IT HAPPENED AT THE TAMI SHOW

I'm probably going to provoke a lot of opinionated discussion here, because when it comes to music, especially rock and roll, nothing (save politics and religion) stimulates more passionate positions. So steady yourself for agreement, or a reaction that makes you pace the room with restrained aggression.

In this, the 55th year since Bill Haley and The Comets topped the Billboard charts with "Rock Around the Clock," we have the luxury of looking back on over a half century of rock and roll recorded on film or video tape. I believe there are five performances that galvanized, charged, or struck viewers with awe, and altered the lens through which popular music was examined. In no particular order, they are:

Elvis Presley performing Hound Dog on the Milton Berle Show, June 5, 1956

It wasn't his first TV appearance, of course. It was, however, the one during which he bumped and humped and grinded like nothing the country had seen outside of a stag film. The Big E's evocative, interpretative, unselfconscious gyrations at the old NBC Studios on Sunset and Vine in the heart of Hollywood, beamed live across a country and shocked an older generation to its conservative, repressed toes. For his subsequent TV appearances, including his celebrated shots on The Ed Sullivan Show, Elvis was photographed from the waist up...to both simmer the surging hormones of teenage girls, and the blood pressure of the sexually stifled parents, network TV affiliates and their sponsors. Regardless, Elvis rocked their world, and opened the door for expression via spontaneous hip-swiveling. The generation that sat watching with mouths agape as he stole the show from Uncle Miltie, would be doing The Twist at parties, four years later.

The Beatles on Ed Sullivan, February 9, 1964

Before a huge Sunday night viewing audience, the Fab Four shook America from its moorings, and its mourning. Two and a half months after President Kennedy's assassination, The Beatles filled a gaping hole in the heart of our popular culture. Four young men and their instruments, introduced by the stiff-as-a-board-impresario...an image now indelible to all fans of rock and roll, whether they'd been born by '64 or not.

Jimi Hendrix Lights his Guitar, Monterrey Pop Festival, 1967

The rock and roll worm had turned by the Summer of Love, and when Hendrix lit his ax for the crowd at Monterrey, cameras recorded a seminal moment in stage-craft. You didn't dance to this-- you watched in awe, whether it was at the festival itself, or a movie theatre the following year. Sure, he plucked his strings with his teeth, and played the National Anthem as it had never been rendered before. But it was setting flame to his fretboard that was unforgettable. Pyrotechnics and rock music forged a union for better and (tragically) worse.

Michael Jackson Moonwalks, Motown 25th Anniversary Show, 1983

We'll forget for a moment the wacky eccentricities and disturbing details of the life. For sheer spellbinding TV, you have to point to M.J.'s performance on a TV special celebrating Motown's past. Though he'd left the label years before, it was Michael's 1983 "present" that rocked the house. There's no doubting the talent or the influence. People who couldn't trot and chew gum, were moon-walking after this show. In an age when cable was just wobbling to its feet, and viewers were not yet separated like vegetables from entrees on a cafeteria tray, it stirred a huge audience over NBC.

And, last but not least, James Brown, at The TAMI Show, Santa Monica Civic, 1964

An unparalleled performance for all-time. To watch it is to witness exhilaration personified. J.B. had, by then, been called, "the hardest working man in show business." His engagements at the Apollo Theatre in Harlem were seen only by almost exclusively Black audiences, but released as an album that stayed on the charts for a year. What's lost in the story of this electrifying celebration at The TAMI Show, is the fact that Brown was next to last on stage. Now that it is, at long last, available on DVD, it's background, and why I think J.B.'s performance was the most extraordinary history, bears some explaining.

I was 14 years old in November of 1973. Saturday nights usually meant playing cards with a family member or watching the CBS-TV trifecta of Mary Tyler Moore, Bob Newhart, and Carol Burnett. For some reason, on this particular night, perhaps it was Thanksgiving weekend, I was clicking around the TV set and landed on Channel 28, the Public station in Los Angeles. There, in black and white, was a film that started with what were then 9-year-old-rock acts readying themselves for a show. Jan and Dean, The Miracles, The Supreme,s The Stones, and James Brown were all shown in various states of preparation. Then the opening titles flashed: The TAMI Show, teenage music international. Having an affection for the music of my much older siblings, who'd come of age between '64-to-'68, I lay on my stomach, propped myself up by the elbows, and watched the show.

