The recent connection troubles at this end meant we've missed the opportunity to mark a couple of recent TOTP-related deaths. Jerry Nelson, who died on 25th August aged 78, had worked as part of Jim Henson's company since 1965 and was best known as the voice of Count von Count (he also did Statler for a while and innumerable minor characters), but it's him voicing Robin on Halfway Down The Stairs, the tender AA Milne-penned song that never failed to send Noel into giggles.
More pertinently for Pops, we lost Louise Clarke a couple of weeks short of her 63rd birthday. She wasn't strictly a founder member of Pan's People, joining a year after they were initially set up and not appearing with them on TOTP until May 1968, a month after their debut, but she was there through their imperial phase, leaving after almost exactly six years, the famous Homely Girl routine her swansong, to get married and start a family. Here's a tribute to her work.
Meanwhile, many have noted the letter in this week's Radio Times in response to praise for this series/year that "it has no immediate plans to show the 1978 series, but is keeping that decision under review". The reading from our end: calm down. It doesn't say they're not going to, it says essentially they don't know. BBC4 won't have made any plans for next year (apart from a couple of already announced special seasons, but that's different) by the end of August when RT would have started being put to bed and they didn't announce or start working on '77 until some way into October.
Back to this week. (Well, the week we're up to in 1977, but you know what I mean) Kid's in charge and literally showing his true colours in a red and white lace-up top emblazoned with a maple leaf motif and, in case the subtlety was lost, 'CANADA' in big diagonal letters. We later see '74' is emblazoned on the maple leaf. No idea. The countdown is restored, as is only correct, to the top of the show, and Kid has a countdown of his own to add as Jonathan Richman's Roadrunner is the chart rundown music. Kid then does a voiceover link into the first song, ruining the ever fun element of surprise and anticipation. Or maybe not, in this case.
Showaddywaddy – You Got What It Takes
"Unmistakeably Showaddywaddy" at that, though surely that doesn't take into account all the original rock and roll bands and all the songs they cover, this included. We do at least know the drill now, wherein Dave Bartram and his lush, tumbling, vitality-filled locks attempts to look appealing towards crowd and camera in turn, coupled with the odd bit of visual comedy double take. Very low forms of visual comedy, admittedly, when it constitutes looking quizzically at his open palm for the line "with your money we won't get far". This time the drapes seem to be colour coded by instrument, with the allotted backing singers in canary yellow meaning despite it being mostly hidden by Bartram's head we can kind of get the gist of their middle eight routine involving spinning, kicking and the ever present notion there's got to be more dignified ways to come across on television, as Bartram goes on to glad-hand the front row and plant a smacker on some girl's forehead. Meanwhile Buddy Gask does his single basso profundo vocal and wonders when that supposed joint lead singer role is going to come up again. To close everyone turns their back on the audience as a mystery invisible sax solos away.
Steve Gibbons Band – Tulane
Hard to describe the motion Kid makes into this, a kind of swung arm round towards camera into leg-aided air guitar power chord. Splendidly, with only two to choose from the intended opening close-up on the guitar strings chosen by the director is on the rhythm, which has two notes to play, rather than that playing the distinctive lead riff. A Chuck Berry cover, rock and roll business is conducted by a man who's really tried to look the part - receding pompadour, white shirt and leather trousers, one handed confident mike stance leading to full knee knocking once the mike is in his hand, looks, like Alvin Stardust, far too old for all this. As for his band the bassist is wearing the cap of a stereotypical camp biker - as he is in their countdown photo and was last time we checked in, maybe it was his "thing" - while I still can't work out whether both guitarists have moustaches or not. The audience are into it, at least one young couple jiving as much as what they understand jiving to look like. Even better, one long shot reveals two men in a committed full-on rendition of that shoulder-first routine usually carried out by men in distressed denim jackets at Status Quo gigs or on stage with Mud doing Tiger Feet. Not for the last time tonight, Kid appears alone in the distance, slapping the side of his thigh in time to the beat during the instrumental break. Kid promises more for "the rock fans" later.
Barry Biggs – Three Ring Circus
Repeat. The seated one rather than the ringmaster one, sadly.
