TOTP 2/6/77 (tx 21/6/12): it's time to play the music

TV Cream alerted its world last week to the fact there's a full Late Late Breakfast Show (that's part one of four, follow the sidebar for the others) from October 1986, which turned out to be the third last show before Michael Lush's death brought the series to a sudden close. It's very disjointed for event television, only held together by the veneer of what looks like quite a dangerous Whirly Wheel stunt, proof that modern BBC LE hasn't really dumbed down, full of hubris, overmateyness, weird moments (Cyndi Lauper's not even listed as a guest in the credits, did she just turn up on the offchance?), "the top forty" as a glamorous star prize and jokes that don't make sense. Not to mention Mike Smith's pronunciation of 'slalom' when reading out the address in part two.

Back in '77, speaking of not making sense... "if I could borrow your cheeky bits I'd be very grateful actually, because we do have a rather splendid Top Of The Pops". It's as if he started his comedy stream of consciousness too early and just barrelled on regardless of how it sounded.

Alright, let's at least acknowledge it...



Because there were people wondering whether it was so much as given a photo caption. Don't get excited, it's still banned in the past. It came out on a Friday, which explains its surely premature appearance.

Elkie Brooks – Saved
After the feathered elegance of Pearl's A Singer a spot of honky-tonk ragtime to open, via a spinning crane shot from above, is a jolt, but not as much as when we see a whole mass of people on Elkie's stage. Eight backing vocalists, one with an audible tambourine, and while whoever did her hair and makeup didn't get the message this is Elkie in shoes kicked off good time boogie and let's sing a Leiber & Stoller song mode, something she, well, didn't really do at any other time in her career. Suits her, though, grinning through and with her backing eight an exuberant gospel chorus. Her bassist has risked shades indoors. Her drummer has made the more bravura moves of adopting a droopy handlebar moustache and perm and indicating the point where the key change should have come with a load of rogue cymbal crashes. The audience, conversely, are increasingly less willing to invest their own energy as time passes. Nevertheless, at the end under Noel's simpering ("she's really brought a fresh flavour to the charts recently") you can hear, and Noel is distracted by, everyone cheering and applauding themselves. Unless that's on the record, in which case playing it in as such volume is hubristic beyond means.

The Muppets – Halfway Down The Stairs
Why do we always come here? I really don't know. It's like a kind of torture to have to watch the show. "From Jim Henson's Muppet Show, we've got Jerry Nelson and the story of what goes on halfway down the stairs". Where to start? There's the ungainly tagging of the show title. There's naming Robin's voice/puppeteer even though he's not credited on the song. There's a return to one of Noel's habits, tagging "the story of..." onto a title. And it's not about what goes on there, it's about the state therein. It's glaring that this ATV-produced series has infiltrated the BBC when Rock Follies (number ten this week) won't, but who can resist a sad eyed, AA Milne-quoting piece of softhearted bathos? Well, Noel and his heart of stone can, as he's openly laughing upon our returning to him. "A number written by AA Milne and RAC Services" he ruins it.

The Four Seasons – Rhapsody
"If you listen to this one very closely, the sound of the Four Seasons" - that old identifier again, it gets round the lot of them - you'll realise it's not called Rhapsody, it's called Vaseline". And thus a whole nation's attention is diverted. (Because, well, sometimes it does) Unlike last year Frankie Valli is back with his band but his attentions must still be elsewhere as he's the only one not in a powder blue suit. We know this to be the case, of course, because Valli was on the show three weeks earlier, something also given away by the two girls holding a large 'SEXY ERIC + MOEY' banner in tartan behind the band, as the Rollers were also on that show, and three young women at the front holding large clumps of balloons, presumably straight from disassembling the stage after Joy Sarney had done her business that same week. The pianist has attacked one balloon to his white baby grand, giving him the look of a wedding band member who got lost. Valli's not even on lead vocals, yet they've still stuck him out front and centre without so much as a covering tambourine while the bassist who looks like he failed the 10cc audition takes the lead. Also the stage setup exposes how small Valli is, not quite Graham Parker dimensions but definitely a notable shortage. It's not until the very late entrance of an organ and bass sax, both invisible, that the song takes off and becomes ersatz funk for a bit, which given the orchestrated nature of the rest of the song suggests that wedding band got a bit confused with a late request. The edit out is incredibly jarring, cutting off a coda extra chorus and straight back to Noel without any audience effects.

