TOTP 30/6/77 (tx 25/7/12): summer shorts

Courtesy of Google's scans of the Glasgow Herald archives, that night's BBC1 at a glance...



In fact it comes out at a sneaky 27 minutes, which means we've just about lost another likely non-charting single of forgotten rubbish oddness. Gnh.

"There's only one way to introduce this week's TOTP - and this is it". It may be a shortened programme full of repeats, but Noel's going to bring out all the stylistic big guns we've become accustomed to nonetheless.

T-Connection – Do What You Wanna Do
Kicking off with a video is a surefire way of showing there's not much going on this week, or that someone pulled out late. A really ropey quality performance video clip, as if they'd prefigured the cabling running the floor of the Atlantic by dragging the reel to reel along the sea bed on the way across, mostly featuring an overhead shot of the singer at the keyboard wearing a bright yellow tabard with some sort of flower-cog design on. But never mind that, as just 25 seconds in... Toppotron™ time! And what a motley crew of uncomfortable dancers we have in tonight, ranging from a couple on a raised platform who have the swing and the moves to a man in a grey jumper lively pacing three steps into the bulk of the throng, then three steps back, then repeat. TV studio, wedding reception, all the same. The girls swing their bobs prettily. The boys either fancy themselves in their stylish white jackets or look like they need an urgent piss. One girl has brought her autograph book with her and is clutching it for dear life. Just a minute and a half in - maybe the end was damaged by rocks or covered in seaweed - Noel wanders on, and either it's a massive con with green screen and last week's crowd or he's oddly lit from above. "Born with a teaspoon in their mouths" is his first attempt at redefining the presentational art.

Gladys Knight & The Pips – Baby Don't Change Your Mind
"Three new entries in the charts this week - well, four altogether but three in tonight's programme". Sounds like he's actually over-read the script. They've still not learnt how to wear orange headphones properly.

John Miles – Slow Down
Not a repeat! So there was life in TVC that week. Miles still has his luxuriant tache, embellished with Les Gray shades this week, and can play the talkbox a little better even though he can't remember to start using it at the right moment, but his band have made up for it with a variety of bad fashions. The keyboard player in his wing-collared shiny catsuit open to the navel because he thinks it makes him resemble Travolta makes a good effort, but the drummer in green PE kit (and no shoes) takes the prize for not thinking through how he's going to look. Noel commends the "unbelievable" pace before allowing us to scratch another off the bingo card with a failed prediction. "It's got to have number one written all over it" he suggests. Well, it's closer than most of them.

Jesse Green – Come With Me
Or Jess, as Noel renames him. As the kids literally scarper from the marauding camera that keeps changing its angle, maybe through people getting their own back, we see Green has gone for the page of the style booklet titled 'international man of leisure'. Shades with lenses that awkwardly reflect the studio lights, tight afro, thin and very neat long moustache with mere hint of before its time goatee, black shirt with top three buttons undone, pristine white suit. Quite the smoothie.

Queen – Good Old Fashioned Loverboy
Well, they're not going to turn up twice, are they. "For some reason I always want him to say 'give us a kiss' at the end of that" Noel muses. Your fantasies about the flirting habits of the manly Freddie Mercury, Noel, are yours to keep.

Cliff Richard – When Two Worlds Drift Apart
Noel's been chatting to Cliff. "He says if it's not a hit, it'll be a miss with style. I reckon he's got style, I reckon it'll be a hit. Otherwise I wouldn't have chosen it as my record of the week." Two in one! Inaccurate prediction - it peaked at 46 - and record of the week humble brag. No, wait, the song is "what happens when two worlds drift apart", so he's described the title too. The song seems an anticlimax now. It seems an anticlimax while it's progressing too, a stately piano ballad. Cliff in his powder blue suit, promotional badge for own album and two medallions can at least attempt to pull this descriptively emotive vocal style off, but the Ladybirds, around one mike and two in Carole Bayer Sager tribute outfits, cawing almost over him in a slightly different key don't help.

