Funny how it looks like, by the sheerest of coincidences, all four wiped TOTPs from 1977, the last four wiped shows in its history, will all fall on Sky At Night weeks. This is the Savile-helmed penultimate, with...
The Jam – All Around The World
Again, and it'll come back round one further time.
The Rah Band – The Crunch
For the third time. One dreads to think of Jimmy's intro.
Brotherhood Of Man – Angelo
For the fourth time. You'd better grow to like this.
Billy Paul – Your Song
Last time Paul was on he was rewriting a 70s hit for politicised means. Taupin's lyrics remain the same this time and lacking the room to elucidate it seems more Jesse Green-like than the classic big hearted soul man in a hat. The Ladybirds would have ruined it anyway.
Candi Staton – Nights On Broadway
We'll see the video to this Bee Gees-penned light groove a couple more times but this is a Legs & Co spot, and you can probably imagine there'll be back projections and possibly some sort of top-hat-and-tails costume?
The Dooleys – Think I’m Gonna Fall In Love With You
Their debut. You'll see this again, and you'll see them again a lot, another seventeen times down the years.
Television – Prove It
Oh, BBC. The celebrated New York punk-but-more-technically-gifted pioneers had already gone top 30 once this year and this spent three weeks on the chart countdown, the band were in the country and willing to appear on the show, and the Corporation copied over the tape. On such fate do innumerable future BBC4 showings hang. Hardly anybody online even seems to remember it going out. Imagine what a nation would have made of Tom Verlaine and Richard Lloyd on their screens. Imagine what sort of band name-related link Jimmy would have come up with.
The Stranglers – Straighten Out
The video for half of the double A-side with Something Better Change, though unlike Peaches the show doesn't pretend the other half never existed. Strange that they weren't making themselves available after all the play Go Buddy Go got.
Deneice Williams – That’s What Friends Are For
Another video you'll come to see again.
Smokie – It’s Your Life
Third and last showing for this single by the virtual TOTP house band.
The Floaters – Float On
Scorpio, and his name is Jimmy. Now if you like a song that loves its sweet talk, and like a song that chartwise can hold its own, this fits that description so watch the video.
Donna Summer – I Feel Love
As I say, Flick had to come up with a new routine every week it was at number one. It was already getting a little two weeks in.
36 comments:
Do you know if the Billy Paul performance was in the studio or just the video? His "Let Em In" performance was really memorable in the studio so if it's a studio performance it's a shame it was wiped.
In the studio, I believe.
We'll never know if it was Candy Statton in the rundown again.
Angelo on for a fourth time before getting to number one? How many other chart toppers managed that number of showings prior to reaching the summit?
Poor old Fred Smith, leaving Blondie to become bassist for Television. If only he knew....
This is the first show I missed when I was away on holiday in N Wales (I still have my diary - how sad!) and now I never will never see it.
I expect The Rah Band was used for the rundown if they were still following the same pattern.
I would love to have seen Billy Paul doing Your Song. I wonder if the crowd were interested this time round.
I remember seeing The Dooleys when they were still called The Dooley Family on The Wheeltappers and Shunters circa 1975 doing a medley of Jim Webb songs. They had clearly modeled themselves on The Fifth Dimension and were quite good but somehow transmogrified into a saccharine pop outfit. The lead singer with the coiffured hair used to irritate the hell out of me.
My brother bought both the Jam and The Stranglers first albums so would have been annoyed to know that he missed both this week.
I noticed on Wikipedia that Floyd from Ruby Flipper is listed as dancing to I Feel Love with Legs and Co, was it this week or is that to come?
I'd never heard that Billy Paul cover before, and I have to say that it sounds pretty good to me. I think that Billy would have gone ad-lib crazy in the studio, that I would have loved to see.
I'm obviously the only one who likes The Dooleys then! Most of their singles I like, but I think this first one just edges it.
I wouldn't have enjoyed the Television song but agree that Jimmy introducing it would have been sublime. Perhaps one of his DJ friends may have helped him?
Can't say I've ever heard that Stranglers song...
The Deniece Williams video I feel was bound to have been introduced in conjunction with a group of sailors. And of course Jim must have had a groove in his own inimitable 'style' to Donna Summer.
Always a shame when it's one of Jimmy's shows that gets the Magnetotrope (the not so nice cousin of the Toppotron) treatment.