Van McCoy – The Shuffle
This, in its two Legs & Co versions, has now been edited out of the early version three times. Is it deemed offensive or something? Is it the flute? This is the Sue and Lulu only version shown first off.

Heatwave – Too Hot To Handle
Noel tries to make a link between McCoy, the forthcoming Scaggs (fine so far) and the title of this, again shown via video. Maybe he's not been in a lido and thinks it's like a sauna.

Twiggy – A Woman In Love
"Come over here! Come and look at Twiggy!" Well, by the nature of the director's work we would anyway, but thanks for the invitation to find out "what happenes when a woman falls in love", like she's MOR pop's own Barbara Cartland. Dressed like the lead in a very cheap school theatre production of Robin Hood, Twiggy grips the mike cord with her left hand, stands on a hexagonal stage and tries not to look too nervous and not stray too far from the correct key. An advancement on her last appearance, of sorts.

Boz Scaggs – Lido Shuffle
We find Boz and band, with just the one drummer this time, in the studio pretending to be recording the song, interspersed with clips of the crew and gear arriving and setting up at some enormodome plus Boz making a lot of enigmatic phone calls. Then it turns into a straightforward live video, so we get to see the huge carnation in the pianist's suit jacket lapel.

Jesse Green – Come With Me
Noel riffs on pretending he can't pronounce his name as "your Jess is as good as mine". Since when has the last e in Jesse ever been silent? Come on, Noel, shape up. Jesse Green's third appearance sees him take Billy Paul's wardrobe advice and extend it, a huge ranger's hat offsetting the big scarf, crimson plastic-reflective tabard, lurid red trousers and pencil moustache. He's also performing in front of a Union Flag with lights around the sides. That's meant for next week's silver jubilee, surely. Don't curry favours with us that way, Jesse. Battling parping brass he may be but he's got everyone around the tiny little circular stage he's using swaying from side to side in unison, a kind of collective nervously ungainly bop. Meanwhile in the background someone sets up useless wiring around Hot Chocolate's keyboard and bongos. The bridge features a prominent comb and toilet paper. Wonder who Johnny assigned that job too.

Marvin Gaye – Got To Give It Up
Noel thinks the most notable thing about this record is the party sounds in the background, or as he puts it "all those people making a lot of noise like they're (fake laugh) being very silly indeed". Another reason not to go to his parties if those are his standards. Nobody ever play him Dylan's Rainy Day Women, alright? Legs & Co have a second go at this, shuffling on the spot in swimsuits on a raised stage they seem to have just found somewhere, which the director gives his latest version of added spice to with a light show. Individual members flash in and out of silhouette at disorientating rhythm, which doesn't always hide the lapses in choreography, though given they surely couldn't see each other very well in that lighting and while standing in a line it's forgiveable. Certainly, beyond arm waving and turning round on the spot in instalments it doesn't seem to have much to do with the melody as much as the direction had to flushing out latent epileptics.

Hot Chocolate – So You Win Again
Like a stopped clock Noel, the man who told us 1977 was going to be marvellous for John Christie, gets one right, but he's now so wary of his predictive powers he has to foist it upon the subject themselves, making them seem far too presumptious. "I was speaking to half a dozen people who said Hot Chocolate are bound to have an enormous smash with their new single. In fact the six people were Hot Chocolate. And do you know, they're right." Just after that someone, and we can take a guess who given the logic of being miked up, makes a peculiar squawking noise, accompanied by the sound of something being slapped. Something wrong with that, Noel? Errol has stopped messing about with the mike stand but this leaves him even more rooted to the spot than Twiggy, only the power of his visual simper helping. In fact all the band are quite laissez-faire, the bongo player not seemingly putting the most effort in no matter how often he appears in the forefront of the shot. Afterwards Noel is still reluctant to convey the courage of his convictions as he sits next to a female audience member - "we were just discussing the merits of that number, we've agreed it's going to be enormous". This red hot pop chat has visibly bored the girl's companion, who is resting his/her (can't tell) chin on his/her palm, only to perk up and grin in Noel's direction when he begins his link. We still saw you.

