On BBC Two last night and on iPlayer (link below) a 2.5 hour compilation of an assortment of clips from the BBC archive. Some real gems including a rare performance from Blue Nile, acoustic Eurythmics, early Bob Dylan, Joni Mitchell….. Full list below.
1. Pet Shop Boys / Opportunities – OGWT 1986
2. Dusty Springfield / Save Me, Save Me – Shirley Bassey 1979
3. Beach Boys / Barbara Ann – Later 2012
4. Bob Dylan / With God On Our Side – Tonight 1964
5. MC Hammer / U Can’t Touch This – Women 1991
6. Josephine Baker / La Vie en Rose – Royal Variety 1974
7. Jeff Buckley / Grace – Late Show 1995
8. INXS / Bitter Tears – Paramount City 1991
9. Billy Joel / We Didn’t; Start The Fire – Wogan 1989
10. Tammy Wynette / DIVORCE – Tammy 1977
11. U2 / I Will Follow – OGWT 1981
12. Blue Nile / Body and Soul – Later 1996
13. Eurythmics / When The Day Goes Down – Wogan with Ben Elton 1989
14. B-52s / Roam – Paramount City 1990
15. Four Tops / When She Was My Girl – Marti Caine 1982
16. Buffy Sainte-Marie / The Big Ones Get Away – Women 1992
17. Joni Mitchell / Sunny Sunday – Late Show 1994
18. Platters / Only You (And You Alone) – Rhythm on Two 1978
19. Patti Labelle / Yo Mister – Saturday Matters with Sue Lawley 1989
20. Jimi Hendrix / Voodoo Child – Happening for Lulu 1969
21. BB King / The Thrill Is Gone – Late Show 1989
22. Beautiful South / I’ll Sail This Ship Alone – Women 1989
23. Maria Friedman / The Small Summer – Happy Birthday Spike 1998
24. Suzanne Vega / Tom’s Diner – Words and Music: American Stories 1996
25. Kool & The Gang / Ooh La La La – Late, Lare Breakfast Show 1982
26. Pointer Sisters / Dare Me – Wogan 1985
27. John Martyn / Sweet Little Mystery – OGWT 1981
28. Glynis Johns / Send In The Clowns – Parkinson 1974
29. Alison Moyet / There Are Worse Things I Could Do – Gaytime TV 1995
30. Melissa Etheridge / Nowhere to Go – Later 1995
31. Roberta Flack / Killing Me Softly – Pebble Mill 1994
32. Keith Whitley / Don’t Close Your Eyes – Sing Country 1989
33. Eric Clapton and Pete Townshend / Standing Around Crying – Saturday Matters with Sue Lawley 1989
34. Bobbie Gentry / What’ll I do – Des O’Conner Tonight 1977
35. Paul Simon / Homeward Bound – Parkinson 1975
36. Art Garfunkel / Bridge Over Troubled Water – National Lottery Live 1996
37. Aretha Franklin / Amazing Grace – Royal Variety 1980
38. Wham / Blue (Armed With Love) – Harty 1983
39. Donna Summer / I Feel Love, Bad Girls, Hot Stuff – Danny Baker Show 1994
40. Paul McCartney, Tina Turner and Ensemble / Get Back – Prince’s Trust 1986
https://www.bbc.co.uk/iplayer/episode/m00240wr/40-hidden-music-treasures-at-the-bbc
Cool, cool, cool
Thanks for the list.
Already recorded and will hopefully watch this afternoon
We watched this last night. Nice to see a BBC music clip show without any TOTP footage, and reminded me that you used to get a lot more music on the telly. Quite a few from Wogan’s shows (some labelled Women in the OP, in case you were wondering). Slightly disappointed that the Dylan clip is cut short, but maybe that’s all that survived. I hope they do this again because I’m sure there is loads more.
Whoops – autocorrect strikes again….. apologies
@NigelT
@chrisf
Terry always was in touch with his feminine side
Have had a quick look before taking the dog out for a walk. By god Jeff Buckley was talented. And the Blue Nile were perfect. And God On My Side is one of the best songs ever written. As is I Will Follow.