The Detroit Emeralds – Feel The Need In Me
"And when twelve legs get together with a few other bits..." Just eight months after they joined our happy dancing band Gill and Rosie get their own showcase (though there is evidence to suggest a previous wiped show featured those two alone), dancing alone but likewise in a three-way split screen with the other four in the middle doing a supplementary joint routine. All six are outfitted in a curious mesh of little black dress, flapper style - feather in the hair, sequins, outfit cut to the thigh - and glamorous widow at funeral, some sort of lacey mesh attached to the back. The pair must be across a soundstage from each other as they switch all the time from grinning enjoyment to concerned glances across, as it's never entirely clear whether they're supposed to be in sync. "It's Patti's birthday, and we'll be having a birthday patty for her after" Noel challenges syntax. Actually it was her birthday (a lady never reveals her age. I'm not a lady. 27.) the day of recording, but with link time short Noel probably had enough on his mind, unlikely as that seems.

Emerson Lake & Palmer – Fanfare For The Common Man
Still snowed out. That gong never gets used.

Hot Chocolate – So You Win Again
"Rather appropriate to have a fanfare before the number one sound, and men don't come more common than this lot". Ah, Noel. A smile, a quip, an insult. Errol, who's even more stationary than usual, affects not to notice. Obviously. A comedy rolling xylophone trill seems to have been added to the chorus by the orchestra, as well as some parping trombones. Noel, after commending their "phenomenal rush to the top", introduces as the playout "Ma Boney". Frank Farian's wife?

We'll have to be going some to make it past fifty comments this week.

TOTP 9/6/77 (tx 28/6/12): we love our queen, god save

Tony greets us in his usual slicky cold way, and we're off in Jubilee week. Keep that detail in mind. The Eagles on their way down marks up one of the great inconsistencies of entirely living 1977 through these repeats, in that we've almost completely skipped the presence of one of the great rock classics were it not for Legs & Co's Spanish interpretation. Now here's some stout manly MEN:



SPOILER: the Sex Pistols aren't number one here either.

Osibisa – The Warrior
Always going to be a tricky sell when a show begins on a close-up of a bongo which reveals its player seems to be wearing a small child's toy on a necklace. It's energetic Afrobeat, which means a smiling drummer and someone wearing a headband and cape but no shirt employed to play a huge shaker when he's not manfully miming a trumpet part. The Ladybirds are complete fish out of water attempting to add vocal chorale light and shade. The bongo player's more of a worry, all sticking out elbowy in his actions, never going to get proper force downwards like that. At the end our extraneous friend picks up a clarinet, with which he seems to be making the sound of a recorder. Tony comes on laughing, as always.

Electric Light Orchestra – Telephone Line
"Let's keep the holiday atmosphere going" urges a post-bank holiday Tony. With a ballad. Video repeat.

Berni Flint – Southern Comfort
"It's even better, it's going to go even higher (than his first hit)" beams Tony. Obviously, it didn't. This isn't that surprising, not being a touching folk ballad but a jaunty strum with an unfortunate touch of the Richard Digance about getting it together in the country that seems about a decade out of time in 1977. The second verse is about himself - "they put me on a programme and the votes came flooding in, and they told me you're a winner, you're a star" - with a conclusion that suggests he doesn't want any part of the fame really. The record buying public concurred. Be careful what you wish for.

Frankie Miller's Full House – Be Good To Yourself
Frankie belts it out once more, still not getting over the suspicion they've watched the Faces a bit too much given their stage positions, his craft and the general choogling undertow.

The Wurzels – Farmer Bill's Cowman
Not before time, they literally face down Tony. The problem with Farmer Bill's Cowman - well, apart from the obvious - is following Brand New Key and Una Paloma Blanca it's based on a song with no lyrics and thus no vocal melody to rearrange, I Was Kaiser Bill's Batman by Whistling Jack Smith (and incidentally, if any of you are looking to adopt a new dance style...) All the mugging in the world - cockerel impressions, looks to side camera of disgust donning a top hat, referencing Burlington Bertie - isn't going to convince the audience that these people are doing anything useful any more, quite some change from the days people would fight each other with balloons to get in shot with them. To their credit they're singing live; to nobody's credit one of them puts the mike out to various audience members and is met by stony silence. They're all wearing election-style rosettes. They lost their deposits.