Carol Bayer Sager – You’re Moving Out Today
As Noel riffs on triple barrelled names, only one of which is a name as opposed to a thing, the producer has late in the day spotted a problem. It's a repeat showing, but it only cuts directly to the stage when Bayer Sager starts singing, the intro taken up by Kid's camera ride. What to do? Well, simply run the right half of the screen on split screen, hoping nobody notices everyone looking round, and fade the rest in when Jensen's image has left the picture. What this means in practice is an awkward few seconds of Noel watching an offscreen monitor in half interest. And still no clue as to what 'he' does with bread.

The Strawbs – Back In The Old Routine
An awkward fade edit from Bayer Sager to this is the best reason why Hot Chocolate lost out in the early edit, but it's still quite glaring given some of the material left in. The singer, who would do well in a Noel Edmonds Without The Beard Lookalike Contest if such things ever existed, is fighting a pitched battle with his own band's mix and with audience interest, most turning round to look for the camera well before it's anywhere near them, though admirably not the person at the front in a top hat. Having mentioned "union rules" in the first verse - oh, give the old canard a rest - it's a simple folk-country tale involving lots of drinking, the wife in her negligee watching a horror film - that might be routine where he's from, let's be fair - and dreaming of winning the pools so he can "sail away for a year with Susan George for company". Of its time, shall we say. Speaking of which, it's the grand return of The Awkward Interview With A Non-Performing American Star Just Before The Number One. Noel has the Alessi Brothers with him, obligingly in a red and white hooped top and a blue and white hooped top. "They've got a hit single, Oh Lori" says Noel, correct in prediction for once as it entered the charts the following week. What they don't have is charisma, as one of them just lists people who've recorded their songs with the emotion of a phone messaging service. Noel doesn't even allow them to introduce the number one...

Rod Stewart – The First Cut Is The Deepest
...which is this again. Noel hopes we can join him on the breakfast show, promises "the very best in music" next week and plays out the second song this show after the Strawbs to lyrically lionise the weekend football programming, Genesis' Match of The Day. This never happened with The Big Match. The camera operating the kaleidoscope shot gets to have his own fun this week, starting with a close-up on the piano and ending with the Union Flag in full central shot seven times over. Next week it's the silver jubilee (the recap for which will be up on Friday, by the way, let's put that in type right now) Don't forget to get your bunting up and the trestle tables out in the streets for next Thursday evening.

TOTP 17/2/77 (tx 23/2/12): after the spike

Hello, everyone following the Guardian mention/online link about to become quite confused. You want the next post down.

Ruby Flipper update! Now there's a factual concept that hasn't been exerted in thirty five and a half years. A newspaper clipping of their rejection has been unearthed dated 19th August 1976, the date of broadcast of their face-making meisterwork Let 'Em In and also, adding mystery to that previous side issue, the last week of Cherry's still unexplained break. Three and a half months it seems to have taken for the BBC to decide they were wrong. The BBC spokesman - offical quotes! - claimed viewers were missing the all-girl nature of the dancing, which maybe gives away quite something about their actual purpose by this stage.

And as we've brought up Signora Gillespie, something else I've stumbled across since we all last met in this place is her perhaps sole piece of choreography work, Enya's Caribbean Blue video from 1991. This is known because there's an lengthy making of the video feature (part two) to which she contributes, still with the Rapunzel-esque tresses of her heyday but with the crucial addition of a bumbag. Also, though it's not mentioned, one of the nymph-like figures in the video is a young Martine McCutcheon.

