THE NEW MUSICAL BOX

SEX AND DRUGS AND ROCK 'N ROLL

(AND TELEVISION - PART 1)

Television and Popular music - be it rock 'n roll, pop, folk, jazz or rock - certainly made for strange bedfellows in their early days. The rock n' roll explosion neatly coincided with the launch of independent television in the UK from 1955 onwards. The traditionalist BBC felt the heat of competition like never before as the populist ITV aimed to maximise audiences and keep the advertisers happy. This left the BBC clinging to its Reithian mission to "Inform, Educate and Entertain". Clearly, the BBC needed to change: the "entertain" element of its strapline (somehow) had to be bumped up the running order to serve a new demographic group: teenagers. In this blog - the first of five linked instalments - I review how the the BBC and ITV rose to the challenge of providing popular music on TV. From those early 1950s days, right through to the multi-channel environment of 2014, there's a wealth of fascinating programmes just waiting our exploration. 

It's not an exhaustive study, nor does it try to be the final word on the shows and trends it discusses. But I hope it stokes memories, provides opportunities for comment - and generates a wry smile or two as we journey through the hits and the (many) misses of TV music shows. 

After all, it's only rock 'n roll, right?

IN THE BEGINNING

Although the UK embraced the concept of Record Charts for popular music in 1952, the nation's broadcaster, the BBC, paid little attention to them. Radio was the prime broadcast medium, rationing still lingered post-war and although the BBC television service had started up again, it was't until 1953 and the Coronation of Queen Elizabeth II that the balance started to move in favour of the visual upstart. Popular music - when it was heard - cropped up occasionally in existing shows, but in general terms, it seemed almost as if the BBC believed that the nascent sound of rock and roll had no real future and was not worthy of broadcast investment.

To its credit, the BBC did dip its toes in the TV waters in 1957 with the fondly remembered Six Five Special, a weekly hour of rock and roll - hosted initially by Pete Murray and broadcast live. Being the BBC, it couldn't be seen to be purely about "the music" and early on, there was a determination that it should be a magazine show with some public service elements such as news and sport. There's no doubt though of the show's significance as its initial six-week run was extended several times, eventually leading to a run of 96 shows before it came to an end in late 1958. It was popular, but there were tensions behind the scenes as the producer (Jack Good) felt that the public service elements diluted the type of show he wanted to deliver.

Oh Boy - Compilation LP of
acts shown on the programme

He decamped to the new upstart ITV contractor, ABC and in September 1958, he created the show he'd wanted to run at the BBC - Oh Boy! Initially, it ran in direct competition with Six Five Special - but when that show ceased, it had the early Saturday night slot all to itself. It proved to be the launch-pad for several artists - Cliff Richard, Marty Wilde, Billy Fury and Shirley Bassey just being a few of the up and coming guests. It ran into 1959 and was later replaced by a similar show hosted by musician Marty Wilde, Boys Meet Girls - this lasted just six months but did bring artists such as The Vernon Girls and Joe Brown to a wider UK audience. 

These two ITV shows were aimed squarely at teenagers, but it was a 1961 ABC programme that showed that popular music could make attractive, audience-grabbing TV. This was Thank Your Lucky Stars, a show that ran for six years and featured over 2000 guest artists playing live - albeit, miming to their records. Hosts included Brian Matthews and Keith Fordyce and the format allowed the artist performances to be broken up with audience participation pieces. The most well remembered of these was a record review slot where three audience members gave marks to the latest singles. Who can forget Janice Nicholls from the Midlands with her almost trademark "I'll give it foive" catchphrase? The show itself was cancelled in 1967.

The Beatles rehearsing for a 1964 performance on
Thank Your Lucky Stars

Meanwhile, back at the BBC, another attempt was made at creating a popular music show. Unusually, a format was borrowed from an American TV show that had been first broadcast back in 1948. It was an hour long programme that used a panel of personalities to listen to and then review a series of new singles. It was called Juke Box Jury, but  despite the obvious attraction of the set-up, the original run came to an end in 1954, although it continued (unbelievably) in syndication for a further five years - which is where the BBC came in. In that year - 1959 - the BBC devised their own version, hosted by David Jacobs and broadcast live on Saturday night from the BBC Theatre in Shepherds Bush. The judging panel heard a minute or two of a new single, gave their comments - and were then asked to vote on whether it would be a Hit or a Miss: the urbane Jacobs kept order - and part of the show's appeal was the disconnect between some panel members (a different quartet each week) and their "sage" comments on the music. It was a successful show which ran through to the end of 1967, although it must have been a frustrating experience for viewers who only got to hear part of each single played.  

