Unlike 1986, I'm going on holiday for two weeks, so this one and the next three blogs I will have to prepare before actually seeing any of the shows.
Get it Elt-On
27-12-71: Presenter: Tony Blackburn
(-) T-REX – Get It On
Second of four number ones.
(-) THE TAMS – Hey Girl Don’t Bother Me ®
Their only number one hit.
(1) BENNY HILL – Ernie (The Fastest Milkman In The West) (video)
This year's Christmas number one, and Benny's only number one hit.
(14) SLADE – Coz I Luv You
Their first of six number ones.
(-) GEORGE HARRISON – My Sweet Lord (danced to by Pan’s People) ®
The first solo Beatle number one hit.
(-) THE ROLLING STONES – Brown Sugar ®
Peaked at number 2.
(-) ASHTON, GARDNER & DYKE – Resurrection Shuffle
Their only hit, it peaked at number 3.
(-) DIANA ROSS – I’m Still Waiting (video)
Her first of two solo number ones.
(-) THE NEW SEEKERS – Never Ending Song Of Love
Their first of six top ten hits, this one peaking at number 2.
(35) ROD STEWART – Maggie May ®
His first of six solo number ones.
It's back to 1986 next, and February the 6th.
is there a reason why this particular blast-from-the-past edition has been shown? it's mostly the usual suspects i.e. reg playing air piano with bolan, the faces & peelie mucking about with rod, jimmy lea fiddling about and a live vocal from jagger with what was probably the stones' finest moment. of the less familiar stuff, it's a case of shapethrowers alert with the tams. but why does one of them has his own mic and the rest have to share? and as for the new seekers song, why wasn't that blighty's entry for that year's eurovision song contest?
ReplyDeleteThe New Seekers got on Eurovision soon enough - Beg, Steal or Borrow was our entry the following year.
DeleteI would have only been three years old in 1971, and certainly don't remember any these songs. My earliest pop music memories are from around 1974 when the Wombles arrived, and the Banana Splits were the regular Saturday morning breakfast cereal for most kids at the time, not to mention Donny & Marie Osmond which I just about remember as well, maybe even as early as 1973?
DeleteAs far as Benny Hill goes, I must admit I like his style of comedy, but I remember the later years when he had Hill's Angels on the show, of which I remember one particular sketch where a gymnasium Angel was doing stretching exercises with him, resulting in him getting to nibble her uncovered bottom at she stretched down towards his face. Good Lord, that would never be allowed these days on TV.
I think this was shown as part of a semi-Rolling Stones evening on BBC4.
Deletejust to say that it was a travesty that "brown sugar" didn't actually get to number one in the charts - unlike others on this show that did make the summit, it was still being played at all the youth club discos i went to in the late 70's (sparking dancefloor frenzy accordingly). and remains an all-time classic to this day, which would always be featured if i had to make a list of 100 tracks to take with me to a desert island
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteIndeed... and yet the likes of 'Jack your body' did!
Deleteplus don't forget "pump up the volume" and "theme from s-express"! however i suspect that even by the late 80's (never mind the pitiful statistics of nowadays) you had to sell considerably less copies of a single to get to number one than you did in the early 70's. maybe someone like john g can confirm that?
DeleteI don't have figures to hand, but I remember reading that UK single sales peaked around 1979, and then began declining steeply in the mid-80s. I strongly suspect that by the end of the decade it would indeed have taken far fewer sales to get to number 1 than at any time in the 70s.
Deleteyes john - i'm pretty sure that acts were selling a million copies of a single in the late 70's, and still not able to get a number one hit!
DeleteThe trouble with this edition is that it's been plundered so often as one of the few pre-1977 shows that hasn't been wiped, so it is overfamiliar. Still, we got the full 40 minutes late at night (not half an hour), so can't complain.
ReplyDeleteT-Rex, not my favourite of theirs but a solid pop tune nonetheless. Always liked the incredibly polite-looking girl in the brick-coloured dress dancing away. She'll be a grandmother now, if she's still alive.