The Rods – Do Anything You Wanna Do
Not a mistake, Eddie & The Hot Rods traded under this name for a little while, presumably to make people think they were a hot new young punk band. It seems to have worked on Kid, who goes falsetto by the end of declaiming the title having enthused "this has got to be one of the best rhythm and rock records this year". Rhythm And Rock, for those who don't recall, was the more ostensibly commercial parallel to A Bit Of That Sort Of Rock. Not that the band are hiding anything, Barrie Masters still restlessly stalking and covering every inch of the stage and gurning between occasionally mimed lines in white jeans and an open shirt, occasionally grabbing the above the crotch area of his huge belt. Of course there's a member, the bassist, in dark glasses. Less punk-like, he's also wearing a yellow and black striped headband.
Rita Coolidge – We're All Alone
Well, this is quite rum. "The mood is mellow" maybe but not so literally, surely. For one thing, surely it's a late replacement given we've seen the video twice, but it's not clear what it might have replaced. Tavares' One Step Away seems most likely as it had been hovering around a central position before suddenly falling right out of the top 30, while Mink DeVille's Spanish Stroll had entered the top 50 the week before but hadn't quite yet made the rundown. Danny Williams' Dancin' Easy, surprisingly sticking at 32? The Ramones' Swallow My Pride, which entered at 36 the previous week but fell? We can but ponder and create unlikely mental images. Anyway, We're All Alone it is. The troupe, in non-fetching shades of electric blue/mauve and orange dresses with matching legwarmers, start lying on their backs and kind of stay there. Not just like that, obviously, even Flick would be called into question were it a tableau rather than routine no matter how clearly properly undanceable for slowness reasons the song is. No, from there is carved out a succession of seated positions, Oops Upside Your Head-recalling bends and lunges, rolls, crawls and just about every combination of arm and leg bending and swinging, closing with an extreme close-up on... well, I can rarely get them right when their faces are the right way up, but I think it's Gill... whoever, she's making something akin to devil eyes at us, perhaps hoping for something upbeat soon. It's more like a gymnastic floor exercise routine-cum-keep fit video on 2x fast forward and for all we know might have constituted an ongoing sit-down protest following Roadrunner's seated delivery. And not a cacti in sight either.
Thin Lizzy – Dancin' In The Moonlight (It's Caught Me In It’s Spotlight)
"From some delightful Lizzies..." Eh? I double checked, he does say "Lizzies". As seems traditional with Lizzy - and that's what Kid calls them at the end so it's an official diminutive - it's a repeat, slow dancers and all. Perhaps inspired by the Rods, Kid calls them just "Lizzy".
Delegation – You've Been Doing Me Wrong
Delegation were soul's own Liverpool Express, clearly. In very Seventies ruffled white suits over paisley patterned shirts and huge bow ties and embarking on choreographed knee lifting, they can't quite disguise that they've just slowed You To Me Are Everything down a bit, or that the first verse is clearly supposed to be in three part harmony but the Willie Thorne one either has been written out of the part at late notice or can't be bothered to lift the mike to his mouth but is gamely miming along anyway. After that he's always just slightly out of the movement routine, glancing across more out of blind hope than checking, sometimes affecting a half turn to make it seem more noticeable. The main singer isn't well served by shooting from below either given it means we can see the gap in the front of his teeth all the clearer. When the camera pans back to Kid he's swaying gently sat in the lotus position grinning to himself, as if in the midst of a pleasant flashback.
Fleetwood Mac – Dreams
A few more seconds than last time of the live clip, I reckon. "Isn't that fabulous?" Kid says. Maybe if we saw more of it.
J.A.L.N. Band – I Got To Sing
"Back to the disco scene", apparently. Apart from the keyboard player in grey slacks hoping we won't notice because of his instrument, more white suits all round. Was there someone unscrupulous going round the dressing rooms? Plausible given the horn section, who so clearly aren't regular members of the band they should have had their own caption. If the singer gets any closer to the edge of the stage for the verses he'll be dragged in, and he can't say he wasn't warned. Maybe that's why he's not concentrating on his miming, missing half a line at one point. Or maybe he's just terrible at it, not clear in his own mind whether vocals are lead or backing by the end. He's completely disrespecting the title of his own band's song in that.
Donna Summer – I Feel Love
Week four of four atop, and evidently not a moment too soon for the show. Obviously we don't know what they did in week three, but given week two involved slides and seated lunges you'd have put good money on a kaleidoscopic image of a potter's wheel or similar by now. Instead once Kid has symbolically clutched at his heart it's the escape hatch once more, but with a twist - Donna's passport photos on Toppotron™ once more, awkward dancing in semi-darkness again, but in the distance five sixths of Legs & Co swish their long dresses about in strict formation - shimmy, dip left shoulder, shimmy shoulders, dip right shoulder. In other words, a standing version of the routine they developed from within RoadRunner, and just as then most people aren't paying the blindest bit of attention. Five, though? Sue's the odd one out as she faces off and shimmies on a raised corner of the set with... Floyd! The man for all emergencies. Sue's still wearing her outfit from earlier, from which we must assume her colleagues are too, and we now see a bit of netting on the front, which we see the rest moving around a bit during the chorus. The little details lost on the big stages. To fully cap this mise-en-scene of disco shaking, visible in his colours right in front of the Legs & Co quorum is Kid. He's dancing. Or so the intention seems anyway, his style developing over time from some awkward rhythmic (but not rockist) finger clicking to full-on shifting from side to side in an approximation of getting down with the groove, apparently not only completely unaware and out of time with what's immediately behind him but with everyone else too. We're allowed just the 1:50 this week before Kid, still shifting in one spot with a little arm movement too, delivers the coup de grace before resuming with even more gusto as the song continues to play us out: "from me, Kid Jensen, it's goodbye and good love!" Yep, the full version. It's been a while.
By the time Pops returned the following week, there'd been a death in the family.
Showing posts with label rita coolidge. Show all posts
Showing posts with label rita coolidge. Show all posts
Thursday, 13 September 2012
Wednesday, 29 August 2012
TOTP 28/7/77 (tx 29/8/12) open thread
Hiya. Sorry to do this again, but with broadband down and only able to use a slow computer not near a television on, essentially, dial-up and a browser without Flash or sound it's going to have to be another open thread week. Shame, as it's an intriguing one and not just for harbouring a set of Noel links...
Steve Gibbons Band – Tulane
Boney M – Ma Baker
Showaddywaddy – You Got What It Takes
Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers – Roadrunner (Legs & Co)
Bob Marley & The Wailers – Exodus
Dana – It's High Time You Put Some Words Together
Emerson Lake & Palmer – Fanfare For The Common Man
Rita Coolidge – We’re All Alone
Thin Lizzy – Dancin' In The Moonlight (It's Caught Me In Its Spotlight)
Donna Summer – I Feel Love
Steve Gibbons Band – Tulane
Boney M – Ma Baker
Showaddywaddy – You Got What It Takes
Jonathan Richman & The Modern Lovers – Roadrunner (Legs & Co)
Bob Marley & The Wailers – Exodus
Dana – It's High Time You Put Some Words Together
Emerson Lake & Palmer – Fanfare For The Common Man
Rita Coolidge – We’re All Alone
Thin Lizzy – Dancin' In The Moonlight (It's Caught Me In Its Spotlight)
Donna Summer – I Feel Love
Wednesday, 8 August 2012
TOTP 14/7/77 (tx 8/8/12): there's no point in asking
"The following few are feeling fine, cos they're this week's Top Of The Pops! *air punch*" Even more than Noel and Tony you can tell which presenter that is just from the style written down, can't you?
Last time we'll hear Whole Lotta Love for a while, this - every Christmas, like a confused uncle, then not until a slight return in 1979. Bob Marley has a chair in his photo. The Wailers are either standing up or uncomfortably crouched down. That's the perk of getting your name at the front.
The Real Thing – Love's Such A Wonderful Thing
Even by his own standards Eddie Amoo has one-upped the fashion stakes right out of the block. Not for him the sensible waistcoats of the two in the middle, albeit one pairing them with shiny light blue trousers. No, there are times when only a gold off-one-shoulder singlet and trousers that aren't so much tight as vaccuum packed, given that extra bit of pizzazz by what seems to be a choker made out of china. Chris, guitar returned, is no slouch either in an all-gold affair presumably made from the same bit of material fashioned into a barely workable workman's overalls effect, if you knew any workmen with braided hair. The one not specifically mentioned above knows his place, like Ronnie Corbett, except his place when not harmonising is to clap and click half-heartedly and generally look like nobody told him he'd be joint third banana when the day came. At the back of the audience, and thus front of shot, a couple slow dance arm in arm to a slower tempo than provided. In the spirit of the song, but maybe not the occasion. Then they realise they're on telly and, perhaps thinking of how he looks in his bow tie, the bloke begins bobbing around and says something to his partner, who by then is watching the band anyway. What a complex relationship that may turn into.