"Don't panic, you've got the right channel" asserts Paul Burnett. Not one of Radio 1's great and legendary figures, Burnett, despite being in charge of the Tuesday afternoon chart reveal and being DLT's sideman on Convoy UK. It's this intro that was used at the start of the Big Hits 1977 compilation, odd given it's his only appearance of the year - he seemed to be doing one Pops a year at this stage - and he's not a figure any casual viewer would ever connect with the programme's storied past.

Is that another new angle of the Rose Royce Cortina?

Suzi Quatro – Tear Me Apart
We're seeing a lot at the moment of what the glam stars did next once Chinn and Chapman had stepped aside - Slade, the Rubettes, Gary Glitter, Mud last year. Suzi of course was pretty much doing this stuff from the off (and this actually is a late period Chinnichap), but her swapping of leather for fringed jacket-cum-catsuit - the angles never make it entirely clear - while the rest of her band donned the black biker accroutement of her heyday perhaps just to tease us, demonstrated how she'd now willingly let her country side eke out. Yeah, another one. Having started with an alarmingly wayward note she never quite finds her new range but can still play a bass the size size as her, and her showmanship credentials are renewed quite apart from her looks deep into the lens and vigorous upper body shaking - that is when she's on camera at all, the director fascinated by closeups of the guitar - as she spends most of the break with her foot up on the piano. It's a wonder she isn't trying to play it with the heel. If it's a muted instrument, perhaps she was. Less than lucidly, Paul calls it "a new chart contender". Yeah, we'd assumed that already.

The Moments – Jack In The Box
Just because, Paul refers to this as "a Tony Blackburn record of the week... and it made the charts". No, surely it's Noel's selections that tend to stiff. It's matching powder blue suits all round it transpires as well as doing virtually all the singing Harry Ray is the only one into the art of movement to. At one point he nearly goes for a spin on the spot and gets halfway before thinking better of it. At another there's some impromptu knee bending. The director, confused, zooms in on the back of his head. Bunched up uncomfortably in the middle of the stage, Ray's bandmates strive to look interested.

The Brothers – Sing Me
There's a very awkward moment when the camera lingers on Paul while pulling away towards the stage as he gathers up the mike cord, looks downwards while grinning and looking mildly embarrassed as if in realisation that, given a national telly platform on the nation's pop conversation hotspot, "it's always exciting to see a new band in the charts" really was the best he could come up with on the hoof. Brown suits and very wide open lapels on yellow shirts are the dresscode this time. There's now a hand gesture developed for 'paper kite' and a tug on the cord for 'pull my string', so the time in the spotlight is teaching them tricks of stagecraft alright. At the back of the audience a woman wears a red hat with a remarkably broad brim. You know that 'Barry Manilow from above' cartoon gag? It must be like that.

Boz Scaggs – What Can I Say
"A fabulous thing" Paul labels it. Doesn't bother with the title, though. It's the overmanned video clip again. And they left it in the edit ahead of a song that isn't on again.

Thelma Houston – Don’t Leave Me This Way
Again Paul doesn't name the song, but he does stress that "we're very fortunate" to have her here as she has to go back to the US straight afterwards. Judging by her outfit - scarf around neck, functional white dress, notable lack of item (YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN) - she'd done most of the packing before arriving at the studio. The orchestra for their part sound like they're merely on holiday, leaving the little regarded on record Hammond organ player to do the heavy lifting. The funky bassline is apparently being played by osmosis. At least Thelma's giving it plenty, staring out the front row, shimmying, adlibbing and a huge note to near enough close. People are clearly impressed. Well, some are, a good swathe of the crowd not even waiting for the full fade out before racing across for the earthier delights of...

The Rubettes – Baby I Know
With Tony Thorpe singing, not Alan Williams, you're right. Chiefly of interest this time is bassist Mick Clarke, who is giving it one last go on his own in resuscitating the white flat cloth cap from their heyday. Is he intending to stand out further? Given how unrepossessing his colleagues look it doesn't take much.

Mr Big – Romeo
The mildly disturbing wild card from the last show has a video every bit as quixotic. One of the singers is only wearing an open leather jacket on his top half, which given they're serious minded AOR makes it all the more alarming he's liberally slathered himself in baby oil. The other one has a camera angle that exclusively films right up his nose. Loads of dry ice and backlighting and no small amount of visual tricks, one a kaleidoscopic Bohemian Rhapsody nod, Mr Big having toured with Queen.

Tavares – The Mighty Power Of Love
Legs & Co are in the studio with an audience, which seems rare these days. It's a 'see what's around' week, everyone in a different coloured leotard, a differently wrapped beige scarf and, for flavour, a tambourine, shaken and tapped against the other wrist vigorously throughout to reflect the instrument's position high in the mix on the record. Wouldn't that make a hell of a noise in the studio? Can you get tambourine deadeners? (Don't answer that) Maybe that's why the crowd aren't all that enthusiastic compared to earlier, though something clearly happens to Patti up front as she puts her right leg out in accordance with the choreography, makes a surprised face and glances down at where her foot was. "A beautiful performance", apparently.

Leo Sayer – When I Need You
Very hesitant, Paul. And this man read out the chart rundown. Not a man always given to dynamism, Leo, as he stands stock still at the mike in what appears to be an ice hockey jersey, hands actually in his pockets for a good two and a half minutes. Look lively, Leo, much as the song may not demand it and all the director can come up with is multiple panning shots. Perhaps knowing we need something for the big finish, the Earth Wind & Fire outro seems to be focusing on the audience without telling them. Some leave, some stand around chatting, a large camera is dragged into shot for no good reason and with only a couple of exceptions everywhere is a tableau of awkwardness and knitwear.


EDIT NEWS: A song we'll see again but not in this version, Manhattan Transfer's Chanson D’Amour given the Legs & Co treatment, worth a look not for Burnett's comedy French accent but the leg work and the country thematic costumes with a hint of Where's Wally - on the occasions Ruby Flipper had two routines a show one would almost always be lost, but they decided the other was superior? - and a song we won't see again, Les Gray's unbecoming solo cover of Groovy Kind Of Love in a white jacket producing a rose out of seeming thin air at the end. He makes about as convincing a loving balladeer as Danny Dyer would.

TOTP 3/2/77 (tx 9/2/12): ITMA

Oh, hang on, that's from the wrong show, sorry about that. (No idea who made that, by the way - Charlie Brooker was first to make its presence public but it has a ring of Peter Serafinowicz and Robert Popper about it, especially as one of the band names is similar to something they've used)


"Another half hour of super sound and view for you" promises a bouffant Kid Jensen, which is a lie right off the bat as the proper version is nearly 40 minutes long and would have been even then. Just about scans, too. New pictures abound this week, as Leo Sayer meaningfully observes himself back at us in a mirror and Gary Glitter looks like he's pinned against a wall by an unseen firing squad. Please, say nothing. More importantly, though, we have a second, head on shot of the Rose Royce Cortina, this time with the roller up. Can't say it's affected the looks much.

Thin Lizzy – Don’t Believe A Word
You again. As if this isn't the third time we've seen it we get the screen/dancing effect, which we must come up with a catch-all title for before next week. Of chief interest this time is a man in a brown sheepskin jacket, tie and tache who appears to be trying to bust out some proper moves irrespective of whether he actually can, whether that be to the music or just generally in life. A very quick cutaway to some shifting youngsters disguises the Noel-in-background moment. In a neat shot, and as if to save on the costs of operating the crane camera, Kid backannounces "their latest 45" - hardly latest any more, Kid, more 'current' - as off to the right a figure in silver appears on the performance stage making for a neat segue to... hang on, it's not...