Gladys Knight & The Pips – Baby Don’t Change Your Mind
Horrible 1977 edit at the start of this, cutting without warning from Tony to a shot of some sort of disc a young Knight had been awarded at some undisclosed time. The amateur hour at the VT suite feel carries on through the video, which features the Pips rehearsing moves in their own clothes in what could either be someone's oversized studio flat or a provincial leisure centre, being watched by Gladys wearing her own band's T-shirt. Then there's Knight and band recording their vocals seemingly without studio facilities but with bright orange plastic-seeming headphones, which they're all holding under their chins. Surely eventually someone would realise there's an inbuilt way they could keep them on while freeing a hand or two. Eventually we get some cursory shots of a balding man at a soundboard, but for someone attempting to record four lead vocal takes at once he seems very relaxed.

Neil Innes – Silver Jubilee
"You're probably wondering what this little bit of string is here" enthuses Tony, next to a piece of string that hasn't been seen before and you may not have spotted until Tony predicted you'd be wondering about. It's to set off a load of balloons on top of... oh my. Neil Innes, second in command of the Bonzo Dog Band, author of the Rutles, most plausible seventh Python candidate, man behind the long-demanded-for-DVD-release series The Innes Book Of Records, auteur of The Raggy Dolls. Him. He turns out to be the anti-Rotten. Imagine if this was the only thing you now knew about him. Now, his real intentions are kept straightfaced as to potential subversiveness and, presumably after being tweeted at by half the viewers, he claimed this morning "Jubilee song was a dare", but there's precious little irony inherent when you're standing under a flotilla of balloons entirely surrounded by young people waving Union Jacks singing "sailing in the yacht Britannia, nowhere in the world would ban ya" to a frankly reggaefied backing track that makes Paul Nicholas sound like King Tubby Meets Rockers Uptown. Then there's his conduct during the short break, which in its jauntily skipping to the back of the stage, picking up a flag and waving it to either side isn't too far from the David Parton model. Top marks for working the word "highfalutin" in, mind.

The Stranglers – Go Buddy Go
"We're gonna change tempo a little bit now", although that is at least rather jaunty and not too far from this sort of pace. Then it becomes clear Tony cannot actually physically say the magic word (or two, right Kid?) yet in this Pistolian of all weeks: "a bit of that sort of, er, a bit of rock now". Same as two weeks ago. A royal tribute followed by this? That's got to have been deliberate.

Demis Roussos - Kyrila
"We'll conjure up the lovely island of Demis" promises Tony, which seems a bit personal. It's the fulcrum of a thought about people going on holiday, because he's Greek, see. This clearly hasn't been filmed at the same time as everything else as the blue smocked Demis is in front of a big off-white wall like it's Pebble Mill or something, no sign given of the usual Pops studio sets, with a wind machine to one side and, to denote the luxury holiday content, two potted plastic trees in front of him, not so much carefully arranged to give the impression of far off desert islands as grabbed out of reception and hoping for the best.

Honky – Join The Party
"I've got two ladies here, you come from Blackburn, aren't you? What a sensible place to come from!" So there you have it - Blackburn, says namesake, is "sensible". Such positivity. Odd that this repeat made the early edit when two new songs and a third that hasn't been on at 7.30 before, but we're long past the stage of second guessing the editing intentions.

The Jacksons – Show You The Way To Go
Tony recalls seeing the Osmonds in Vegas "who were sensational" and spotting the Jacksons in the audience. See, the jet set lifestyle. This seems to be the same set as Demis, with a single line of the backs of people's heads in front of the stage, some of whom are wandering about throughout, but somehow with a setting sun projection behind them the trees look just a little more convincing. The blue slit dresses don't fit the routine that seems generic and half-arsed as it is, as if this was one of those late replacement song weeks and they had the set built so they may as well kill two birds with one stone.

