TOTP 29/9/77 (tx 25/10/12): goodbuzzingcoolwalkinghightalkingfastlivingevergivingcoolfizzin... Stewpot

An actual recap by me of a show actually that went out! I know!

We start with a close-up of... some sort of robot. It's being held, it turns out, by Ed Stewart, who pretends it actually is Tony Blackburn before hurredly adding before Oxygene drowns him out "Tony's lost his voice, I'm here instead, so welcome!" It must be some tonsil problem Tony had as he didn't reappear on the show for two and a half months. Unless there's something else... he did seperate from Tessa Wyatt in autumn 1977*, it says here... As for Stewport we saw him cadging for names for the new dance troupe eleven months ago and he did a wiped show in December '76, but this would be his thirtieth and last TOTP fling before concentrating on Junior Choice and Crackerjack, two shows you'd imagine would require quite some concentration.

(* Tony says the famous on-air breakdown was in October 1976 but he seemed quite chipper doing a show that month, even having time to pop down the T-shirt printers, so who knows really)

Rose Royce – Do Your Dance
So none of them are actually half-cleaned Escorts? I feel I've been lied to. No excuse for a file photo any more, they've come mob handed, big horn section, guitarist and bassist grinning madly at each other, Rose Norwalt/Gwen Dickey - one and the same - and her exotic braids seemingly singing into a rose (do you see?) at first, though it's just next to the mike. Backing vocalists sprout up all over the place, from congas to middle trumpet. There's the mark of a band not taking any chances with the orchestra.

David Soul – Silver Lady
Still no sign of him in this country but he's happy enough walking the streets and hills of... somewhere American. In the grand mid-70s tradition we saw Leo Sayer also uphold last week it's a clip made entirely by pointing a camera at the star and getting him to wander aimlessly, pausing at one point to shake somebody's hand. That's how famous he is, and also how casual he slips into his fame. Like Leo, lipsync and matching the edit to the song's rhythmic pace are for other people. Unlike Leo, he's got a motorbike to swank about on for a bit and some well tended gardens to shepherd his lady through.

Bob Marley & The Wailers – Waiting In Vain
Legs & Co, and nothing says Rastafari irie like some waltzing in dresses made from net curtains. Cream jackets offset all the skirt swishing about and transparency. What this has to do with the song or rhythm... maybe they didn't have too much time.

Peter Blake – Lipsmackin' Rock 'N' Rollin'
Not that Peter Blake, but the one who would go on to play Kirk St Moritz in Dear John. You remember. Introduced as "a newcomer to TOTP" for now he's a stereotypical rock and roll revivalist and one who's aware of what that means at this precise moment too - studded leather jacket, pompadour quiff, vintage Levis - to distract from the fact that he's also a poor second to Danny Williams as a song derived from a drink advert. The audience in the round are for their part swaying gladly and Blake's going to play to them, running his hand through one girl's hair in passing, realising that wasn't the wisest option and seemingly slapping another upside the head. Intriguingly, the verse tune is practically identical to the following year's Greased Lightning, pre-chorus pauses and all. You can definitely sing one over the other. There's even a dubious car reference towards the end. Hmmm...

Ram Jam – Black Betty
"Tomorrow Radio 1 is ten years old and so is Radio 2. Welcome Ram Jam at number 18!" Surely there was supposed to be something in the middle there. TOTP did actually have a special edition for the station's fifteenth birthday, from which show the celebrated DJs dancing to Adam Ant clip comes (and Jocky Wilson Said, actually). As for Ram Jam they're playing in someone's garden being watched by all manner of dubious characters, including two girls on a stationary motorbike, one holding a plastic cup, and one man dancing and clapping wildly above his head who seems to have invegilated himself among the band. He's actually standing next to the drum riser. Ram Jam look much as you'd imagine they would. Just before the end we see two men off to the far side having a chat while leaning against some abandoned amps, apparently unaware that rock is occurring just next to them.

David Essex – Cool Out Tonight
The show's moving at a fair old clip tonight, without apparent extra modern editing we're six songs in after twelve and a half minutes. Playing in front of a humungous glitterball and a two thirds as large baseball David's permanently got his guitar on tonight and the saxophonist still isn't touching the instrument that's strapped to him when there's a tambourine to shake instead. The middle eight sees David's head briefly encased in an oval frame, because that's what successful people get. Probably. Something else that happens to famous people is nobody advises them not to ad lib "ba boom ba dum" mid-line. "A good year for David" Stewpot surmises.