Rita Coolidge – We're All Alone
"Here's a girl who knows a lot about love". And a lot about cactus welfare, judging by the massive size of the plant on the windowsill where she sits in her top embroidered with an outline of a moth. Moths and cacti aren't usually signifiers of true love, but each to their own. The video continues with her wandering through the garden outside and resting contentedly in a hammock, seemingly perfectly content on her own for now. You wait until she drops the window key behind the plant pot, though.
The Saints – This Perfect Day
A bit of that sort of rock, part one. Kid's exclaiming, he likes this one. There's a school of thought that says this might be the first proper punk band on TOTP, taking the Jam as mods and the Stranglers as pub rockers on the chance. They almost certainly aren't the sort of punk band TOTP expected either, playing it straight faced and deadpan, never once acknowledging a camera. Guitarist Ed Kuepper spends a good part of the song staring into the monitors. One kid right at the front kind of jumps about a bit but for the most part this is a nonplussed audience. Perhaps even more so when Chris Bailey rests his wrist on the mic holder, watches it come off in his hand and examines the cord, miming regardless all the while. Before they're off camera Bailey is already wandering off grinning. Still, can't imagine there'll be anything more ABOTSOR-like on this week...
The Commodores – Easy
Oh, the lights have gone funny on Legs & Co again. It's another trip back from the fabric shredder for the costumier, both top (with glittery tube top underneath), skirts, bit in the middle and what looks like an extra bit up the back full-on fringed. The routine is nothing to write home about, just lots of sashaying on a stage with people on three sides in mood lighting. It's just unfortunate the first two audience members picked out by the crane camera are looking away from the stage. Just as the whole team begin faux-headbanging to the guitar solo it's time to leave.
Dave Edmunds – I Knew The Bride
"Something for everyone" says Kid. Rockpile in all but credited artist name, and Nick Lowe in his shaggy dog pudding bowl haircut and sporting what seems to be a picture of Graham Parker on a badge is clearly hogging it for all it's worth, standing further forward than the credited artist this week, so much so the camerman can't keep Edmunds in focus over Lowe's headstock. A number of audience members literally hop from foot to foot.
Jigsaw – If I Have To Go Away
"If you've been wondering what happened to Jigsaw..." No, Kid, nobody thought that, much as Sky High was popular. "...they've been putting it all together again." Oh, I see, it's an elaborate comedy intro. So everyone's in blue satin shirts apart from the frontman in dazzling white and GOOD GOD that's a level of falsetto from Dave Beech we haven't heard even this year. He's already dressed like a Bee Gee, why not copy their vocal style indeed. There doesn't appear to be a drummer. That's presumably why they disappeared.
Supertramp – Give A Little Bit
That Kid introduces this video standing in front of a man with a Union Jack top hat and shit-eating grin is more interesting than the clip. It's nearly longer too, cut to ninety seconds in the early edit and I'm not sure it's much longer in the full length version.
Cilla Black – I Wanted To Call It Off
A girl on each arm like a Canadian love god with a regulation shaggy 'do, and neither of them seems any more sure than you might about how this is going to fit in. Good keeping up appearances, though, as even after his part of the stage has had the lights faded on it the three remain in that tableau until comfortably off screen. Our Cilla hadn't (and hasn't) had a top 50 hit in nearly three and a half years and her BBC and ITV vehicles had ground to a halt, a career flatlining that remained until a Wogan appearance in 1983 was spotted by Alan Boyd, in the process of creating Blind Date at the time. As for now that bloke still has that grin and that hat, and now we see his polo shirt has a cross of St George emblem on, while Cilla stands like a waxwork in front of some of the orchestra, wraps her pink scarf securely around her neck and oversings directly to us. By halfway some people are having a chat, watching the monitors, not entirely taking in the stately pace and showstopper ambition of Cilla's routine. As we pull away at the end Hat Bloke is dancing to something much faster in his own head.
