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Post by markdixon on May 2, 2018 19:04:38 GMT
Here are two more names to add to the list:
07 May 1963: Billy Fury 13 August 1963: Johnny Kidd and the Pirates
I’ve also got a bit more information about Bert Weedon’s Rhythm Group. They were formed especially to appear on “Tuesday Rendezvous”. In 1961, there was a regular feature on the show about playing in a group. This ran for about 12 editions. Weedon interviewed different members of the Rhythm Group and there were demonstrations of various musical instruments. I think the group made their final appearance on the show on Boxing Day 1961.
By the way, I’ve found out that “Tuesday Rendezvous” was broadcast live. I don’t know if Associated-Rediffusion ever recorded any of the episodes.
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Post by markdixon on Apr 30, 2018 22:44:35 GMT
This thread has given me a real insight into the visuals used in the “Abbey Road” special. I think one of the reasons that few people remember specific details about the programme is that it featured a lot of abstract imagery. For example, there were clips from the “visual music” films “Gyromorphosis” and “Autumn Spectrum”, which were made by the experimental filmmaker Hy Hirsch.
Here are three extracts from articles written in 1969 and 1970, which might fill in a few extra details.
The first one is a preview from the “Coventry Evening Telegraph” (Friday, 19 September 1969).
Line-Up, on BBC-2 (10.55) will be devoted to the new Beatles LP Abbey Road. This will be the first time the tracks will have been heard and is the result of a direct approach by the Beatles themselves to Line-Up. Many different kinds of visuals will be used including film, captions, studio elements and electronic colour devices.
There was a preview in the “Daily Mirror” on the same day which contained similar details.
Did the captions feature song lyrics? I suspect that the “electronic colour devices” were used to make film footage and studio sequences seem more psychedelic. It’s possible that solarisation techniques and chromakey (Colour Separation Overlay) were used.
Next, here’s a short extract from George Melly’s 1970 book “Revolt Into Style”. This is from a section written in September 1969 in which Melly claimed that recent TV programmes aimed at young people were all style over substance:
The new puritan climate at the Television Centre (and Broadcasting House come to that) will allow pop music within limits, but seems totally against allowing any overt display of teenage revolt. Modified psychedelia is acceptable. The Late Night Line-Up show Colour Me Pop is a pretty, but rather empty exercise in this genre, and the film made to present the Beatles’ new LP Abbey Road was equally innocuous, but the ideas seem, for the moment at any rate, back under lock and key.
Finally, here’s an extract from an article from “Radio Times” (17 January 1970) about the production team behind the TV series “Line-Up’s Disco 2” :
The show was born out of another Line-Up programme a few months ago, when the Beatles invited them to use their LP 'Abbey Road' and accompany it with any visuals they thought fit. 'We had a fortnight's notice,' [Rowan] Ayers recalls, and we used all kinds of devices, like captions and film, and the Beatles were wild about it”.
Granville Jenkins, who directed the 'Abbey Road' programme, adds: “The important thing is that it will be a music programme. The only criterion is excellence, and that allows us a pretty wide spectrum of pop music".
I imagine that the “Abbey Road” programme was very colourful and visually inventive. Sections of it were probably reminiscent of the “Flying” sequence from “Magical Mystery Tour” and the Stargate sequence from “2001: A Space Odyssey”.
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Post by markdixon on Apr 26, 2018 9:50:12 GMT
I’ve got another snippet of information. Duke Ellington introduced the musicians on the edition broadcast on 22 January 1963. This was the final part of the programme’s “History of Jazz”. According to the website of the Duke Ellington Music Society, a short segment of the audio from this episode still exists.
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Post by markdixon on Apr 25, 2018 20:45:07 GMT
Here’s what I found:
14 November 1961: The Allisons 26 December 1961: Bert Weedon’s Rhythm Group 22 May 1962: Mike Cotton Jazzmen 26 May 1962: Matt Monro 05 June 1962: Joe “Mr Piano” Henderson 14 May 1963: June Harris - “The Birth of the Blues” (12-year-old singer) 21 May 1963: Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas
Bob Wallis and the Storyville Jazzmen presented their “History of Jazz” on 03/07/62, 31/07/62, 11/09/62, 25/09/62, 09/10/62, 27/11/62, 11/12/62 and 25/12/62.
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Post by markdixon on Apr 24, 2018 19:48:36 GMT
I did an online search and I found out that the “Octopus’s Garden” clip from Rage was shown on the Australian music programme “Hitscene” (ABC TV) on 28 August 1971. An episode guide (at hardprog.pagesperso-orange.fr) described it as a “Hit Scene clip with underwater footage”. It appears that the producers of Hitscene often used miscellaneous film footage to create “concept clips” for songs that didn’t have promotional films.