Will give it a fully uninterrupted watch later.
Blue Nile were indeed perfect
Once again, I find myself at odds with the collective…
I suspect they are not for everyone. I would suggest they are the type of band that are difficult to just like.
I suspect you’re right: although I don’t hate them – I just don’t get the perfection/grown men weeping thing.
I had a similar reaction to Talk Talk – no big issues, but I didn’t “get” them, like others “get” them.
It does make you wonder what it is that you’re not seeing, but that everybody else sees…
The Talk Talk/Blue Nile venn diagram is likely to look like a single circle. The Iron Maiden/Blue Nile venn diagram looks like a pair of binoculars.
There’s a tiny overlap: both were on Sanctuary Records.
Arf!
I like Blue Nile in much the way I like Talk Talk. I admire their music but it doesn’t move my heart or my feet. It’s head music. A little bit bloodless especially Talk Talk which is kinda Prog for people who don’t dig Hobbits.
I like that description of prog for people that don’t like Hobbits. That may have nailed me to a tee.
I do find both the Blue Nile and Talk Talk music amazingly emotional for me. Possibly time/place/age thing as well. But I get why it can feel a bit cold.
I think the time/place/age thing is often a very significant factor in conditioning our reactions. Being a little older I guess those things play into why certain Joni Mitchell songs trigger me. There are other musicians and songs/pieces of music that have a similar effect, so much so in some cases if the wind is blowing in the right direction I can become a complete wreck in very short order. Thankfully once one gets past a certain age actually caring what others may think when seeing a grown man breaking down no longer matters. I can get weepy looking at paintings too.
@pencilsqueezer (I don’t seem to be able to reply directly to your comment):
I’ve always been a weeper. But I’m definitely getting better at it. Sometimes it’s obvious (if I accidently watch Nick Knowles and team handing over a house renovation to a particularly deserving family for example). Sometimes its connotation – watching an ELO tribute band play my Dads favourite song knocked me sideways last year – Mr Blue Sky is not a classic weepy.
I look at it this way. If I’m crying at something that can be called art, it means I’m not emotionally buggered and I still have some feelings. And feelings are the point.
Let me join you in that circle of the Venn* diagram, fs – they both leave me cold. I just don’t enjoy their singing voices at all,
*just not the Venn der Graaf Generator part of it.
The pedant in me would suggest that you would be outside of the circle if you don’t like both….
Yes, this is often how I feel. Looking over the edge into both the Blue Talk Nile Talk circle and the Iron Maiden circles, smiling gingerly and stepping back out onto the perimeter.
I think the Blue Nile/Talk Talk circle will have everyone standing on the perimeter as well. Not the most gregarious of ensembles.
A favourite of HR Manager, Mrs F:
“How do you spot the extravert Engineer*?”
“He’s** the one looking at some else’s shoes.”
(*) or TBN/TT fan
(**) usually a “he”
I thought that was just IT technicians.
Same. Most of their stuff evaporates from memory as it’s being heard. I don’t dislike either band but I can’t imagine being passionate about it. Unlike the Associates who I find actively terrible yet seem to be adored by middle-aged Brit music snobs.
Agree with you on Blue Nile – one of the main reasons I posted this was because it contained that clip.
I have very few regrets in my life but one was missing them live at Manchester Free Trade Hall in, I think, 1990. I recall that a friend was going and asked me along but I can’t remember for the life of me why I didn’t go.
Saw them in Brighton promoting Hats. One of the best vocal performances I’ve seen.
I saw them twice – London Palladium and Royal Albert Hall. Both were mesmerizing.
I saw them at the Palladium on the PAL tour. The closest I’ve ever come to an epiphany at a gig. Grown men openly weeping, etc.
Tinseltown in the Rain, from the same episode of Later, is available on a DVD, currently at the Magpie for about 3 quid.
https://www.discogs.com/master/436261-Various-LaterWith-Jools-Holland-Mellow
The dancers with Donna Summer must have been on work experience…very enthusiastic!