Bob Marley & The Wailers – Exodus
Well, this is no Neil Innes. Tony impresses on us that "wherever you go they've had smash hits", this being Marley's debut (and penultimate) appearance in the studio. Just for that it's something of a landmark and the moment clearly gets to the director, who halfway through cuts to some lights for too long, then very briefly to the bassist with his mouth open, then back to the I-Threes where he started before finding Bob again. Even more jarringly, it takes ages for the audience to get into it - there's plenty of strutting at the back from the well dressed older kids but down the front the best they can manage is some half hearted Union Jack waving, which shorn of context seems almost adversorial. Also note that just like any band unwilling to cart a full backline around they're kit sharing, sharing stage space and an organ with Osibisa

Rod Stewart – The First Cut Is The Deepest
One more week of waggling from the rear and emoting with the forehead. (Alright, stop that, we all know the story by now). Tony hopes we join him for Seaside Special and over the aforesnowed Emerson Lake & Palmer there's the rare sound of a fulsome round of applause over the start of the credits. They're supposed to be dancing, right?

TOTP 6/1/77 (tx 6/1/12): ring in the new

1977 - the year of Evita, Keith Richards' drugs bust, Studio 54, Saturday Night Fever and punk breaking. Chris Martin, Kanye West, Ronan Keating, Shakira, Danger Mouse, Gerard Way of My Chemical Romance, Richard Archer of Hard-Fi and Claire from Steps were born. Elvis, Marc Bolan, Bing Crosby, Ronnie Van Zant and Maria Callas died. Also, not a single Top Of The Pops making it into the top 20 of the weekly TV ratings all year, something that didn't happen again until 1985. Truly the alpha and omega of an era, as we'll come to learn better together throughout 2012.

Oh god. This goes on all year.

No need to take too long discussing The Story Of 1977, except it's an odd form of marketing to preview a series which runs all year in prime time with an hour long trailer telling you nearly all of it is shit until punk arrives and changes everything (which obviously explains why Mull Of Kintyre, released in November, became the best selling single of the whole decade), making sure first to tell you you wasted your time over the previous eight months watching the previous year's output being rerun. Too much block revisionist history (1977 was a relatively calmed year in terms of inflation, unemployment and strikes, certainly nothing like the three day week of 1974 or the Winter Of Discontent of 1978) and plain deliberate ignorance of Pops' role - it's a family entertainment show based on the biggest selling records of the day (or in Story Of terms the old guard "clinging on"), not a rival to So It Goes - to discuss, but whoever got the reliably rotten Sue Perkins to claim the bulk of its guests "were all novelty acts" over a clip of Jonathan Richman needs taking far away from a place of pop culture influence.

Anyway. Here it is on iPlayer for the next week and another couple beyond that due to repeats, and if you don't mind spoilers here's Big Hits 1977.

So what had BBC4 got to offer the part-timers, those making a night of it who'll forget about the rest of the run and mildly irk those of who sat through Glamourpuss to get to this moment, godammit? Unusually we start with the rundown followed by the first surviving appearance of Kid Jensen - that's how he's referred to in the credits, so like Floyd/Floid that's only how this blog will refer to him - who remarks that there just wasn't a new chart published that week. Actually there was, and one of those you're about to see was on the way down. Boo, TOTP. BOO. Also, John Christie had entered the top 30. It happened, ladies and gentlemen, though he immediately started falling so the temptation to call him back in was averted. And it's with that inaccuracy ringing in our ears we embark upon the pint/quart activity of cramming eleven songs and a playout into 35 minutes.