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Post by markdixon on Apr 22, 2018 13:46:36 GMT
I suspect that Southern provided a live feed to the other four TV stations, because “Three Go Round” was broadcast at the same time in all these regions. Therefore, there wouldn’t have been multiple copies of each episode in existence.
The early episodes of the series were shown in the Southern region only. I think the show was part-networked from September or October 1964 onwards. It looks like TWW and STV stopped showing the series after a few months.
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Post by markdixon on Apr 22, 2018 10:07:03 GMT
I had another look at Filmfinders material listed on the Moving Image Communications database (www.milibrary.com). There’s a 17-minute film on there, called “Beatles promo” (library number: 05079). This undated film contains miscellaneous stock film footage (probably all from the silent era) cut to various unspecified Beatles songs. Could this be a segment of the “Abbey Road” special?
There don’t appear to be any underwater sequences listed in the synopsis, so it’s unlikely that “Octopus’s Garden” is one of the songs included in this film.
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Post by markdixon on Apr 21, 2018 11:12:12 GMT
Three Go Round began in February 1964 and was a children's pop competition. Viewers were invited to write a pop song, the best of which would be submitted to record companies. It was hosted by Mitch Murray, who explained how to write a lyric, then in week two, how to compose a tune. Then on March 18th 1964, the best entry was announced and played by a group... ( The Applejacks) The series also marked the tv debut of Southern's very own icon Fred Dineage. So if we look at the programme format above, there would perhaps not have been groups on every episode? perhaps only when they played 'the best entry' mentioned above? From what I can gather, “Three Go Round” was a teenage magazine programme which contained interviews and filmed reports on topics of interest to young people. I imagine there was a musical guest each week. The songwriting contest only appeared in the first few weeks of the programme. Mitch Murray would have been a recurring guest, rather than a main presenter. Judging by the show’s title, I think there were always three main presenters. The first team were Fred Dinenage, Jane Sinclair and Britt Allcroft. The line-up of presenters changed a few times during the course of the series. One of the show’s final presenters, Carol Binstead, left to become an interviewer on “A Whole Scene Going”. Perhaps “Three Go Round” was an influence on the format of that programme. By the way, I’ve got another guest to add to the list. A Scottish group called the Golden Crusaders appeared on “Three Go Round” on 08 October 1964.
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Post by markdixon on Apr 21, 2018 10:10:05 GMT
Here are a couple of articles from “The Stage” that mention “Discwizz”.
The first one is from 01 June 1964:
Southern want sixty between 15 and 25
Sixty bright youngsters are needed by Southern to appear as pop-music experts. Age limits are 15 and 25 and the main qualification is a lively, intelligent interest in the world of records. Muriel Young and Tony Hall will appear regularly on Discwizz which will be launched on Wednesday, June 24. Each week they will put questions about artists, composers and songs to two teams – three girls in one and three young men in the other. The winning team will get a prize of LP records. Director Mike Mansfield is now looking for the teams. “They need not have appeared on television before” he says. “I want wide-awake youngsters who listen to records and not just hear them, youngsters who take an interest in jazz and ballads as well as the beat scene”. Anyone who would like to appear should write to Mike Mansfield at Southern Independent Television Centre, Northam, Southampton.
This is a snippet from an article about Southern TV from 27 August 1964:
On Tuesday Mark Wynter takes the feature spot in the station’s disc panel show Discwizz. Singer Bobby Shaftoe heads the male panel for the show which is directed by Mike Mansfield and linked and introduced by Tony Hall and Muriel Young.
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Post by markdixon on Apr 19, 2018 18:03:01 GMT
I think this clip could be from the “Abbey Road” special. However, it is likely that Philip Jenkinson would have filled most of the programme with stock film footage owned by his company Filmfinders. This film collection is now owned by AP Archive. I put the search term “octopus” into their database (www.milibrary.com) and I didn’t find the original footage from the Rage clip. However, I did find “Down in The Deep”, a George Méliès short film. This film (available to view on YouTube) includes a sequence featuring an octopus and an explorer on the ocean floor. The Man in the Moon also appears a few minutes later. I remember that someone on the Steve Hoffman forum thread recalled seeing the Man in the Moon in the “Abbey Road” special. I suspect that Jenkinson used “Down in The Deep” to illustrate “Octopus’s Garden”, but I have no way of knowing for certain.