Noax, you're not alone...I have a nagging respect for a couple of The Dooleys' singles and recently bought them on iTunes. Before they made it big, The Dooleys sang the theme tune to "On The Move", an early Sunday night BBC1 programme helping those with illiteracy, starring Bob Hoskins as (I think) a lorry driver learning to spell. The theme tune was released on BBC's label. I'll get my coat
I said I liked The Dooleys as well, their early stuff was pretty impressive - here's that clip from The Wheeltappers and Shunters show on Youtube:
[NB I don't know how to do a clickable link - if someone can tell me for future use I'd appreciate it]
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LEGkWnUjapg
arrggghhh - the dooleys! a shit name for a shit band, and like brotherhood of man, just another poor man's abba... can't say i'm all broken up to hear this was wiped, but sadly i know they'll be plenty more "opportunities" to catch them in action in the future - just how were they so successful with their dreadful brand of banal lightweight pop? it would have been amusing though, had they had appeared inbetween television and the stranglers rather than beforehand...
@noax Magnetotrope? I remember it as a magnetograph - long gone from the office where I have recently returned after 12 years absence.
Loved the "wom" sound it used to make - just like a Star Wars lightsabre and even more destructive...
SPOILER ALERT, SORRY SIMON....
Wilberforce, as fate would have it, the next time The Dooleys are on they're almost immediately preceded by the line "Stick my fingers right up your nose"!
@jazzy_andy : I was just making up a word, so I'm amazed that I go somewhere close to the real thing!
Given the success of the last word I made up, I thought lightning wouldn't strike twice....
On The Move! Bob Hoskins with hair (well, a little more!), the other bloke with the blond hair, the removal van and that Dooleys theme tune!: "On the move, on the move, we're on the move again..." or something like that! Paternalistic telly at its best!
Abba is mentioned a lot in relation to Brotherhood of Man and their copyists , but surely it was the New Seekers, pre-dating the Swedish foursome, who set the template as well as Picketywitch etc? And remember an early incarnation of 'The Man' had had some success in 1970. For good or ill the others followed: The Middle of the Road, ABBA, the revitalised 'The Man', The Dooleys etc. Ultimately they were to lay the ground for...Bucks Fizz!
Sorry, me again.
A couple of notes relating to Simon's links in the wiped show. Not sure what pastimes he partook (I can guess, probably wrongly), but Tom Verlaine looks rather gaunt in that Marquee Moon photo and his hands are as veiny as a pensioner's, and Dave Greenfield gets a huge amount of airtime in that Stranglers video...and he's still rocking the green boiler suit look! Still, fantastic keyboard player - had Dave been born ten years younger he could have given Rick Wakeman a fair old duel in the prog rock stakes if he desired.
Talking of the Dooleys - I saw them live at Blackpool sometime around 1979 - on the same end of the pier bill as The 3 Degrees, Peters and Lee and the Black Abbots - man that was a show!
i remember in the annual polls in the likes of NME and sounds in the seventies, due to the relative dearth of rock keyboard players it seemed like rick wakeman used to win that category practically every year, even if he hadn't actually done anything of note (i suppose it was a bit like filling in an election poll slip - people feel compelled to tick for someone, even though they don't particularly like anyone)... anyway, only with the emergence of dave greenfield did rick finally have a bit of stiff comepetition...
I thought there was still some missing editions going into the 1980s.
Of all the one's to wipe they wipe the one with Television on it!
re comment above from Arthur - you said that if Dave Greenfield "had been 10 years older he could have given Rick Wakeman a run for his money" - the thing is he's older than Rick Wakeman!
IMO not much of tragedy this was one was wiped aside from Billy Paul as we get to see Deniece Williams, The Floaters and Candi Staton other weeks the Rah Band would be that awful destruction of the tune and Donna Summer would just be the audience.
The rest pretty unmemorable - Smokie, Dooleys, Television which I've never knowingly heard but I can imagine I'd dislike.
Going back to Dave Greenfield, I didn't realise he was older than Rick Wakeman, I just imagined that had he been in a rival prog rock band he'd have given Rick a good rivalry. I don't know much of The Doors, but Dave's keyboards style sounds similar to theirs in parts from memory.
Surely The Rah band would be used for the rundown so at last we would have heard the real thing.
Whenever they show I Feel Love on TV now (eg Queens Of Disco) they always use that live clip which sounds nothing like as good as the record, was that ever used on TOTP at the time?
Re these wiped shows (or should that be Magnetotroped shows lol) I suppose we should be thankful that at least they're not all in one block. It would have been annoying to have missed the whole of one month.
