Sunday 23 December 2012

The disappeared: 22/12/77

A forty minute show three days before Christmas, because that's what they did back then. Why not play Fantasy BBC4 Editing? Again provided by Neil Barker, who taped it onto VHS in the Sky analogue days so quality is less than perfect:



How serious Osibisa's singer seems compared to the rest of the band, and indeed Jimmy, who seems to have worn that unique vest on special occasions for about a decade and a half in total. They're one of three studio performers whose song won't appear again, as with Scott Fitzgerald and Yvonne Keeley plus friends and a debuting... well, it was released as 'Lol Creme & Kevin Godley' but Jimmy's taken the less associative elements, plus the songs by Yannis Markopoulos and Donna Summer, to whom Legs & Co pay tribute by inventing Tetris. Sadly Jimmy doesn't stop to explain who the men in matching jumpers behind him before Gordon Giltrap's Holiday theme are, nor why the one second from left is the spit of Stewpot. And at the last link, before the Muppets' version of Don't Dilly Dally On The Way, the bloke to Jim's right - we've seen him before, haven't we? He's not Irresistible Dennis, I know that.

22 comments:

Lee T said...

A group of schoolgirls in uniform with Keeley/Fitzgerald. Jimmy hosting. I expect the master tape of this one is in an evidence bag over at Yewtree as we speak!

Dory said...

I thought this was a very good show, considering the huge number of songs on a show of 40 minutes in length.

Osibisa - seem to have the whole disco phenomenon in check, and i thought this was another good one by them, following the ever popular Sunshine Day in 1976 which still sounds so good to this day.

Crystal Gayle - who seems to have been unfortunate enough to only appear on DLT and JS shows, so we don't get to see her on BBC4 at all for this chart hit, but thanks to Simon for uploading the UK Gold showings, even though it is in VHS form.

Yannis Markopoulos - Greek as it is, it brings summer into a winter home in December 77 getting ready for Christmas. I wonder if he borrowed Mike Oldfield for this hit, as it did have some tubular feel to it.

Donna Summer - so good to see a rather undressed Legs & Co dancing to this, and then Jimmy Saville to brush the sweat off his brow at the end of the dance routine. One of Legs best performances of that year.

Godley & Creme - this must be around the time of 10CC parting ways after their 70s peak and now it seems inevitable end. It seems that Godley and Creme were possibly on their way out of 10CC and starting their solo effort, despite a 10CC number 1 in late 1978 with Dreadlock Holiday. It would be interesting to know if 10CC were still going at this time.

Bing Crosby - this is the only video version of White Christmas that I am aware of, and the one always used on TOTP 2 in the 90s and early 2000s. That log fire looks very nice and warm at this time of year.

Wings - The 4th week at number one, and I much prefer this video to the one from Elstree Studios shown the previous week on Elton's TOTP show.
There's still the whole of January 1978 for Wings on top of the charts, so we're in for the long haul.

Dory said...

t seems that throughout 1977, the number one song was nearly always video only, with very few episodes having the band in the studio to perform. Funny that, but a sign of the times, in that the big bands when becoming of worldwide appeal, could no longer come to the TOTP studio and brush shoulders with Darts, Showaddywaddy and Co, when asked to perform throughout the world.

It's a good thing that the pop video was born, so we could see them someway, somehow - only two number ones - Abba and Wings over 3 months between Nov 77- Jan 78 inclusive!

Simon said...

Godley and Creme left 10cc in mid-1976, leaving Graham Gouldman and Eric Stewart with the name - indeed we've seen that version twice this year on video, The Things We Do For Love and Good Morning Judge. The following year they brought in four new members.

charlie cook said...

Presume the Godley and Creme was from Consequences?

Loved the bit in legs and co when they didn't realise the camera was on them - lining up for a dance across the stage.

Who was the rainout artist - sounded like Barry Humphries!!!

charlie cook said...

Rainout should read runout :-)

THX said...

@Charlie: The runout artist was Miss Piggy!

Thanks again for these, worth it for Keeley and Fitzgerald which may sound not quite right when not speeded up and sung by mice, but is a great Christmassy tune that doesn't mention Christmas. If you get the chance, check out the official video apparently filmed in a cathedral because it's absolutely hilarious.

Also really liked Gordon Giltrap with the tune everyone knows as Holiday no matter what it's really called. They must have used that well into the 1980s.

As ever, great face miming from Legs & Co, the song really suited their style.

That little man at the end with Jimmy: I half expected him to slap the bloke on the head in Benny Hill fashion.

Bamaboogiewoogie said...

Many thanks Simon and Neil, another early Xmas pressie! I recorded some of the shows from UK Gold but not this one.

I remember this show from the time, another odd musical mix with a lot of repeats but some great rare performances.