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Post by markdixon on Apr 18, 2018 19:57:56 GMT
Here’s what I could find about the series:
It began on 19 February 1964 (according to “The Stage” newspaper). Presenters at various times included Fred Dinenage, Jane Sinclair, Diane Keen, Britt Allcroft, Tony Bastable and Carol Binstead. The director was Angus Wright. This Southern production was also shown on Anglia, TWW, Channel and STV.
Mitch Murray provided tips on songwriting and judged a songwriting competition during the first few weeks of the show’s run.
Here are some more musical guests: 18 March 1964: The Applejacks c. March 1964: Trendsetters Limited, Henry Mancini 06 May 1964: The Rolling Stones “Not Fade Away” c. June 1964: The Katy-Dids (early incarnation of Pan’s People), John Lee Hooker 02 September 1964: Mark Murphy 23 October 1964: The Yardbirds (this was the recording date, not the broadcast date) 04 February 1965: Millie 10 March 1965: T-Bone Walker with John Mayall’s Bluesbreakers
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Post by markdixon on Apr 8, 2018 15:35:28 GMT
I had a look online at an article from the “Daily Mirror” (05 May 1964) titled “Gravedigger Terry livens things up”. This has some more information about the contest.
The Martin Jae Five from Croydon won the first prize of £1000. They performed “Anyone Who Had a Heart”.
The Corvettes Combo from Ashton-under-Lyne came second and collected £250.
The Trojans from Croydon picked up third prize of £100.
In fourth place were a group featuring Terry Francis, who was a City of London gravedigger. I don’t think the article mentioned the group’s name (some of the text was illegible). Initially, I thought they were called the Gravediggers.
We know that Wainwright’s Gentlemen came fifth and presumably the Falcons were sixth.
There were 13 groups in the final, but only six of them appeared on television. Therefore, the Roadrunners, the Spartans and Tony Adams and the Viceroys must have been amongst the groups who didn’t appear on screen.
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Post by markdixon on Apr 7, 2018 15:36:12 GMT
I had a quick look online and it was difficult to find reliable information about this contest. Here’s what I found:
The Falcons didn’t win a prize. Did they come last?
Wainwright’s Gentlemen came fifth and the Gravediggers were in fourth place.
The Roadrunners (a group from Falkirk) were in the final, but they didn’t win. Did they come second or third?
I think the other two groups were the Spartans and Tony Adams and the Viceroys.
Maybe one of the music papers printed a list of the finalists.
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Post by markdixon on Apr 2, 2018 15:45:33 GMT
Here are some more TV appearances by the Caravelles:
25 Oct 1963: Scene at 6.30 31 Oct 1963: Double Your Money (this edition of the quiz show was a pop special. The Caravelles answered questions about modern jazz. Mike Sarne, Chad and Jeremy and Screaming Lord Sutch were the other contestants) 01 Nov 1963: Ready Steady Go! 09 Nov 1963: Thank Your Lucky Stars 21 Nov 1963: Crackerjack 22 Feb 1964: Gazette 27 Feb 1964: Scene at 6.30 19 Mar 1964: The One O’ Clock Show 21 Mar 1964. Gazette 27 Apr 1964: Top Beat 20 Nov 1964: Five O’ Clock Club 18 May 1967: Dee Time 21 Aug 1967: Let’s Away 05 Feb 1969: Discotheque 15 May 1976: The Wheeltappers and Shunters Social Club (this episode still exists)
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Post by markdixon on Apr 1, 2018 15:21:46 GMT
This is all the information I have about the series:
“Gazette” was a live 40-minute Saturday night chat show that was shown in the ABC region only. James Lloyd was the host. The Scaffold performed a 5-minute improvised sketch each week based on newspaper headlines. Actors Sheila Fearn and John White also appeared in these sketches. Roger McGough read his poem “Summer with Monika” on one episode, but I don’t know if The Scaffold performed any songs during the series.
Here’s a list of some of the musical guests:
22 February 1964: The Caravelles 7 March 1964: Adam Faith, Jackie Trent 14 March 1964: Cleo Laine 21 March 1964: The Caravelles - “I Like A Man” 28 March 1964: Bern Elliot and the Fenmen 11 April 1964: Freddie and the Dreamers
Jim Reeves, Them, Lulu and the Luvvers, the Kinks, Manfred Mann and the Spencer Davis Group also appeared, but I haven’t got the precise dates.
Non-musical guests interviewed by James Lloyd included Patrick Macnee, Barry Humphries, Spike Milligan, Jonathan Miller, Fenella Fielding, Rolf Harris, Barbara Kelly, Bernard Bresslaw and Peter Cook.
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