The Stylistics – I Plead Guilty
It doesn't bode well that the orchestra turn the intro into contemporary family sitcom incidental music, I know that much. Stewpot's link is entirely off camera, which kind of fits the commercial and critical downslide the band are on - this didn't chart and they'd never make the top 75 again, though being TOTP they'd be back in the studio once more in 1978. Russell Thompkins Jr still looks permanently surprised but he somehow fits the band uniform of canary yellow better. Incidentally the Stylistics are in the country for the whole of November. Two of these five, not including Thompkins Jr, remain. It's unclear whether the one sporting the same hair and beard arrangement as Peter Sutcliffe is one.

Donna Summer – I Remember Yesterday
What at first looks like a video purely of stills turns into Donna in full white suit with bow tie and top hat doing cabaret dancing on the spot in a spotlight. Her miming clarinet playing would do Flick proud. It's all very nice but this isn't the futuro-diva we were promised a couple of months back.

Golden Earring – Radar Love
"A sound with a difference" Stewpot calls this, which is curious for a show that's already featured Black Betty. They may actually be playing live, there's certainly the ballsy commitment and muso concentration to suggest so as singer Barry Hay thrusts forward in his red wrapround shades. The drummer fancies himself for notice in a Bruce Lee (later Kill Bill) replica tracksuit. Of course the audience are unsure what to make of this rhythm and rock explosion. How's he got his hands wet inside the car? Window broken?

Elvis Presley – Way Down
And this week's iteration of Legs & Co sees Sue and Rosie... not there. Maybe they got bored of the same song again and again after weeks of I Feel Love too. The remaining Legs are paired off, one on the stage opposite Toppotron™, one on the nearer side, all in a very thrown together outfit of pink bra and pants with remnants of a grass skirt attached to the latter. We know they're not averse to digging out old costumes but such is the half-light they're performing in it really wouldn't make a difference here. In the audience one couple embark on what looks like the full American Smooth. There's a couple of others pairing off, but the overall dancing message is confused. And that's it? Not quite, as Stewpot has one last guest, a "young man" responsible for both this week's playout and the chart still of the week:



With a shirt on this time, though. That'll be Giorgio Moroder, then, pleased to report it's "number one in the discos in the States" and mentioning he "found Donna in Munich three years ago" like she was lost property. Stewpot hopes he'll be "doing well with her and yourself" before a tremendously camp "OK? Byeeeeee!" flourish to finish his stint. Somewhere Tony Blackburn opens another packet of lozenges and phones his lawyer.

TOTP 28/4/77 (tx 17/5/12): do the bump

ALERT! Top Of The Pops 2 is back for a fortnight only, every weekday from Monday, BBC2, 6.30pm. Don't expect too much out of the way stuff, it's a limited run in prime-time after all, but good to have it around.

Dave Lee Travis in charge this week, getting straight down to business, no messing about. Yet. And... hang on, what's this coming over the hill?



Marquee Moon's only top 30 week, so obviously punk's not having to happen yet. Well, it's difficult to know what even Flick would have done with its monolithic nature. Deep Purple's five years old Smoke On The Water is at 27. We never see that on the show either.

Contempt – Money Is A Girl’s Best Friend
But we do get this. What it is... well, it's a mystery for starters, as cursory online searches find next to nothing about them. Not even the son of its producer, the great Martin Rushent, could come up with anything when someone asked him. Contempt clearly not breeding familiarity. So all we have to go on is the music, and that's tricky enough. They've got vaudeville aspirations, the open shirted guitarist seems to have got lost on the way to a prog gig, the drummer sports a magnificent bushy beard and the singer is in full City gent costume with furled umbrella. Very much in the Sensational Alex Harvey Band lineage, then, especially when the singer unveils the sort of vocal style that would seem slightly overdone in regional musical theatre. Then it briefly turns into then-recent Queen with a three-part harmony. Quite a bit of Cockney Rebel too. Then there's an acapella harmony on the line "open up the goody store". By this point, not unreasonably and just before the slow-then-quickening waltz time section with widdly guitar solo which turns Greek, audience members are looking as practically bemused as they can. Eventually it has to be faded out. It is, fair to say, one way of opening a show.

Rose Royce – I Wanna Get Next To You
Ah, something sensible. Something cheap too, as Legs & Co are split into factions this week and Pauline gets a solo spot in an area that appears to have been fenced off with pink toilet paper hung from the lighting rig. Two white roses in her hair and lots of arms to sides pouting is how it goes.

The Detroit Spinners – Could It Be I'm Falling In Love
As we pan from DLT to stage we see two girls wearing tartan scarves that are the very same length that they are, one with 'WOODY' in white lettering down the middle, the other 'LES' likewise. Wrong week, girls. And maybe they should stop chatting to their mates apparently not noticing anything else going on and turn round, because there's a fulsome display of music and movement going on. Matching predominately mauve suits, lots of spinning round and changing places, and behind the Ladybirds (we have to assume) doing completely different moves, which makes them noticeable but then even more so when they're inaudible for a few seconds too many. Obviously the blaring orchestra stomp all over its subtleties, but the mid-section, while the Pearson timing does send it a little out of whack, allows the Spinners to show off their full move set - an elbowy cartoon-like full stride creep, a hop while spinning with jacket tails in the breeze, a two steps to side and kick, and a bit where the rest give Bobby Smith the floor to show off his solo moves and then look at each other as if to say "did you see that?" By the end, oddly, we can hear the Ladybirds over the harmonising Spinners but the latter's handclaps are coming over fine.

10cc – Good Morning Judge
From the first album after Godley and Creme had left. They, of course, became major players in the development of the pop video. This is a video, and it's not contributing to the form's major development. It does, however, include the following: Eric Stewart in a neckerchief and tan jacket, a 'jury' of chromakeyed multiple Stewarts and Graham Gouldmans in wigs and facial hair and both men (Gouldman spends the bulk of the bits not shot on location in a white wig pretending to be an American judge, for some reason) pushing away their stands to reveal electric guitars for soloing upon.

Rags – Promises Promises
As previously mentioned, Rags are kind of an embryonic Bucks Fizz - one of the girls managed them, the other wrote songs for them and their failed Eurovision bid with this song included a skirt ripping-off sequence. Maybe that's what DLT is thinking of as he makes the sort of face introducing them that he usually saves for Legs & Co. In fact they're literally wearing rags, stylised ragamuffin outfits at least. Just as you wonder whether they're no so voluminous they can't actually move in them they get cast aside in favour of light blue outfits, leading to some classic light pop shimmying, incorporating some synchronised head ballet, that actually seems a little ahead of its time. Four Eurovisions ahead, I suppose. "It's going to be Noel Edmonds' record of the week next week" DLT threatens early risers.

Joe Tex – Ain't Gonna Bump No More (With No Big Fat Woman)
Frankly, taking clips from Soul Train is making TOTP's efforts all round look even lamer than normal. Everybody struts their stuff to its utmost, the performer has the original recording and loads of space to work with, and if you get some sort of latent anti-genius on it results in something like this (apologies for the Wright):



Some points of note: the woman side of stage posing a threat to low flying air traffic from 0:49, Joe's belief that convincing miming is something that happens to other people, the people you can just see in silhouette behind the caption at 1:25 bending forth and back from the waist in unison, his clever move with the mike stand nearly backfiring and endangering lives at 2:11, and of course that ending. Imagine if DLT had had to take that role. IMAGINE.

Kiki Dee – Night Hours
Still sitting down. In the round with an acoustic guitarist sporting Farrah Fawcett-meets-Dougal from the Magic Roundabout hair Dee has some people spellbound and several looking at the monitor instead.

Billy Ocean – Red Light Spells Danger
DLT has found a hard looking man with a beard. What transpires is not pretty, involves both mockery and forgetfulness, and can be seen here. That might be the only reason why in a show in which everything else bar the number one is new to TOTP this has been kept in, unless it's the presence in front of Ocean of Gill and Rosie turning and pelvic thrusting for all they're worth in short tops embossed with flourescent red dots, intended (we must assume) as stop signs. They've got more red circles hanging off their pants-as-dancewear. Even their clothes are literal interpretations. For Ocean's sartorial part his jacket design is somewhere between tartan blanket and Axminster and that collar could still make him fly away one windy day.

