Steve Harley's Philips 1500

[martinb]

Has anyone approached Steve about this before? If not, I can contact him. He states here that he still has his tapes:

www.steveharley.com/diary/2-diary/273-diary-060710.html

and that he bought the machine from Johnnie Walker.

Chances are he taped programmes other than The Prisoner...

[Rich Cornock]

worth a go as its quite a new piece. over to you

[Deleted]

Always worth a go, Martin. You never know what's on the tapes! Keep us in the picture?

[martinb]

Sure. I have a couple of ways to contact him - will keep you posted.

[Ray Langstone (was saintsray)]

Martin, this is a brill discovery that he still has tapes! Keep us posted here please!

[martinb]

I go this reply - not what we were hoping for:

"Dear Martin,

"I spoke last night to Steve and he says the Philips square video tapes are only one hour long. They didn’t record any longer per tape than that.

Each of his Prisoner tapes has nothing else on it.

TV performances of early Cockney Rebel were wiped. Judy Teen, their first ever TV in the UK does not exist.

Sorry."

[Chris Barratt]

I recall reading Johnnie Walker left for the US in either late 76 or early 77, which would limit the scope of what Steve might have had on tape anyway, alas certainly none of the 74/75 stuff.

[Ray Langstone (was saintsray)]

Johnnie Walker left for America and started at KSAN in San Francisco in JUNE 1976.

Article says that Marc and Steve had a fair intake of booze and drugs at the time, too. Bolan was on a health kick by Spring '77. Yet to find the date of Prisoner re-runs in the LWT/Thames region in this period (guessing LWT, because they broadcast this in the 80's) , but even so I'm guessing the period is late '76, just from the evidence here.

[Deleted]

Prisoner re-runs in the London area were Summer / Autumn 1977. I know because I have a reel to reel audio recording of Fall Out which I taped on 1st Oct of that year.

[martinb]

Seems it was re-run in the Midlands from the end of 1976 and then in London from June '77.
www.sixofone.org.uk/history.htm - as Laurence remembers.
So that makes any other stuff, if I had existed, on those Harley/Prisoner tapes of little interest to me, at least.

[Paul Watkins]

Since that was a dead end, i wonder what became of Johnny Walkers's video collection when he went to the US?

[Deleted]

Sept 24, 2010 18:46:15 GMT martinb said:

Seems it was re-run in the Midlands from the end of 1976 and then in London from June '77.
www.sixofone.org.uk/history.htm - as Laurence remembers.
So that makes any other stuff, if I had existed, on those Harley/Prisoner tapes of little interest to me, at least.

Still, it was worth a try, Martin. You never know what somebody has on a reel of video stored away.

[johnstewart]

Even if Steve has wiped his tapes the BBC has got 'Mr Soft' on TOTP 1974. This is one of the Osmond special editions and was probably shelved due to some kind of shared copyright with the management when the BBC bought in 'The Donny and Marie show'.

In addition someone said on this forum way back that a video clip of the song only of 'Judy Teen' on TOTP had been posted on the net; albeit with missing sound and slowed down. It was part of a batch Steve forced removal on as the same people had posted a bootleg of a modern gig his Management were set to release commercially later.

I recalled a video which had a blue and green theatre light on black background at start. The camera panned down to a violin player doing pizzicato. Harley was then seen in Mascara and eye shadow and a bowler hat like CLOCKWORK ORANGE. He held a cane I think and had a striped T shirt on. I'm sure a colour TR of VT was shown again on POP QUIZ in the 80s.

Someone said later that was an official promo for the song which for some reason hasn't been seen since. Maybe Steve is not keen on his old stuff being used. I personally think if the management found the old promos surviving TOTP and Whistle Test it would make a well selling DVD compilation.

[Barry Edwards]

Interesting memories John.I'd love to get to the bottom of this Judy Teen clip that you remember.To most Cockney Rebel collectors the 23/5/74/TOTP's appearance is like the 'holy grail' and i'd love to believe that it's going to turn up in full one day. A short clip,slowed down is out there and the lights you mentioned do appear in the shot.Harley is wearing a bowler hat and black t-shirt.The rest of the band stand in a line playing guitars.That included drummer Stuart Elliot and keyboard player Milton Raeme James.Due to the BBC strike they couldn't get their usual instruments in! There is also a Judy Teen promo where Harley is wearing a beige colour suit and big rimmed glasses.This seems unlikely to be the clip that you rememberThe origins of this video is unknown to me but i think that it featured on a programme called Music and Video Show which is listed in the BFI archives.It was shown on ITV around 1976 and it featured some interesting acts. The Whistle Test footage from 12/2/74 is still in the archives and the band performed two songs at the beginning and end of the show(Hideaway and My Only Vice) Bob Harris commented that the music wasn't to his personal taste!! The Mr Soft performance on TOTP's 15/8/74 does exist and was shown on on TOTP's 2 a couple of years ago.The reformed band performed the same song the following week 22/8/74 with BA Robertson on keyboards and Herbie Flowers on bass.I've never ever seen video or photographs of this performance and wonder if anyone has any recollections of this broadcast? The Make Me Smile performance from TOTP's is known to most people(listed as 23/12/75 it's in fact 30/1/75) and i guess a lot of you have seen the 'promo' where Harley is wearing a foxfur jacket and bare chest.The band also performed the song on the 27/2/75 show which was wiped except for a few tracks.The Beeb decided against keeping the song that was number one that week!! Just to wrap things up the follow up song to Make me Smile which happened to be Mr.Raffles(not a bad little ditty) was performed on the 5/6/75 and the 19/6/75.Both of these performances...you guessed it,wiped! A shame because a compilation of early Cockney Rebel would make for an excellent DVD release and give the band the sort of recognition they deserved especially during those early years. Any follow up as to whether the Judy Teen TOTP's clip was definitely played on Pop Quiz or not would be welcome.Does the BBC have information on the contents of each individual show?There must be some rare and interesting footage out there waiting to be seen again.

[Ray Langstone (was saintsray)]

""Since that was a dead end, i wonder what became of Johnny Walkers's video collection when he went to the US?""

Johnnie Walker is doing a tour and is actually doing an appearance in my locality in the next few weeks. While I can't afford a ticket, I may try and see if I can sweet talk various staff members of the Arts Centre and see if I can get in and talk to ask him about this.