Sheer Elegance – Dance The Night Away
And here's how to get a new year off to a flyer. This would be Sheer Elegance's last appearance, which is a shame as they've finally learnt the value of not colour clashing in alarming ways. Not that this getup isn't alarming by itself, as the red shirts with large white patch and ruffled plunging neckline are augmented by white trousers so tight Cliff Richard would wince. The hook this time is classically soulful but limited by only having one really able member the trio were never destined as anything other than a footnote, especially given the not inconsiderable US competition on the same show.

10cc – The Things We Do For Love
Without a link - no idea whether by cut or design - we're into a video shot in an overspotlit performance space of a band we last saw on the second BBC4 show of 1976. Some nice close-ups of some tambourines at one point. "Broken up but not down" Jensen points out, this being their first single without Godley or Creme.

Tina Charles – Dr Love
"A real disco delight" Kid calls it, which can only mean another singer held hostage by the orchestra's overemphasis. Actually despite the ever eager trombones they're getting the hang of the rhythm, largely through so much practice you'd imagine, and Charles is in full voice. She's also in full figure, not unreasonably given she was four months pregnant, but the cumulative effect of the lack of movement and the large kaftan means the audience are having to provide the movement visuals for her. Dr Love seems to be a similar type to Dr Kiss Kiss. Maybe they're related.

Smokie – Living Next Door To Alice
Stop that. "The pride of Bradford" - Kid's not entirely comfortable in his early Pops days, but he knows the value of a brief description - have invested in a lightbox with their name on. It finally adds something to their stage presence, though it's undeniable that Chris Norman's hair is lustrous, shiny and full of vitality more than ever. Definite extra Rod Stewart tinge to his vocals too.

Gladys Knight and the Pips – Nobody But You
Interesting staging here, as the orchestra, all in orange shirts, are visible behind Jensen during his introduction. For her own protection from the British winter Gladys is sporting a lurid green scarf over her red top. Three minutes later, an indication of why all British cod-soul should just give up on the spot, and with the Pips in matching grey jackets and light blue trousers the male groups could learn a lot too. The audience are unsure whether to look on in envy or jig about slightly to the gospel tune. "Didn't I tell you we had a special show?" Jensen appraises, though the appreciation is dimmed by the thought presenters say something like that every week.

Jethro Tull – Ring Out Solstice Bells
Very appropriate that the last of the Christmas songs would be shown on Twelfth Night. Jensen calls them "unpredictable", something immediately undercut by this being a repeat.

David Soul – Don’t Give Up On Us
"I think this next sound will be the next big number one" A correct prediction! A Top Of The Pops presenter got a chart prediction right! Stopped clock being right twice a day and all that, but see, it's the youth that really know the chart score. As big as this was there's some awkwardness around its presentation as Soul never came over to promote it, nor indeed any of his other 1977 hits. Legs & Co are thus pressed into service in their nighties for a routine based around a large circle, maybe based on Soul's assertion "it's written in the moonlight". Before long the early tactic of lying, standing and running about in a circle is abandoned in favour of the usual formation emoting for a couple of minutes until all six gather back in a circle to get down on their elbows and, through the faerie majick of CSO, admire a picture of Soul himself. Phh. Never gave Bill Nelson of Be Bop Deluxe that extra treatment.

The Drifters – You’re More Than A Number In My Little Red Book
On video and amid a misty studio setting, this week's Drifters do their supercharged cabaret suit routine.

Clodagh Rodgers – Save Me
"A sound that's got all the ingredients for success" is as maybe, but Rodgers has found an extra pitch in the shape of a dress with a spectacularly plunging neckline. Twenty-plus years ahead of her fashion time, maybe. And maybe it's to distract from the song, which sounds like Smokie on their fag break.

Boney M – Daddy Cool
Now then. Boney M becoming huge European stars is attributed to this late 1976 performance on Germany's Musikladen, where young people who'd never seen such wild movement and outfits went mad for the single release. So they get to Pops and are told they have to either re-record the song without Frank Farian or sing live over the orchestra's rendition. Ah.