The Tams with the infamous performance where one of them disappears! Poor soul doesn't look well at all. Not as good as Ain't Nothing Like Shagging, of course, but OK for mid-paced pop soul.
Benny Hill, must have seen this a hundred times, but I still chuckle at "He didn't 'arf kick his 'orse!" Hill's comedy songs usually had terrific lyrics, and this was no exception.
Slade, no messing about stomper, basic as they come, but it works its way into your head.
George Harrison, the big hit off the classic All Things Must Pass album, but not my favourite from it, and the "Hare Krishna!" stuff dates it, reminding me of Robert Stack dispatching the faithful at the airport in Airplane. Pan's People alternate put your hands in the air and wave them like you just don't care with if you're happy and you know it clap your hands.
The Stones with the real sound of blues rock, all the way from the Kent region of the Mississippi Delta. Storms along, I suppose, but the only Stones album I own is Their Satanic Majesties Request, the weird one, and I like that better.
Ashton Gardner and Dyke with another stomper, a bit of fun in its heads down rock way, don't mind hearing this on the radio at all. Meaning of lyrics: impenetrable, but you get the idea.
Diana Ross with a pretty, poignant tune that Tony was responsible for getting released, he loved it so much. Video's a bit creepy, though, Miss Ross nowhere to be seen.
The New Seekers, with a record that I'd be surprised if even those who bought it remember how it goes. Uninspired is the best word to describe it, and those high notes are piercing.
Then one of the most famous TOTP performances of all time, Rod the Mod nearly braining Peelie with his mic stand at a couple of points. Prefer Stay With Me, but I can't complain about this one. A lot of the artists proving their integrity with blues rock at the time.
Merry Christmas, Tone!
That Diana Ross video must have been especially made for TOTP. A very similar one was filmed earlier in the year for Judy Collins' take on Amazing Grace:
Deletehttps://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZG_qXQmo1j8
I am puzzled as to why the schedules were initially so misleading about how much of this show we would get to see - something similar happened a few weeks ago with the scheduling of the Christmas Day '85 edition. At least we did get the whole thing in the end!
The Benny Hill video, ahem 'film' in those days was quite refreshing among all the studio performances on the show. However good Hill was on this tune, he still ended up the loser, as his rival Ted got to marry the housewife, and managed to kill Hill with his pork pies and bread rolls, and even Hill's ghost at the end was not enough to disrupt the newly weds on their wedding night!
DeletePoor Benny Hill had more misery to follow, as in real life he remained single all his life, even with all those Hill's Angels on The Benny Hill Show for over 20 years on ITV Thames Television. As an aside, anyone who likes the Ernie 'film' or what we nowadays call a video, it is available for £1.89 from iTunes, so a damn good purchase for any 70s pop fans.
Dunno why I read elsewhere that acts were going to be edited out of the late edition as well.
ReplyDeleteWhile some clips from the show have been overplayed, there's some that haven't, eg Ashton Gardner & Dyke, Diana Ross, George Harrison, New Seekers!
Surprised Apple didn't try to block George Harrison unless it was because PP danced to it.
Was this one of the last times there was 6 PP on stage, as Flick 'retired' from performing?
I think it was at some point during 1971 that Flick stopped performing, but I'm not sure exactly when. This routine first appeared on the show the previous January, so I suspect she appeared in the Pan's People line-up a few more times thereafter.
DeletePans People on this performance was not bad at all. I didn't know the girls all had such fine chests, and much more in that department than the later Legs & Co. George Harrison must have been proud of this Pans People performance of his song, as there was certainly no footage from Harrison himself, and no video, ahem 'film' I mean, so enter Pans People.
DeleteI thoroughly enjoyed watching this even if my recording did cut out a short way into Rod Stewart due to the previous programme overrunning.
ReplyDeleteGreat to see Benny Hill intact; it really is a very funny song. I do recall some alternative lyrics from when I was at school in the 70s. I’m not going to repeat them here but, yes, they’re easy to find via a google search.
I never knew why Elton John appeared with T Rex for ‘Get it on’ as it doesn’t appear to have a piano on the track (or maybe brief snatches). At the time he would have been virtually unknown.
Mick’s performance on ’Brown Sugar’ defines the term ‘strutting peacock’, whilst the Diana Ross ‘video’ is just weird.
Lyn Paul of the New Seekers was my first celebrity crush and she certainly looks fetching here in her sparkly trouser suit. Not one of the NS’s best offerings (I really like Harry Chapin’s ‘Circles’). Kept off the no1 by T Rex and Diana Ross btw.
‘My Sweet Lord’ may have been ripped off from ‘He’s so fine’ but my, what fabulous Spector production. I still love the bit where the drums come in.
An enjoyable distraction from 1986.
Elton would have been reasonably well known at this point, as Your Song had reached the Top 10 early in 1971, but it wouldn't be until the following year that he became a consistent hitmaker and a genuinely big star. Incidentally, I think the piano he uses here also features in the Ashton, Garner and Dyke performance.
DeleteElton's jacket on this performance with T Rex was the best thing on this show, and a 24-year-old Elton here seemed to have all of his original hair before going bald in 1976. I want one of those jackets! In fact the whole show was a part2 according to Blackburn, so was there another Xmas show in 1971 preceeding this?
DeleteAlso, it seemed that all the male performers loved wearing colours in those days, unlike nowadays where more morbid black seems to be the norm. Was it that in those days because colour TV had just arrived, that the performers wanted to emphasise it more, or where people much happier with less in those days, then in our generation nowadays when we're never satisfied with what we have?
Besides, when was the first colour TOTP? It couldn't have been that much earlier than this December 1971 edition.
The first Xmas show in 1971 was hosted by Jim'll on Christmas Day, but was later wiped (not that BBC4 would have shown it now, anyway). Judging from the line-up for that edition on Popscene, I would say that it was the weaker of the two. The 27 December show is actually the earliest festive TOTP to survive from the 70s.
DeleteTOTP had been in colour since November 1969. I think the emphasis on colour in fashion back then was partly due to the advance of TV technology, but also to the influence of psychedelia and the reaction that had taken place in the 60s against what many young people on both sides of the Atlantic saw as the drab, grey conformity of the early postwar years.
Wow, then I wouldn't mind being a young adult in those days, not just to see the transition from B&W to colour, but also seeing the change from drab, grey conformity to colour and psychedelia. However I was only just born around that time, and don't remember anything before 1973/74 or so.
DeleteAs has already been mentioned, there are a number of performances here that are now too overfamiliar from countless clip shows for me to be that bothered about seeing again (T Rex & Reg, Stones, Rod & the Faces & Peel), but I suppose it was interesting to view them in their original context. Tone seemed to be obsessed by food, and he correctly predicted that the New Seekers' next release (that Coca-Cola theme) would get to number 1.
ReplyDeleteSlade's performance was definitely the most entertaining out of the less exposed ones here, and it was also the best song on the show - it's the one that made them stars, and I love Jim Lea's fiddle part. I didn't notice the disappearing Tam, but as they were all wearing those rather curious leather outfits it was easy to miss. As THX says, he didn't look well, and maybe the leather under the hot studio lights made him feel worse. This was originally released in 1964, but got reissued in Britain thanks to its popularity on the Northern Soul circuit.
Ashton, Gardner and Dyke were one of many bands at the time who called themselves after their surnames, perhaps in an effort to show how "serious" they were - I see from Wikipedia that Ashton and Gardner both died from cancer within months of each other back in 2001. I quite like this New Seekers tune, but their image was annoyingly wholesome and they weren't a patch on their Australian forerunners.
One curiosity about this show was why Whole Lotta Love wasn't used at the beginning and end. It was the show's theme tune by this point, but for some reason here it gets replaced by something that sounds vaguely similar but is nowhere near as good.
