, including cocaine. Chicago bandmates have indicated that he was also increasingly unhappy.[7] Bassist Peter Cetera said that Kath would have been the first to quit Chicago had he lived, and producer James William Guercio has said that Kath was working on a solo album before he died.[8] Former drummer Danny Seraphine mentions in his autobiography "Street Player: My Chicago Story" that Kath had a high tolerance for drugs. Around 5 p.m., on January 23, 1978, after a party at roadie/band technician Don Johnson's home in Woodland Hills, Los Angeles, California, Kath took an unloaded .38 revolver and put it to his head, pulling the trigger several times on the empty chambers. Johnson had warned Kath several times to be careful. Kath then picked up a semiautomatic 9 mm pistol and, leaning back in a chair, said to Johnson, "Don't worry, it's not loaded". After showing the empty magazine to Johnson, Kath replaced the magazine in the gun, put the gun to his temple, and pulled the trigger. There was a bullet in the chamber, and he died instantly.[9] It was the week before his 32nd birthday. He left a widow, Camelia Emily Ortiz (whom he married in 1974), and a daughter, Michelle, born in 1976. Camelia was later married to Kiefer Sutherland from 1987 to 1990. Kath is interred in the Forest Lawn Memorial Park Cemetery in Glendale, California." Even amongst rock deaths, this one must rate as bizarre.

Liked Legs & Co a lot, for some strange reason :dance: That Kursaal Flyers record at the start brought back a lot of memories, that's what I call a creative comedy record, unlike the Wurzels sh*t! I did like The Chicago record at the time, but didn't one of them die in a bizarre shooting accident later on? Died during a game of Russian roulette, if I remember correctly. Poignant to see Jimmy present the programme, but he seemed to be enjoying himself doing it. I liked this week's edition, all in all. Nice stuff. B-)

On at 7.30 p.m. every Thursday usually Steve, on bbc four, also on the interactive service. Usually repeated late on Saturday nights. Yes, I look forward to the Christmas one, I bought the Mathis record for my girlfriend at school at the time. What good memories! And boy, has life been sh*t since then! :angry: