Once More With Felix

[Mike Goldwater]

With the recent repeat showing of the Bobby Gentry series on BBC4, I think it would be a good idea if another contemperous music series from the time Once More With Felix was also repeated. Like the former show, only a few complete episodes survive from the 3 series that were made between 1967-1970. Moreover nearly a dozen clips from partially existing shows also exist featuring the likes of Leonard Cohen, The Incredible String Band, Manfred Mann, Marmalade and The Kinks respectively, which could be edited into a compilation episode. From what I gather, here is a list of extant editions, some exist as edited b&w film prints, inserts from otherwise missing shows surive from engineering tapes and from the Bob Pratt collection, and one further edition (26/4/1970) has tape damage so it may not be broadcast quality to be included in this list. Here's a list of potential episodes:

#1
6/1/1968
With Josh White, The Bee Gees.
TR16 – (Colour recovered copy also available)

#2
20/1/1968
With Robert Morley, Luis Alberto del Parana.
TR16 - (Edited copy, Robert Morley sequence missing from film print)

#3
17/2/1968
With Donovan, Jim Dale.
TR16 

#4
9/3/1968
With John Bird, The Corries, Archie Fisher.
TR16 - (Edited copy, 20 minutes exists, inc all guests)

#5
16/3/1968
With Brook Benton, Ronnie Corbett.
TR16 - (Edited copy, 27 minutes exists, one item cut from film print)

#6
18/1/1969
With Julian Bream, Tom Paxton.
2” VT

#7
12/4/1970
With The Four Tops, Alan Price.
2” VT

#8
24/5/1970
With Fleetwood Mac, Paco Peña.
2” VT

#9
Compilation 1 (excerpts from partially surviving editions)
With Manfred Mann, Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick, Leonard Cohen, The Incredible String Band
2” VT - (Surviving inserts from Series 1) 

#10
Compilation 2 (excerpts from partially surviving editions)
With The Kinks, The Marmalade, The Hollies
2” VT - (Includes excerpts from the 26/4/1970 edition)


Here are some examples of episodes, one which is in b&w and the episode which has a damaged master tape. 


Donovan: Lalena
TX: 17/2/1968


The Hollies with Julie Felix: We're Going to the Zoo
TX: 26/4/1970

[stevej]

Yes I'll second that- a Julie Felix evening would be terrific! These early colour music shows have a very special charm of their own. A few more relevant clips:

I think several of these performances survive thanks to the legendary Bob Pratt.

[Mike Goldwater]

Here's some more clips:



Manfred Mann - Budgie
TX: 9/12/1967


Martin Carthy & Dave Swarbrick with Julie Felix: Byker Hill / Early Morning Rain
TX: 16/12/1967


Leonard Cohen - The Stanger's Song
TX: 27/1/1968


The Four Tops: I Can't Help Myself
TX: 12/4/1970


Jimmy Page: White Summer
TX: 26/4/1970

[Mike Goldwater]

The 26/4/1970 edition apparently suffers tape damage, it's hard to tell from the timecoded dupey VHS viewing copies how damaged the tape is. According to TV Brain a 1" dupe copy from the 2" master exists, it seems parts of the transfer are damaged which are quite noticeable at points. It hard to tell without seeing a 1st generation copy of the 1" dupe how much of it is damaged, and what sections could be restored.

[Simon Mclean]

26/04/70 is the unedited studio recording, with retakes and recording breaks - there's a false start on the opening credits which looks fine, then it all goes wrong from take 2 onwards. The horizontal distortion is terrible for about the first half hour, then gradually improves during Julie's performance of El Condor Pasa. It becomes watchable again after the recording break following that song, when Julie sings 'We're Going To The Zoo' with The Hollies, and it's fine right till the end.

So basically, the first half hour or so is a write off if you want to actually see anything, the last twenty minutes are perfect, and there's a slightly dodgy but watchable bit in the middle.

[jimhope]

Nice to see footage of the Incredible String Band is there any more footage of them out there

[Kev Hunter]

Nov 9, 2023 17:04:12 GMT jimhope said:

Nice to see footage of the Incredible String Band is there any more footage of them out there

There's the live footage from Woodstock of course, plus some studio footage from Beat Club which wasn't broadcast at the time.