The Sex Pistols – Pretty Vacant
"By way of contrast..." Yeah, you could say that. And now imagine Tony or DLT introducing it. So, a bit of that sort of rock, part two. And indeed ground zero, surely many people's introduction to what this band they've read about actually look, act and sound like, for good or ill. So much of this video, directed by Mike Mansfield only three months after his production/direction/link man job for LWT's Supersonic ended, is part of punk iconography - Johnny's ginger hair, practised sneer and ribbon mike stances, Sid's gormless expression and rock'n'roll textbook stance, Steve Jones' knotted hanky. Then there's all the period stuff, like the overzealous red lighting, the feather cut Paul Cook throwing something to the floor immediately before starting and the hugeness of Rotten/Lydon's sleeve cuffs. And now you can stop waiting for punk to happen. In a further development on the joy of juxtapostion, having already gone from Cilla to Pistols we now jump to Kenny Rogers, subject of this week's Awkward Pre-Number One Stilted Chat. We learn Kenny is on holiday after two weeks' work in Saudi Arabia - we can only speculate what - and announces a UK tour in November.
Hot Chocolate – So You Win Again
One of two songs out of ten we've seen already and three artists who's been on this repeat run before. Talk about new brooms. (Er, ignore the next show in that working) Kid gets Kenny to introduce it, perhaps mindful of what happened last time. A repeat from last week, Kid wishes us good love and we're out to horrible green font credits, a camera lens wrapped in tin foil and Fanfare For The Common Man, just to demonstrate the punks don't quite have it all their own way yet.
Last time we'll hear Whole Lotta Love for a while, this - every Christmas, like a confused uncle, then not until a slight return in 1979. Bob Marley has a chair in his photo. The Wailers are either standing up or uncomfortably crouched down. That's the perk of getting your name at the front.
The Real Thing – Love's Such A Wonderful Thing
Even by his own standards Eddie Amoo has one-upped the fashion stakes right out of the block. Not for him the sensible waistcoats of the two in the middle, albeit one pairing them with shiny light blue trousers. No, there are times when only a gold off-one-shoulder singlet and trousers that aren't so much tight as vaccuum packed, given that extra bit of pizzazz by what seems to be a choker made out of china. Chris, guitar returned, is no slouch either in an all-gold affair presumably made from the same bit of material fashioned into a barely workable workman's overalls effect, if you knew any workmen with braided hair. The one not specifically mentioned above knows his place, like Ronnie Corbett, except his place when not harmonising is to clap and click half-heartedly and generally look like nobody told him he'd be joint third banana when the day came. At the back of the audience, and thus front of shot, a couple slow dance arm in arm to a slower tempo than provided. In the spirit of the song, but maybe not the occasion. Then they realise they're on telly and, perhaps thinking of how he looks in his bow tie, the bloke begins bobbing around and says something to his partner, who by then is watching the band anyway. What a complex relationship that may turn into.
Rita Coolidge – We're All Alone
"Here's a girl who knows a lot about love". And a lot about cactus welfare, judging by the massive size of the plant on the windowsill where she sits in her top embroidered with an outline of a moth. Moths and cacti aren't usually signifiers of true love, but each to their own. The video continues with her wandering through the garden outside and resting contentedly in a hammock, seemingly perfectly content on her own for now. You wait until she drops the window key behind the plant pot, though.
The Saints – This Perfect Day
A bit of that sort of rock, part one. Kid's exclaiming, he likes this one. There's a school of thought that says this might be the first proper punk band on TOTP, taking the Jam as mods and the Stranglers as pub rockers on the chance. They almost certainly aren't the sort of punk band TOTP expected either, playing it straight faced and deadpan, never once acknowledging a camera. Guitarist Ed Kuepper spends a good part of the song staring into the monitors. One kid right at the front kind of jumps about a bit but for the most part this is a nonplussed audience. Perhaps even more so when Chris Bailey rests his wrist on the mic holder, watches it come off in his hand and examines the cord, miming regardless all the while. Before they're off camera Bailey is already wandering off grinning. Still, can't imagine there'll be anything more ABOTSOR-like on this week...