A typical hip and happening set of  panelists on Juke Box Jury 

SIXTIES RIVALRIES

The big musical breakthrough was yet to come, however. The 1960s had started, The Beatles and The Rolling Stones had arrived and something a little more informal, a bit more rough and ready - something more exciting - was needed. In 1963, Rediffusion TV - the ITV London weekend contractor -  started the legendary Ready, Steady, Go!. The TV sets looked like a scruffy warehouse, the audience mixed and mingled with the artists and cameras and the whole feel of the show was brash, confident and a little bit edgy. Hosted by Keith Fordyce - who had moved across from Thank Your Lucky Stars - and Cathy McGowan, the show quickly attracted a firm viewing audience as well as the top acts of the day. Broadcasting live on a Friday night in central London helped bring those artists in: acts such as Dusty Springfield, The Stones, Manfred Mann, Beatles, The Who, Jimi Hendrix and The Dave Clark Five gave it a credibility that made it stand out from the more variety-based shows that had been the main TV offering thus far.

The BBC needed to do something.

The first couple of years of the 60s had been a strange time musically: the first bursts of rock 'n roll had fizzled out somewhat, all manner of UK acts doing copyist versions and this was reflected in the BBC offerings. It all looked and felt as if music was in limbo, stuck in a rut with few signs of the creativity and energy needed to lift it up into a new plane altogether. The 1963 launch of ABC's Ready, Steady, Go!  had set a high bar - and it was perhaps fortunate that the BBC listened to an idea from one of their staff producers, Johnnie Stewart. He'd pitched the notion of a weekly chart show, a show that played key singles from the Top 20 and - as he admitted - was a show loosely based on Radio Luxembourg's Teen And Twenty Disc Club. It was a simple but winning format - the charts determined what was on the show, music fans decided what was in the charts by the records they bought. And, of course, the thrill of the countdown each week - ending up with the week's number one - seemed almost designed to ensure plenty of viewers tuned in. 

The original BBC studios, Dickenson Road, Manchester

The show was to be broadcast from Manchester at the BBC's Dickenson Road studios, a small complex created out of a converted church and not - one would have thought - the best location for top acts to find their way to. But, a mix of live artists, filmed inserts, the Go-Jo dancers and the studio audience "doing their thing" ensured that there was plenty of variety.

And thus was born Top Of The Pops on January 1st 1964, a show offered a six-week run that lasted for 42 years.

Top Of The Pops was initially hosted by a revolving group of DJs and presenters with some - David Jacobs and Pete Murray  - already veterans of BBC music shows. Alan Freeman was brought in from Radio Luxembourg and he was joined by Jimmy Saville, a night club owner from Leeds who was to make the show his sinecure for many years to come. The show's longevity was closely tied up with the singles charts, and although there were experiments with (for example) a weekly album track, it was all about the best selling sounds of the week. It finally came to an end in 2006 by which time awkward scheduling and the digital download revolution had caused its audience to fall away dramatically. The days of million-selling singles and big-name bands playing live were over, but there's no doubting the influence the show had and although many early broadcasts no longer exist, there's a wealth of iconic performances that have been preserved and still readily available on You Tube and in packaged versions of the show still broadcast by the BBC.

During its long run, Top Of The Pops had to contend with many things: the increasing attraction of album-based bands, the Summer Of Love, the growth of feminism, political changes, colour TV, recession, the CD and all manner of short-lived competitors. The format worked, but what it didn't do - and what it couldn't do - was champion genre music, album music, music that some saw as being more "serious" and less transient and "here today, gone tomorrow".

In the next instalment, we look at how television coped with non-chart material as genre and album-based music took on a greater importance.

Join me then.

Alan Dorey

13th January 2014