First thing you'll notice is Bobby Farrell trying not to panic too much that people might discover it was Frank Farian rather than him providing the vocals on the recording. He sounds nothing like himself, essentially. In turn the girls' lack of harmony practice is also shown, someone definitely singing flat, and the die is cast. The dancing and synchronised movements can't be as energetic since they have to retain some energy for the singing, and they've been put on a tiny stage with people behind them as well as in front. Before the singing proper has started Farrell has already nearly fallen off the back, severely limiting his wild abandon potential. The sequence at 1:40, where Farrell either forgets the words or is embarking on an emergency self-regulation attempt. Checking the recording there doesn't appear to be a mariachi section in the equivalent moment at 2:26 (it's actually strings, big drums and one trumpet in the middle), but put that down to the arranging invention of Johnny Pearson. Just after that, presumably covering for the heavy breathing bit as there's kids watching, Farrell is required to fill for an English speaking audience requiring all the bi-linguality he knows. He doesn't do it very well. We don't see them right after finishing. They might well have run away. The woman next to Jensen (his evaluation: "something new and different". Yeah, you could say that) at the end is a visiting Donna Summer, whose interview requirements are to name her new single, thank Jensen for his happy new year welcome and introduce...

Johnny Mathis – When A Child Is Born
Mathis is still in his jungle hideaway for one more week. Money Money Money is the credits playout, Jensen's final words being "Goodbye and good love!" Um, if you like.

TOTP 13/5/76 (tx 19/5/11): have you ever sung about a harvester before?

Last time I posted about a missed episode it turned up anyway, but it seems the episode to be shown on June 2nd according to current advance schedules will be that originally broadcast on 3rd June, missing out the 27th May broadcast. Again, if this is true we can only speculate - has host Jimmy Savile blocked his shows from the run? Has the tape, shown on UK Gold in the dim and distant past, been lost? Who knows, because we'll never conclusively find out after the start of May shenanigans. What we'll miss if it's not shown, as well as a lot of repeats including JJ Barrie and a band who make their notable TOTP debut in this week, is this Ruby Flipper masterwork.

Also, turns out someone else is also doing this show blogging business.

Dave Lee Travis in an all black outfit, including gloves, that he doesn't wear for the rest of the show. Also, a full head gorilla mask. The reason is unclear, except perhaps to the family conscious what with the possibility of having to be exposed to his features for half an hour at a time. At least he doesn't mention the already falling Laurie Lingo & the Dipsticks at all. Not even subconsciously.

City Boy – The Hap-ki-do Kid
Glossary required here. Hap-ki-do is a Korean martial art that seems to have died out in the west apart from with Wesley Snipes, which at its best looks like this. City Boy were a Birmingham-based pop-rock band in the finest tradition, led by the future leader of the Maisonettes, who'd have a big hit with 5-7-0-5 in 1978 and would be one of Mutt Lange's first successes as a producer. Kung Fu Fighting by Carl Douglas had been eighteen months earlier and record labels weren't quite as quick back then. Neither were City Boy at adapting to television - singer in white suit and neckerchief looking like Bob Mortimer when he did a sketch as Noel Edmonds, guitarist in top hat who clearly wants to be the frontman instead, bassist in leathers, keyboard player resembling the modern day Roger Daltrey a huge head of late 70s footballer/early Princess Di hair. The lyrics, by the way, are entirely about a kid who's good at hap-ki-do, but to an AM radio funk-rock backing that nobody would do faux martial arts moves to on the dancefloor. "An exciting new sound", apparently.

Lee Garrett – You're My Everything
"Alright! Laid back!" Garrett starts, rather too urgently. No, not illfated teen idol Leif, but the co-writer of Signed, Sealed, Delivered I'm Yours and Stevie Wonder collaborator (also blind, apparently, though it's not apparent from his stage style) Fairly standard pop-soul by rote, actually, up until out of the second chorus when he takes advantage of live vocals and breaks into a monologue that isn't in the published lyrics: "yeah, for a kid that got thrown up, beat out of radio stations a million times I think I've done pretty good - you have faith in yourself and I'm pretty sure you'll be on Top Of The Pops too, ha ha! All you have to do is have faith in you and you can make it baby, believe it, take it from me!" Nobody cares. Perhaps they lost him at the bit where he was beaten for throwing up in radio studios.