Great to see this footage getting an airing. Pebble Mill and Wogan even Crackerjack had some surprisingly good bands on.
Back in the day that’s why we sat through all those programmes, even the really crap ones….
That and the fact there were only three channels
Indeed – it’s like someone in the Beeb said “hang on … we must have more of an archive than just recycling Top Of The Pops and Later with Jools Holland clips”.
One hopes this is the first in a set of newly curated stuff, and also featuring a wider variety of names and bands than usually rolled out.
Extraordinary! Endless surprises…Got to go to bed after Eurythmics, but the biggest surprise was Josephine Baker in the Royal Variety Show in 1974. I would have thought she was long dead after her exploits in Paris in the 20s, but she died a year later. Her Wiki entry is well worth reading – amazing woman. (She had affairs with Simenon and Le Corbusier.) Here she is doing her thing.
Fast-forwarded through some of it, but there was some great footage here.
MC Hammer and what seemed like every dancer and musician in creation making Wogan tap his feet and even shake a leg. Hammer might have faded quickly, but U Can’t Touch This is an absolute choon.
The Blue Nile were great, but just four albums in 30 years, and none of them selling by the million? How do they pay the bills?
Kate and Cindy of the B-52s were on fire, but I felt sorry for poor Fred Schneider, standing at the back just tapping his tambourine. He looked like he really wanted to let loose, but this was clearly the ladies’ time to shine.
The acoustic Eurythmics was very nice, and the audience seemed spellbound throughout.
The Eurythmics clip was fantastic – shows what a great singer Annie Lennox was (not that we didn’t already know)
She’s a great singer but I remember watching a full solo concert of hers on TV some years back, having looked forward to seeing her, and it became oddly boring. So much so I gave up after about half an hour.
Blue Nile –
If I remember correctly, The Blue Nile got a massive advance from Warners. It’s all in that Nileism book. Perhaps I should read it again.
I heard just Paul Buchanan signed the contract, IIRC.
There have been a few cover versions of their (his) songs also which may help with mortgage payments. I knew someone (from Glasgow) when I lived in Montreal who was pretty good friends with Buchanan, I would ask him about it, but we are no longer in touch.
His publishers did pimp out a few of his songs, and various combinations of TBN served as backing band and/or producer. I don’t think (m)any were hits, though, so unlikely to pay back the advance.
The Pet Shop Boys were completely live, with no tapes at all. Some crazy people here break down just how technically advanced this appearance was:
Recreated performance:
Love this – could all probably be done in an App now!
I enjoyed Jimi Hendrix’s clip. You can clearly see him mouth “motherfucker” as the camera pulls away in the fade. Rock and indeed roll!
There’s some great stuff there. Joni Mitchell and The Blue Nile in particular
I had subtitles on iplayer, not having bothered to turn them off previously . This paid a small dividend during BB King’s The Thrill Is Gone. According to the subtitle, the forlorn Mr King declared himself free from her smell, rather then spell.
The Niff Has Gone…
The biggest revelation to me was that Ben Elton stood in for Wogan. It sent me down a rabbit hole, and it turns out that Felicity Kendal and Kenneth Williams (!) also filled in for the be-syrupped Floral Dance hitmaker.
IIRC, whenever Wogan was on holiday or ill, Ben Elton often stood in, and generally toned down his usual shouty stand-up schtick. From what I remember, he was a pretty good host and interviewer, and I’m a bit surprised he hasn’t done more in that line. Maybe he didn’t like the softer approach.
I think Ben Elton said We Will Rock You means he need never work again.
He’s currently on a stand-up tour.
Yep. His first for best part of 20 years.
He is, and he’s on career-best form. Go and see him if you get the chance!
There’s plenty happening to create material about these days, for a sharp-brained performer like Elton.
When my mate Reado played, Sue Lawley presented. Since they were filmed in the afternoon she wasn’t even there when he did his turn and so he didn’t get to hang out with Paul McCartney either.
Watched this last night. Seeing Josephine Baker was a pleasant surprise, I had no idea that clip existed. Also, Glynis Johns singing ‘Send in the Clowns’ was rather lovely.