Barbra Streisand – Love Theme From A Star Is Born (Evergreen)
"There's all sorts going on here - they're all after my cheese butty, look" quoth DLT, who proceeds to take a bite. What's happened there? Put it down between takes, man! You've got three minutes a time! Inevitably, he links into the video with his mouth full. Being simpler days, there are people who find this hilarious. I say video, with Kris Kristofferson staring intently at her it's more likely to be a clip from the film.

Uriah Heep – Wise Man
DLT introduces them sitting at their feet, John Lawton sadly not taking the opportunity to clout him one. Prog? At this stage of proceedings? Well, not really, they were a heavy rock band by this stage, new frontman Lawton falling between two stools with a mighty orcs-ahead vibrato, Rob Halford-presaging leathers and eyeliner as his band walk through the usual big rock ballad business. The kids just look confused.

Van McCoy – The Shuffle
A third helping of the Legs & Co select committee. Patti's still off recovering from what Floyd put her through so it's Sue and Lulu making the best of McCoy's second attempt to make a flute-driven instrumental work in tight bellydancer outfits, maybe because that was all that was left over, from within what seems to be one of those growing frames you find in allotments.

Barry Biggs – You're My Life
We should know better given Biggs ran with the pink ruffled ringmaster suit as the previous last word in fashion, but he's dug right down to the bottom of the basket this week and emerged with a lime green marquee-like shirt which may even be partially transparent. With a large part of the audience behind him and some actually watching him instead of the monitors he slowly ascends a set of steps as we look back at him trying to look back at us all lachrymose while studying every step in turn in detail. Once he gets halfway up and finds his little stage he turns round and makes like he means every word to a crowd who may or may not be listening. Just as the camera pans down to DLT a floor manager runs across the shot.

ABBA – Knowing Me Knowing You
"They've been there for 34 years and they're going to stay there for another 34 years" claims DLT. This was the last week, fortunately, though in terms of popular culture in general he was far more spot on than he'll ever realise. He then does a Swedish accent, which makes one girl giggle. That's all she wrote, DLT crashing into the vocals of Rod Stewart's The First Cut Is The Deepest, which in a beautiful piece of historically chart referencing scheduling on BBC4's part is followed by a trail for Punk Britannia (starts 1st June).

TOTP 13/1/77 (tx 19/1/12): it gets better

And we're properly off as we mean to... no, not go on, David Hamilton's presenting presence isn't indicative of a go-ahead attitude in and of itself. The first new chart of the new year reveals a whole host of new photos, including Donna Summer in a furry hood, all of Status Quo except the drummer looking off to the left of camera, a snapshot of a Cortina going through a suburban car wash for Rose Royce - that may not even have been a file photo - and most notably John Christie, because a) it means enough people liked Here's To Love to send it chartwards and b) he's wearing a T-shirt with a golliwog on. We've seen a golly before on the reruns, there was one on Marmalade's bass drum skin, but even given the unfortunate associations since those days it's a curious thing for an earnest singer-songwriter to be donning in his big promo shot.


Gallagher & Lyle – Every Little Teardrop
As with Sheer Elegance last week, this would be the last we'd see of the duo of MOR punchiness, new brooms and all that. They weren't to know, which was why they splashed out on a two man brass section, one a saxophonist in a big hat and Hawaiian shirt of low advisedness who seems to be miming along to a trumpet part. The presence of an organ as well as Lyle (or Gallagher)'s electric keyboard means they can spread out right across the front of the stage, but all the bopping on the spot in the world can't make it sound like someone heard a Steely Dan record I can't quite place right now, probably one from 1977's future for all I know, and decided to recreate it in a toned down fashion. Diddy reckons it'll be "a big one for '77". It reached number 32.

Barry Biggs – Sideshow
Performing under a spotlit spider, Biggs has left the pink ruffled shirt at home this time in favour of a soberly coloured suit but he's still wandering awkwardly up and down a very small area of a big stage. At the end a big pan out crane shot gives us a glimpse, sequestered away in a corner behind some loosely held in place boards, of Johnny Pearson and a couple of his orchestra, for the first time in this whole repeat series. Union demand?