Emerson, Lake and Palmer
DeleteCrosby, Stills, Nash and Young
ummm...I can't think of any others...until Anderson, Bruford, Wakeman, Howe
There was also Beck, Bogert and Appice, featuring Jeff Beck and Carmine Appice.
DeleteI must admit that I liked the intro and outdo of the show with whatever that disco tune was, in place of Whole Lotta Love. Did anyone see the bit on the playout where blackburn had a little dance with a girl in the studio audience? You charmer you Tony.
Deleteoriginal seeker keith potger started up the new seekers and was presumably based in the uk at this time, which may explain the majority of brits in the line-up - although the they actually had two aussies in their ranks in peter doyle and marty kristian. incredibly not only are they still going, but bassist paul layton (who i remember being "outed" pre-fame in i think "jackie" magazine as a teenage knitwear model) has (apart from when the group briefly split up in the mid-70's) been an ever-present!
Deletewith regard to the tams shapethrower going awol, if you watch closely you can see he's having trouble keeping up with the demanding job of crossing his arms even before he disappears. my feeling is that he had one too many at the bbc bar beforehand. but surely he could have hung on for the final couple of minutes of the song? good work by the producer though, making sure the camera stayed on the lead singer whilst he presumably lurched off stage (or fell off behind it)? the whole thing reminds me of very early on in these re-runs when one of the shapethrowers in the stylistics was literally sidelined for their performance, having presumably turned an ankle or had a similar mishap during the rehearsals? i think i've now worked out why the tams were so-called i.e. due to the the tam o'shanter-style headgear they sported. although would hazard a guess that they didn't actually have any celtic roots?
Deletea belated entry in both senses regarding groups named after members' surnames, with ellis, beggs & howard. the first and last ones had no previous form whatsoever (which goes against my belief that naming a band in that manner was making people aware it was some kind of supergroup, or at least containing members that had already made a reputation elsewhere), but the middle one was nick beggs of kajagoogoo fame
Deletebtw the reason the yes guys went out touring as anderson, bruford, wakeman & howe was because they weren't allowed to call themselves yes due to their then ex-colleague chris squire owning the name. had i been them in the circumstances, i would have suggested calling the band either aye or affirmative. oh yes, there was also hadley, norman & keeble who went touring in the same circumstances because gary kemp kept the rights to the spandau ballet name after their rancourous split
Dory, I noticed Tony turning to dance with the girl, who seems to step back and fall fleetingly off the stage.i was also fascinated by the guy in the purple jumper at the back who was resolutely not dancing and then pulled some crumpled paper out of his pocket at the very end.
DeleteThe Rolling Stones on this studio performance of Brown Sugar seemed to insist on having no studio audience around them, and a sign of a band that were supposedly on a much higher footing than the rest, that heaven forbid if us viewers would lock eyes on a sexy studio audience member instead of Mick Jagger. Perish the thought, and was this one of their last ever appearances in the TOTP studio, even as early as 1971?
ReplyDeleteI remember a similar occurrence in a 1982 TOTP show where Queen made a rare TOTP studio appearance for Las Palabras De Amour, and they had the studio audience cleared out of sight, as by then Queen were of higher 'greatness' and the viewers eyes would need to be fixated on Freddie Mercury and no one else of course!
On a more positive note, the best performance on this Xmas 1971 show for me was The Resurrection Shuffle. i just love the various jazz funk instruments on this, and the tune itself is so inventive and upbeat, that you just can't help dancing to it, even in the living room. More of the same please!
I was 9 in late '71 when Slade were at Number one with Coz I Luv You and it's my first recollection of seeing Top of the Pops. The first record I bought was Hot Love by T. Rex which my mum got me from Rumbelows who sold records at that time. I've still got it, along with 3 on this show by T.Rex, New Seekers and The Tams. I used to get most of them from an electrical shop sold as Ex- Juke Box records.