The intro of the Chic song reminds me of Fool by Al Matthews. I see ELO have gone up again to number 20 but don't make it to the show.

A great funky dance track from Osibisa which I hadn't heard before. My dad's mate was their roadie in the early 1970s.

Yvonne Keeley was Steve Harley's girlfriend. I remember secretly liking If I Had Words song at the time even though it's really just a chorus repeated over and over again. The tune is based on a classical piece by Charles Camile Saint-Saƫns, the lyrics are by Jonathan Hodge who did the music for the cartoon Henrys Cat and wrote the Shake and Vac TV ad. Seriously!

That Elvis Costello clip again, I'm surprised he didn't make a return appearance as this was his first hit.

A stunning routine by Legs for Donna Summer which really must have helped it remain in the Top Ten, This song was later massacred by soap star Sophie Lawrence from EastEnders.

Love the hammered dulcimer theme by Yannis Markopilis. Who pays The Ferryman was a follow up series to The Lotus Eaters on the BBC.

Listening to Godley and Creme's 5'o Clock In The Morning you can hear a lot of I'm Not In Love in it but it's a superb song that should have been a hit. They struggled to have a hit in the late 1970s before going into video production. When I left school in 1981 I went to work for a film research company who had helped Godley and Creme with their first video productions, they were green but went on to make some classic videos for The Police, FGTH and Duran Duran.

More repeats, Ruby Winters and Hot Chocolate. The rugby player on the left in the group behind Jimmy looks like Mike Yarwood. Perhaps he's turned up to reclaim his rights to show the alternative Wings clip.

Great proggy TV theme by Gordon Giltrap. He was a folk musician who was signed to Transatlantic in the early 1970s. I quite liked this at the time but never watched The Holiday programme or whatever it was used for. Does anyone know who the keyboard player is?

Performance 3 by Gaynor Hopkins who was always available. And the guitarist is in brown again.

I prefer this Wings video but we don't get to see Linda's socks.

The Muppets song by Miss Piggy is called My Old Man (Said Follow the Van) and comes from their Music Hall EP. The pyschedelic end titles accompanying this are almost as weird as those used for The Floral Dance last week. Whatever Robin Nash was smoking he should have passed it round.

Arthur Nibble said...

No qualms about the video quality from me. Nice one!

Shame they cut Chic(k) before they got to the "yowsah yowsah yowsah" bit, and interesting to see two BBC theme tunes (Yannis on BBC Records' label) on the same show. The earlier mention of Tetris - was that the moustachioed yachtsman's first name?

Amazed they still had Crystal Gayle mis-spelt on the rundown after all these weeks (I thought she looked gorgeous in that dress) and Bonnie Tyler had become the female Smokie, always available.

Talking of availability, strange that Elvis Costello didn't turn up much, seeing as he lived about three miles from the BBC studios. Maybe he was touring at the time? Elvis's scary stare was the polar opposite of Osibisa's drummer, who always had a watermelon-slice grin whenever he was on the show.

To think how beautiful the world could have been. Scott Fitzgerald came second for the UK in the Eurovision Song Contest, one point and one place behind Celine Dion. Celine F#cking Dion! If only she'd had two less points, we'd probably have heard of her ever again!

Didn't think much of Lol and Kevin's effort, and it took four more years for them to have a hit, but when they got into their stride they delivered a couple of corkers.

I watched "A Very Merry Muppet Christmas Movie" today and really enjoyed it. The rugby team behind Jim'll looked more Muppet-like, though. Jim'll turned into Popeye when introducing Legs & Co (and, again, what legs) and their costumes made me hungry for Battenburg!

Bing's turn reminded me of a Scottish joke - what's the difference between Bing Crosby and Walt Disney? Bing sings, but Walt dis nae!

May I wish everyone involved here, especially Simon, a very merry Christmas and happy New Year - and a rotten Christmas and financially perillous New Year to the Official Charts Company for wrecking my analysis of the 31-50 chart positions by getting heavy-handed with the Chart Stats website. Tossers!

Well, who thought we'd get this far? Loads of obstacles in the way, but it's been fun tackling the assualt course so far!

Arthur Nibble gets it wrong again said...

I meant to say we'd probaly never have heard of Celine Dion ever again if Scott had won. If I had words (where they should be)...you see what I did there?

Dory said...

The ELO song in the chart was the first release from the Out Of The Blue album, and only appeared once on TOTP on Jimmy Saville's November edition of the show with Legs & Co dancing around some stones, but the lack of follow-up, I presume cos there was no video available at the time, meant no further airplay, and the song only got to no.18 or so, which goes to show that the more airplay on TOTP, the better a song tends to do in the charts.