Rose Royce – Car Wash
"And the splendid chassis you see belong to Legs & Company!" So put Diddy down as one who uses the full name. We start with Sue and Lulu Gill in Smith & Jones head to head fashion, albeit they never wore caps, stuck their tongues out at each other (ad lib?) or were generally female. The pan out reveals they've blown the month's design budget on an illuminated 'CAR WASH' sign, some arrows on the floor and four rotating brushes, while the girls are outfitted in small fringed ponchos, leotards and knee socks-cum-woollen legwarmers. Give or take a tiny skirt or six, this is pretty much what you imagine Legs & Co wore every week if you didn't have direct documentary evidence. The ensemble is, helpfully for people like me who get confused, topped off by a hat with each dancer's forename on. It's a quick way of garnering individual personality, I suppose. The routine is the kind of ensemble piece Flick always did for disco, involving a lot of work in parallel lines, wandering in and out of the middle and general jumping back and forth before a spot of synchronised movement from the elbow upwards. "A bunch of cheeky girls" adds Diddy, both referring to the amount of gluteus maximus on display and accidentally opening a mind portal to a very different future form of female pop interjection. If only he'd known.

David Parton – Isn't She Lovely
"There's a very controversial record out at the moment - I don't know who started the controversy" says a man who must have somehow been aware that Anarchy In The UK had only the previous week been withdrawn by EMI and so on balance someone rush-covering Isn't She Lovely because Stevie Wonder wouldn't put it out as a single. Then again, we are talking about a middle aged man with a chicken in a basket cabaret circuit type walrus tache and largely pink striped jacket with clashing half-open shirt underneath whose facial expression as he sings suggests he's also in the middle of a bad bout of constipation, eyes closed and everything, though in this context that looks a trifle mocking. And he's not so much singing as shouting to a tune, not entirely capturing the subtlety and swing of Stevie's vocal style. Like Paul Nicholas, his idea of filling the break is to run round in a circle. He then blows a kiss to the audience, absolutely fails to get them to clap along with him and then picks out two unfortunate girls to kiss the hand of. At this stage he resembles a politician trying too hard to look populist at an overlit rally. By the end he's pointing at the camera.

Status Quo – Wild Side Of Life
Or "Wild Wild Side" as Diddy calls it. Same video clip as last time, Quo obviously being far too big for the show at this time. Unlike the 80s, when they became really successful and would pop in at the drop of a key change.

Liverpool Express – Every Man Must Have A Dream
Billy Kinsley, here bedecked in one of Slik's castoff US college jackets, was wearing the band's own T-shirt in their rundown shot. "There are quite a few new entries in the chart this week" commends Diddy, introducing a song we've already seen. Different performance, because all the festive touches wouldn't have made sense this far into January. The drumkit doesn't seem to have moved since Gallagher & Lyle set it up. Still, kit sharing makes it easier for visiting bands. Somehow the massive ending seems even more jolting against the rest of the tune this time.

Pussycat – Smile
Oh, they're back alright, for one last curtain call. It's much like the big hit, except less so. Everyone looks slightly more scary, we get better shots of the frontwoman's gap in the front teeth and there's lots of fringing on yellow dresses going on. Nowhere, however, is a gun used as a slide, and that's where their studio work falls down.

David Soul – Don’t Give Up On Us
Soul had a big 1977 and didn't come over for single promotion once. It's as if he had a big hit TV show to film or something. Lots of baleful looks to camera and overlaid shot fades going on, as well as a still photo of a man on a horse halfway through for no reason at all. Back in the studio the audience has formed a gangway in front of their beloved leader Diddy for the final link, although they're not so respectful that he doesn't have to admonish someone for pulling on his trouser leg. After he's made a very strange high pitched "woo!" noise waving us goodbye, I Wish under the credits gives Stevie a PRS double.


EDIT NEWS: Ah, an old friend. The video to Julie Covington's Don't Cry For Me Argentina was all that we lost, strange when there was a video we've already had on the show kept in the edit. We should see it again anyway, at Christmas if we don't contemporaneously.

(By the way, 1977 is the year on Pick Of The Pops this Saturday)