Diana Ross – Love Hangover
DLT has a plastic duck wearing either a sombrero or woolly hat tucked into the top buttoned up button of his shirt. Wacky, see. He then pretends to introduce Groovy Kipper instead of Ruby Flipper. Two weeks in and already the presenters don't have faith in them. It's a fascinating routine with a story, starting with some interpretative arm waving on a bed before the disco section kicks in and everyone else turns up in outfits straight from The Stud. We can't work out whether one of the awkward looking males is Paul Nicholas or a Flipper ringer. He looks similar and has the curly head of hair, and in a white ten gallon hat he's not really dancing much, just... exuding.

Slik – Requiem
Everyone's remembered their baseball gear this week, and Midge's plaintiveness to camera lessons are coming on a treat, before the director goes and misses nearly all of his solo. It gets a bit too jaunty for a true requiem, it has to be said.

Andrea True Connection – More More More
The story of how a hardcore porn actress, stranded in Jamaica by political unrest, chose to spend her downtime making a disco classic is well thumbed. Not unreasonably for someone involved in the most underground of filmic arts she's not a natural performer in this promo clip. Squeezed into tremendously tight hotpants and a fringed pale shirt she may be, but her idea of dancing to the funky rhythm is swinging her arse a bit. She also looks about ten years older than she was, but that's unforgiving yellow lighting for you.

Jimmy James and the Vagabonds – I’ll Go Where Your Music Takes Me
Some jaunty dancing leading with the elbows by a man in a hat down the front momentarily distracts from a set of Vagabonds - supper club chancers, as mentioned when this was first on the show - whose choice of yellow shirts and pale blue suits both makes them blend into backing band background and makes them stand out next to their sharper suited leader. In the instrumental break there seems to be some spoon against bottles percussion in the middle of the mix. Perhaps it's there because someone in the orchestra was under-utilised that week.

Gladys Knight and the Pips – Midnight Train To Georgia
Afro'd effortlessness from Knight, Pips in choreographed swinging to either side in 1930s design style suits. You'd expect nothing less. And then "me hearties, it's time to grunch your groats". No, Dave, that's pirates.

The Wurzels – Combine Harvester
What are we to do with this?



The classic banjo/sousaphone/accordion power trio line-up there. The badges say 'I'VE GOT A BRAND NEW COMBINE HARVESTER' disappointingly. This was the Wurzels' national breakout, local heroes who'd got this to number 33 already, so if you think it looks odd now imagine what sort of culture shock it must have been to people with no prior knowledge of band or record, even if they were more likely then to know what Brand New Key sounded like. We do wonder if the orchestra had a go at recreating this backing, being as it is banjo, some sort of basic percussion, occasional tuba and piano and no accordion at all as far as we can tell. Disappointingly online sources aren't keen to tell us which one's which, so we can't sympathise with the comedy oversized brass wielder by name seeing his obvious less chuffedness c

ABBA – Fernando
Still round that fire. DLT introduces this standing inside a cardboard skyscraper with a full New York-style skyline behind him, which given the Ruby Flipper performance it was required for has been edited out just makes him look like he's calling too many shots in the name of weak comedy set pieces. Then, prior to a playout featuring Melba Moore's all too forceful This Is It, he finishes the show draped in sousaphone and accordion with badge on forehead. Yeah, maybe he's thinking about his own place in entertainment too much for pure linking's good.


EDIT NEWS: The Bellamy Brothers performance from the other week, Ruby Flipper dancing to Archie Bell and the Drells' storming Philly sound Soul City Walk (which is on YouTube but WMG had it muted when they used to do that sort of thing) and... Paul Nicholas! As this was his last diagnosis of reggae pneumonia on the show, we shall discuss this more in a few days.