The Commodores – Easy
Oh, the lights have gone funny on Legs & Co again. It's another trip back from the fabric shredder for the costumier, both top (with glittery tube top underneath), skirts, bit in the middle and what looks like an extra bit up the back full-on fringed. The routine is nothing to write home about, just lots of sashaying on a stage with people on three sides in mood lighting. It's just unfortunate the first two audience members picked out by the crane camera are looking away from the stage. Just as the whole team begin faux-headbanging to the guitar solo it's time to leave.
Dave Edmunds – I Knew The Bride
"Something for everyone" says Kid. Rockpile in all but credited artist name, and Nick Lowe in his shaggy dog pudding bowl haircut and sporting what seems to be a picture of Graham Parker on a badge is clearly hogging it for all it's worth, standing further forward than the credited artist this week, so much so the camerman can't keep Edmunds in focus over Lowe's headstock. A number of audience members literally hop from foot to foot.
Jigsaw – If I Have To Go Away
"If you've been wondering what happened to Jigsaw..." No, Kid, nobody thought that, much as Sky High was popular. "...they've been putting it all together again." Oh, I see, it's an elaborate comedy intro. So everyone's in blue satin shirts apart from the frontman in dazzling white and GOOD GOD that's a level of falsetto from Dave Beech we haven't heard even this year. He's already dressed like a Bee Gee, why not copy their vocal style indeed. There doesn't appear to be a drummer. That's presumably why they disappeared.
Supertramp – Give A Little Bit
That Kid introduces this video standing in front of a man with a Union Jack top hat and shit-eating grin is more interesting than the clip. It's nearly longer too, cut to ninety seconds in the early edit and I'm not sure it's much longer in the full length version.
Cilla Black – I Wanted To Call It Off
A girl on each arm like a Canadian love god with a regulation shaggy 'do, and neither of them seems any more sure than you might about how this is going to fit in. Good keeping up appearances, though, as even after his part of the stage has had the lights faded on it the three remain in that tableau until comfortably off screen. Our Cilla hadn't (and hasn't) had a top 50 hit in nearly three and a half years and her BBC and ITV vehicles had ground to a halt, a career flatlining that remained until a Wogan appearance in 1983 was spotted by Alan Boyd, in the process of creating Blind Date at the time. As for now that bloke still has that grin and that hat, and now we see his polo shirt has a cross of St George emblem on, while Cilla stands like a waxwork in front of some of the orchestra, wraps her pink scarf securely around her neck and oversings directly to us. By halfway some people are having a chat, watching the monitors, not entirely taking in the stately pace and showstopper ambition of Cilla's routine. As we pull away at the end Hat Bloke is dancing to something much faster in his own head.
The Sex Pistols – Pretty Vacant
"By way of contrast..." Yeah, you could say that. And now imagine Tony or DLT introducing it. So, a bit of that sort of rock, part two. And indeed ground zero, surely many people's introduction to what this band they've read about actually look, act and sound like, for good or ill. So much of this video, directed by Mike Mansfield only three months after his production/direction/link man job for LWT's Supersonic ended, is part of punk iconography - Johnny's ginger hair, practised sneer and ribbon mike stances, Sid's gormless expression and rock'n'roll textbook stance, Steve Jones' knotted hanky. Then there's all the period stuff, like the overzealous red lighting, the feather cut Paul Cook throwing something to the floor immediately before starting and the hugeness of Rotten/Lydon's sleeve cuffs. And now you can stop waiting for punk to happen. In a further development on the joy of juxtapostion, having already gone from Cilla to Pistols we now jump to Kenny Rogers, subject of this week's Awkward Pre-Number One Stilted Chat. We learn Kenny is on holiday after two weeks' work in Saudi Arabia - we can only speculate what - and announces a UK tour in November.
Hot Chocolate – So You Win Again
One of two songs out of ten we've seen already and three artists who's been on this repeat run before. Talk about new brooms. (Er, ignore the next show in that working) Kid gets Kenny to introduce it, perhaps mindful of what happened last time. A repeat from last week, Kid wishes us good love and we're out to horrible green font credits, a camera lens wrapped in tin foil and Fanfare For The Common Man, just to demonstrate the punks don't quite have it all their own way yet.
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