ReplyDeleteMy first 7" single purchase was 'Young Girl' by Union Gap featuring Gary Puckett. It still sounds good. Buying a single in those days was a big deal. I recall my Dad getting me 'Hey Jude' later in that same year (1968) and the film they showed when 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' was no1 (which I have never seen since).
Deletethe first full-price single i bought when it were still in the charts was either "caroline" by status quo or "ballroom blitz" by (the) sweet when i would have been 11 (both were hits at the same time). although around that time, thanks to the new-fangled concept of pocket money i was also buying as many ex-chart/jukebox singles as i could afford from a tiny second-hand record shop the size of a living room in a terraced house (that it had almost certainly previously been, and it only opened on saturdays as the owner's day job was as a postman!)
Deletesct i'm rather surprised that you've never watched "the good, the bad & the ugly" since the theme became a number one hit when the film was originally released (sadly not by the composer ennio morricone though, but via an inferior cover version by fellow soundtrack exponent hugo montenegro). i've probably watched that film more than any other, and never tire of doing so - the last time was last year, on its 50th anniversary (the version that was restored as much as possible from director sergio leone's original epic print, that had been hacked to pieces for an american audience!)
just to say regarding "the good, the bad & the ugly": sadly the bits that had been cut from leone's epic were missing the original soundtrack. so they got in an impersonator for the late lee van cleef, plus clint eastwood and then-still alive eli wallach to dub their lines. sadly though unsurprisingly most of the dialogue involved the garrulous tuco rather than the taciturn man with no name, and it was quite clear that wallach was by that time a very old and tired geezer no longer capable of mustering the arrogance and cockiness required for his character!
Deletewilberforce - I certainly have watched the film 'The Good, the Bad and the Ugly' many times. What I was referring to was a promo film that ToTP showed for the single when it was in the charts. This may or may not have featured actual film footage. If one of those episodes ever resurfaces we'll get to find out!
Deletesorry sct, i obviously misunderstood what you meant. you have reminded me of the late 70's, when they showed that and other spaghetti westerns on bbc2 on sunday nights as autumn came (for at least two or three years running). of course one of the greatest things about that genre is the music, with the blueprint masterfully created by signor morricone. all his "man with no name" films have great scores, but in my opinion "il maestro" reserved his best work for "a fistful of dynamite" which is probably my all-time favourite soundtrack. anyone who concurs should consider investing in the 35th anniversary expanded edition (it took me 20 years to find an standard soundtrack release - before that i had to play bits of the film recorded to videotape to listen to it ha ha), where there are loads of brilliant variatons on the main themes that didn't even end up in the movie!:
Deletehttps://www.discogs.com/Ennio-Morricone-Giu-La-Testa-Colonna-Sonora-Originale-Edizione-Speciale-35-Anniversario/release/2383190
A Fistful of Dynamite (aka Duck, You Sucker!) is the only one of the Leone spaghetti westerns I have never got round to seeing, and I must put that right soon. I love the Man with No Name trilogy - For a Few Dollars More is probably the best one for me, and the main theme for it is my favourite piece of Morricone music. The haunting music played by the pocketwatches also really sticks in the mind.
Deletei had quite a surreal experience in that i once read an 80's cold war spy thriller novel called "the endless game", and as a result was inspired to compose an instrumental piece that i imagined would be used as titles music if they ever made a film of it. then a couple of years later they actually serialised it on the telly (featuring then-top names albert finney and george segal), and got morricone in to do the score. and when i watched it i was quite shocked at how similar the main theme he wrote for it was to mine!
DeleteEnnio is a genius, and how nice he got his long overdue Oscar for a western (The Hateful Eight), but for me his masterpiece is Once Upon a Time in the West. Makes the hairs stand up on the back of the neck just thinking about how wonderful that music is, and what a contribution it makes to a classic film.
Deletei seem to recall reading that morricone got banned from being considered for oscar nominations at one point, as he had the temerity to use (or at least revise) a piece he had previously written for one of the dozens of obscure italian movies he scored in a hollywood blockbuster!