Gary Glitter – It Takes All Night Long
Who says you don't get surprises on television any more? Even Calvin Harris tweeted his surprise, which at least means another covert celebrity viewer flushed out. In case you missed it there's a sort of backstory here, which is that when Jonathan King got cut out last July he complained to the papers (the Mail, bravely for him), about a month later as it happened, and the DG issued an apology ("his performance will not be edited out of any future repeat" - starting again, are they?) Even so, you'd kind of think they'd have played safe and left this year's three Glitter appearances on the unedited versions, especially as the Mirror caught on to the first one claiming he'd "be seen singing a 1977 number, believed to be I’m The Leader Of The Gang". Which was a 1973 number. Good work there. Anyway, Kid's enthused, stomping along to the intro even if he does leave the last word off the title. Gary's well past the point of pop reward here so seems to be morphing into some sort of creepy glam crooner affair, dressed in a suit possibly made of Bacofoil. He actually looks nervous at the start, such is the magnifying power of the close-up. Then he starts singing come-ons in the creepiest voice he can muster and making Carry On-randy faces directly at us. At one point, having spent much of the time between vocals with an arched back and a haughty provenance, he mock-airs his collar before staring straight down the lens and stage whipsering "what a night!" before prancing up some stairs and, frankly, shaking his arse. Also bear in mind he was only 32 at the time but looks deep into middle age, and you don't have to consider anything else about him to feel the black ice forming where warm blood used to be.

Harold Melvin and the Bluenotes – Don't Leave Me This Way
Knowing we need someone to stir the loins back into order, here come Legs & Co. "There's a whole lot of directives in the chart this week" comments Kid, possibly the most deathless thing he's ever said. Elegance is the watchword following last week's Victoriana, moving on a decade or three as the budget really gets pushed out once more. Evening gowns, opera gloves, drapes, even a big old chandelier. That does mean not much space to work in, meaning a fairly vanilla for their standards number involving lots of circling the external parts of the set, striding around in pairs and limbular expressiveness in a line.

Boz Scaggs – What Can I Say
Kid promises "a very special guest", so he'd better deliver. In the meantime a video of Boz and his huge band, including two drummers and one of the three backing singers having a tambourine to hand

The Real Thing – You'll Never Know What You're Missing
The camera stays on Kid for a long time after he's introduced the song as he looks progressively more concerned. As it's a slow smootchy one, with more than a nod to Homely Girl, and maybe having seen the Pips the other week they've dressed up in their wedding suits for the occasion, flowers in the lapel holes and everything. Chris Amoo, who always has to be different, has augmented his outfit with a huge explorers' hat that any church goer would insist he remove before the service. It seems to be a perfectly reasonable live vocal, Amoo giving it plenty of huge soulful exhortation throughout the last third to remind us of his frontman status.

Silver Convention – Everybody's Talkin' 'Bout Love
Repeat from two weeks ago of the bra'd up German Three Degrees.

The Rubettes – Baby I Know
And they say pop acts grow up too fast these days. Just three years after Sugar Baby Love, the Rubettes had reverted to their archetype as session men and gone ersatz country rock. They even look the part, Alan Williams sporting a receding side parting and Les Gray-by-way-of-Parker glasses. The Rubettes, unsurprisingly, are no Eagles. In terms of studio manufactured bands going their own way, they're some distance from the Monkees. This did however lead to the wondrous spectacle of the Rubettes UK trending on Twitter and people becoming confused. You would have to ask, wouldn't you.

David Soul – Don't Give Up On Us
Last time (until Christmas), thank goodness. Even crowd dance cutaways can't really save it. It's after this that Kid reveals his special guest, and "I didn't disappoint you"... Thelma Houston. Good, except she was pretty much unknown here at the time, promoting her first single as she was, her own Don't Leave Me This Way, presumably why she wasn't on to perform, unless that was due to her work permit or something. As with all guests she doesn't get to do much, merely name her single and announce the credits song, but like Terry Kath she adds an element of impromptu dance too. Unlike Kath it's a song you actually can dance to, Heatwave's Boogie Nights, and it actually looks like dancing rather than an acid flashback. Kid again wishes us "good love" to close. If that was his attempt at a catchphrase it really wasn't working out.

EDIT NEWS: Boney M and Leo Sayer, both of whom we've seen before and will see again. That's how editing these shows should work.