In response to The Man's comments regarding future wiped episodes, there are none after 8/9/77, however there are occasions where editions were never made/broadcast due to either strikes or sporting events. I believe there are 3 missing weeks in 1978, 2 in 1979, 9 weeks in a row in 1980 and 1 in 1984, with the rest of the 80s years being complete. I'm not sure about the 90s onwards although I think I recall some years where there was no edition in the first week of the new year.
Correction to the above: just 1 week in 1979 where there was no show, not 2.
That clip of Donna Summer they always show nowadays for I Feel Love at least has the novelty of her interpretive dancing.
I always thought it was odd that The Jam released three singles in a row all containing the word 'world' in the title - All Around The World, The Modern World, News Of The World.
Oh what a pity re using the actual record for the Rah Band this week.
With the amazing 15 minute Patrick Cowley remix of "I Feel Love" almost making the Top 20 in 1982 I should imagine it was on TOTP I wonder how they showed it then.I was no longer watching the programme by then so I haven't a clue.
I remember reading somewhere on the web that there was a final wiped edition (or one that wasn't in the archives) from about October 1982 although I haven't heard this mentioned in the last couple of years so I should imagine it's surfaced. However I should imagine that was largely academic anyway as from 1979 onwards video recorders started to get a mass ownership and someone somewhere would have obviously recorded the once possibly thought missing edition.
Someone on the Popscene site confirmed the BBC have located a copy of the 'lost' October 1982 edition, so all 80s episodes should now be in the archive :)
As the Patrick Cowley remix of 'I Feel Love' was the first 7" I ever bought and I was obsessed with the song (the original must have passed me by) I have a memory that it was danced to on the show - by Zoo at that stage presumably.
Incidentally, despite playing both sides of the 7" to death, and being aware of the (actually not great) 'standard' 12" version, I only recently heard the 15 minute version. It is utterly amazing.
I remember the TOTP treatment of the reissued I FEEL LOVE in 1982: dancing audience members against a backdrop of various images of Donna Summer. Sounds familiar?!
With regards to Angelo Gravity's comment about the Blackpool variety show (as well as the various comments about Dana etc on The Pops), there is an interesting article by Alex Petridis called 'The bizarre world of 1970s cabaret pop' (Thurs 7 Oct 2010). You can find it on 'Guardian.co.uk. Sorry but my technophobia precludes my putting it here as an add-on!
Here it is. I remember Petridis tweeting the highlights of his research viewing for about a solid fortnight, steadily more aghast.
(Thought to self: wonder if I can somehow get Petridis to write the end of year piece for 1977...)
Thanks Simon for this. I love those pop cultural opinion pieces. If he accepted the offer I would imagine Petridis would write something suitably arch and ironic, though I don't accept his criticism of Mrs Mills; she was our own Winifred Atwell! Now Mrs Mills in the Cleo Lain,Cilla section of TOTP, that would have been something to behold
Just as a follow up, how complete are the BBC archives regarding the Old Grey Whistle Test? I think if there is a complete series from early enough, it should be shown as a companion run to TOTP...
having read alexis petridis' "cabaret pop" article, i came across this edition of "the wheeltappers and shunters social club" on youtube (watch out for "vera duckworth" as a barmaid!), and by coincidence it features "top recording artists" design doing a pretty damn funky take on the doobies' "listen to the music" (despite the total lack of audience apprecation)...
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=V3JvawZmQVg
what mr petridis failed to mention was that a lot of these acts used to press up a limited run of self-financed albums that were then sold at gigs - some of the funkier and groovier recordings (and there were some among the dross) have now been collected together on compilations called "working man's soul" - available at internet outlets such as discogs and amazon if anyone's interested...
Not just albums, Wilberforce. Bob Lyons' 7tt77 website (which aims to compile a list of every record company which released at least one single in the UK in the 70's) is choc-full of custom recording concerns releasing cabaret pop singles, some with (gulp) pictures of the acts on the labels. Not for the faint hearted!
There must be countless clips of easy listening, cabaret and some pop artists appearing on 1960s and 1970s BBC and ITV Light Entertainment shows in the archives. Some of these saw the light of day on Granada+ a few years ago eg Sez Les, Benny Hill and Wheeltappers and Shunters.
A few years ago I found a load of old video tapes in a skip outside a shop, no one was around so I took a look and to my amazement hey were nearly all recordings of 1980s pop shows, mainly TOTP, a show called Video Express with James Last and The Montreaux Pop Festival. There were about 65 editions of TOTP in total, I was in heaven! Having seen lots of the TOTP2 shows it was great to finally see again some complete shows with their original BBC announcer intros. I hope BBC4 continues with the repeats up into the 1980s.
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