Deletewhilst i'm reluctant to label anyone working in the arts as a genius (that term should only be applied to scientists in my view), morricone does come pretty close. but even so everything he does is still quite easily identifiable as him, a la john barry, henry mancini, etc. unlike jerry goldsmith for example, who could turn his hand to writing scores for all manner of film genres (westerns, war movies, spy kitsch, melodrama, thrillers, horror, film noir, sci-fi, etc) and yet not give any "trademark sound" away - despite being as prolific than those mentioned-above, if not more-so
Jerry Goldsmith's opening credits theme to Escape from the Planet of the Apes is one of the funkiest science fiction themes ever. Funny how funk and sci-fi don't usually go together! But yeah, he was another of the greats, superbly versatile.
Deletefor me jerry goldsmith's finest moment was the theme for "chinatown" (a movie that in my view sadly promised more than it delivered, despite that). but like the score for "a fistful of dynamite" it took me decades to get hold of it. about 20 years ago i went into a second-hand record shop where they had a whole host of goldsmith's original soundtracks that had then recently been released on CD, but despite going through them more than once, sadly there was no sign of "chinatown"!
DeleteA great compilation - every song I remember. Don't think I've seen the Pan's People before - not exactly shattering choreography :)
ReplyDeleteI presume Rolling Stones and Faces were recorded in the studio but before the audience arrived - only noticed that in 'rehearsal' tapes before. I wonder if those were performances from the year, or especially recorded for the Xmas show.
The Rod and Stones performances were repeats from earlier in the year - as you suggest, I would imagine that they were only available for studio recording at times when the audience were not there.
ReplyDeleteWhen the Tams were originally broadcast it was one of the few occasions when a record was featured after dropping down the chart. Apparently they flew over especially for totp but were replaced at number 1 by Rod, but were allowed to appear as they had travelled so far.
ReplyDeleteInspired by Merv Hughes by any chance?
Deleteanybody get the full show I missed it can someone upload it ? Meer
ReplyDeleteBBC4 did show the whole thing in the end, so you can watch it on iPlayer.
DeleteArchive resurface alert...
ReplyDeleteThis one I chanced upon on YT. It's in four parts and hosted by Noel Edmonds and the Osmonds!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T7d0buUt6VE
I'm not surprised that this was one of the wiped shows by BBC, as it was more about the screaming fans for The Osmonds than the performers on the show, so much so that even at the end when all the performers got together, it felt like the screaming fans were screaming for them too, even for The Three Degrees and the Swedish girl singing E Viva Espana. Besides, how are these shows resurfacing all these years later when the BBC wiped them straight after showing them every week?
DeleteWhat a great find!
DeleteAlways loved the Gutter Band (sic). Not sure why we lost Pans People. Mr soft obviously a rerecording as it was played at quite a pace. Loved the smile from Steve Harley when he was upstaged by an off camera Osmond.
Sweet Dreams Honey Honey must be one of the first ABBA covers.
Love Me For A Reason - from the album The Plan which is actually an excellent rock album.
Interesting set up, with audience in seats and Osmonds presenting. Wonder if it was a test or just a one off.
Was it usually on twice a week?
I think this was very much a one off filmed outside the usual ToTP studio. If you look in the YT comments for Part 4, you'll find very interesting, inside observations from Tim Humphries. Well worth a read.
DeleteLooks like it has been uploaded on YT since 2009 but I have never come across it. I enjoyed the Steve Harley & Cockney Rebel performance of 'Mr Soft' and the Bay City Rollers with 'Summerlove Sensation'. Seems strange to see 'love me for a reason' being introduced as a brand new release. As Charlie notes, the album was largely not what the teeny boppers were expecting.
Is it the same Harley on Phantom Of The Opera with Sarah Brightman, currently in the Feb 1986 TOTP chart?
DeleteThe very same. No mistaking that voice.
Delete