[Mike Goldwater]

There has been a discrepancy over the date of Leonard Cohen's appearnace of the show, a myth first purported when 'Sounds of the Sixties' first aired erronously stating that he appeared in a December 1967 edition of the show. Yet there are no Radio Times clippings from that month that mentions him appearing. However the following month, it does mention he appears on the 27/1/1968 edition (genome.ch.bbc.co.uk/7225452400214dfe80a2bf494009799c) therefore the clips of Cohen come from this very edition which has been incorrectly listed as missing on TV Brain, where in fact sequences from this edition do exist. 

(This January 1968 date was mentioned in a recent compilation 'Duets at the BBC' so at least some researchers are putting out the correct information).  

[jimhope]

Nov 9, 2023 19:36:38 GMT Kev Hunter said:

Nov 9, 2023 17:04:12 GMT jimhope said:

Nice to see footage of the Incredible String Band is there any more footage of them out there

There's the live footage from Woodstock of course, plus some studio footage from Beat Club which wasn't broadcast at the time.

Cheers for that Kev 

[iwest]

Nov 8, 2023 0:27:48 GMT Simon Mclean said:

26/04/70 is the unedited studio recording, with retakes and recording breaks - there's a false start on the opening credits which looks fine, then it all goes wrong from take 2 onwards. The horizontal distortion is terrible for about the first half hour, then gradually improves during Julie's performance of El Condor Pasa. It becomes watchable again after the recording break following that song, when Julie sings 'We're Going To The Zoo' with The Hollies, and it's fine right till the end.

So basically, the first half hour or so is a write off if you want to actually see anything, the last twenty minutes are perfect, and there's a slightly dodgy but watchable bit in the middle.

I've looked at the clip of Jimmy Page (linked to above) from this episode once or twice in the past, and it does give the impression of a jigsaw puzzle where most of the pieces are there, but just in the wrong place currently most of the time. Given that it's possible these days to load a video clip onto a computer and use a scripting tool like avisynth to apply adjustments to each frame on a horizontal row-by-row basis I think it's quite possible that a lot of the damage could be fixed. The main problem being that it would take an awful lot of time and patience to analyse exactly what is wrong in each section of footage, and also that it would need the cleanest possible source as a starting point. And I very much doubt the BBC have the time to throw at a project like that. If anyone is likely to do it it would be someone motivated enough to do it in their own time as a challenge, but then getting hold of a good quality source to begin with would be the issue. But nevertheless the potential is there if nothing else.

[iwest]

It would be great to have these shown again. The BBC make a big deal of diversity these days, well what better way to show your commitment than to highlight the contribution of a female artist whose program was both a showcase of her own undeniable talent *and* some of the biggest names in music of the time. And one which hasn't been repeated for decades. Seems like a no-brainer to me. As I said on the Bobbie Gentry thread, repeating this one is the logical next step. Looking at Mike's list that's potentially eight episodes that could be broadcast as-is, assuming the missing sections in some of them aren't too jarring and it's not a case of the episode simply stopping dead five minutes before the original ending or whatever. And on top of that the Bob Pratt-retained orphan performances could be edited into a separate compilation. Would even give the BBC a chance to film an in introduction explaining the role Pratt played in their survival and publicly acknowledge his efforts (something which is a bit overdue imho.)

[Richard Russell]

Nov 6, 2023 13:33:19 GMT Mike Goldwater said:

#1
6/1/1968
With Josh White, The Bee Gees.
TR16 – (Colour recovered copy also available)

You say the Colour Recovered copy is "available", but where?  I carried out the Colour Recovery work in May this year, but I've not seen how it turned out after the remaining clean-up processes had been completed. It would be nice to see the fully restored version.

[Mike Goldwater]

I saw it at the BFI back in August, at the Kaleidoscope 35th Anniversary event. Kaleidoscope presumably have a copy of the colour recovered version, whether they would let it be shown on TV in due course is up to them. The copy I saw, only looked partially restored, some blemishes on the film-print were still present and it hadn't been put through the VIDFIRE process.