However, 1978 was to be a very successful year for ELO, with several subsequent releases from Out Of The Blue, and some awesome videos which appeared on the show, but never again the group in the studio, because by now they were a supergroup in America with big bucks that TOTP could not match, but still......Turn To Stone in this week's chart in Dec 77 still sounds brilliant today.

Angelo said...

Loved Den and Angie doing If I Had Words - never knew they had a pop career years before moving into apub in Walford! Love that song too.

77 was a top year for instrumentals - two more on this show - always liked that Holiday tune.

Never realised how yummily delectable Crystal Gayle was, and such a silky dreamy voice.

Was really nice to see this show ~ merry christmas to one and all :-)

Darren said...

Scott Fitzgerald and Yvonne Keeley are, apparently, on twice more; once on 19th January 1978 with DLT (that we may or may not see), and once on 2nd February 1978 with Tony Blackburn.

Thanks for keeping the blog going, Simon, and Merry Christmas to you!

Darren

wilberforce said...

despite my resolution not to watch any totps unless they're on the telly, i had a peak at this one (but without sound, as i don't know how to make the pc i'm using at the moment work that way!)

i see hot bloody chocolate are on yet again with with that dirge of theirs - no wonder it made the top 10! i still have absolutely no recollection of it though...

Old Applejack said...

Hmm. That Gordon Giltrap song - it wasn't what I thought it was going to be when I read it was the Holiday theme. Did something similar have an acoustic guitar wig out for its theme? Whicker's World?

Thanks for putting this up Simon and Neil. Happy Christmas to all who have made this such an enjoyable read over the year.

Noax said...

A nice old fashioned bit of variety on this show.

Scott & Yvonne's song is pretty good and I'm sure Darren must be right about it being on again given it made the Top 3. Yes Arthur, Scott was robbed - 'Go' was a cracking song and to be beaten by the pretend Swiss woman with the awful teeth and skirt was a disgrace.
Mind you, my favourite that year was 'Kloun' from Greece (sample lyric : "Kloun, Kloun, him a kloun, kloun, kloun, him a kloun. Ha ha ha!") so what do I know?

Speaking of Greeks, the sailing footage didn't get me terribly excited I'm afraid. Though a nice boat would have made a better rundown picture than some rocks.

Godley & Creme ripping off one of their own songs wasn't thrilling either.

Please tell me that Gordon Giltrap is on again though, I love that tune! I presume it wasn't a theme tune just yet as to have 2 on the same show would be a bit weird.

A bit poor that all we got this Christmas was a re-released Bing and the extremely odd Muppets song (what was the reason for that exactly?)
If only Chris De Burgh had pushed his magnificent 'A Spaceman Came Travellig' that year instead of nearly 10 years later, it could have been massive!

Ah well, have a good Christmas everyone!

Bamaboogiewoogie said...

In the second series of The Muppets they did a music hall special and the 4 songs that were featured were on an EP. I think it's great that the BBC were promoting an ATV show along with their own two BBC shows.

Arthur Nibble said...

Noax, despite not (quite) making the top 20, "Heartsong" gets two more bites at the TOTP cherry, and both editions are presented by 'clean' DJ's. Brings it all home to think Gordon Giltrap becomes a pensioner next year.

wilberforce said...

i've just read "the j*mmy s*vile story" in the latest issue of "viz" magazine - wicked satire that i think followers of this blog will find essential reading...

http://www.viz.co.uk/

80sBlokeInThe70s said...

it seems like they started using this as the 'Holiday' theme tune in for 'Holiday 78' so it wasn't actually the theme tune to anything at this time.

I'm not keen on this but it had some pretty good themes over the years Jean-Michel Jarre's 'Equinoxe no1' and Hugh Montenegro 'The Fox'and the first one of all for 'Holiday '69' was 'The Castle' by Love.

Glad they finally got 'White Christmas' on (my favourite Christmas pop song - tbh maybe the only one I can stand!)

I wonder why the Yannis Markopolous theme made the crossover to being a hit - I quite like Greek music but I wouldn't have thought that this piece leaps out at you as being a particularly good example of it.

Neil said...

A brilliant programme which I was very grateful to see. Such a great variety of acts, with an unmistakable and exciting run-up-to Christmas feel. I fixed it up on the TV show to the family, who have been enjoying all of the "Top of the Pops 1977" series. Some memorable and much loved tunes. Not to mention some seriously foxy ladies: Crystal Gayle, Bonnie Tyler - not to mention Legs & Co and the bird singing with Bing Crosby!

70's Boy said...

As others have said, a really good mix to this show. I love the Keeley/Fitzgerald and Gordon Giltrap songs and it has one of my favourite Legs routines. And the theme to 'Who pays the Ferryman?' reminds me of this classic 70's drama serial.

I don't know who the keyboard player is with Gordon Giltrap, but he appears to be wearing a Leeds United scarf.