What stood out on that night was James Brown. I couldn't believe what I was seeing. My inner monologue was riddled with questions. "Is he having a nervous breakdown? Those guys are trying to take him off stage...what? He's running back? Are guys in white coats gonna strap him to a gurney and haul him away?" By the time he strutted, exhausted, off the stage, I was laughing, having seen the most remarkable act of my tween-aged life.

The next Monday, back in my 9th grade, fourth period class, I was listening to a guy we actually called "James Brown" because of he worshipped The Godfather of Soul. In his stammering way, he tried to describe J.B.'s show at the L.A. Sports Arena. Coincidentally, he'd appeared in L.A. the same night the public TV station ran the Tami Show. I joined the discussion and added how Brown's minions would drape the emotionally drained singer with a cape...to no avail. Brown would whip off the cape, leap back to the microphone, and fall to his knees with a wail of soul-searing anguish.

Crestfallen, the kid who worshipped the Godfather of Soul looked at me with baleful eyes. "Were you at the Sports Arena, Saturday?"

"No," I told him. "I saw a 9 year old show on Channel 28." I don't know which answer would have hurt him more--that I'd perhaps had seen the show, or that I saw something on TV that he'd missed because he may or may not have been out stealing a car.

I never forgot The Tami Show. As the years went by, bits and pieces, a performance here, a performance there, various clips of some of the acts, but not all, would find their way to TV, movie screens, and bootlegged video. In 1974, Dick Clark dedicated 90 minutes of ABC late night time to a ten-year retrospective, where he forewarned girls who'd been in the audience, "Don't look now ladies, you're nearing 30." Later, he described Lesley Gore's 1964 hairstyle as having "...been sprayed on with gunnite."

Now that The TAMI Show is on DVD, it can be seen in its entirety. A two-hour film, released over the holidays as 1964 ended, The TAMI Show was shot by television cameras, recorded on high-speed video tape. They called the process Electronovision. It would allow for a higher resolution, once transferred to a 35 millimeter print for theatres.

The acts hit the stage at the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium for shows on Friday October 28th and Saturday October 29th, 1964, before an audience of teens. Producers asked local schools to distribute the 2500 tickets. It was the Saturday show that made it to the screen.

In alphabetical order, screaming kids from Santa Monica watched The Beach Boys, Chuck Berry, the aforementioned Godfather or Soul, The Barbarians (a Massachusetts group that we'd now call a garage band) Marvin Gaye, Gerry and The Pacemakers, Lesley Gore, Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas, Smokey Robinson and The Miracles, The Supremes, The Rolling Stones, and hosts Jan and Dean.

Uncredited were a slew of dancers who frugged, monkyed and jerked through the whole show. Among them was a teen-aged Antonia Basilerro, who later danced her way to the charts as Toni Basil, and a tall, leggy, alluring blonde who was workin' herself into a frenzy. She would later "roll in the hay" as a damsel in "Young Frankenstein," and gain an Oscar nomination for her 1983 role in "Tootsie." When you watch The TAMI Show, keep an eye peeled for her: 20-year-old Teri Garr. At one point, the dancers boogie right through The Supremes act, and there are two future Oscar nominees as young women, facing each other--Teri Garr and Diana Ross.

In fact, the entire show's a black and white snapshot of some of our greatest artists on the verge of super stardom. The exception would be Chuck Berry, who starts the show. He was already a legend. The DVD notes point out it was Berry's penchant for demanding his pay in cash, just prior to performing, that ate up the show's petty cash on hand. The Four Seasons had asked for too much money, otherwise (save The Beatles) even more stars would have shaken the auditorium to its rafters. What an evening. One of rock and roll's tender years frozen in amber, all captured on film. You should watch it, then view Monterrey Pop to understand just how music and the world would change between 1964 and 1967. The contrast will give you whiplash.

There's so much to see. The unbridled joy on the face of Gerry Marsden of Gerry and The Pacemakers, his guitar poised just under his chin. You'll never see an artist smile so much while singing. Even though it was 45 years ago, you can feel the verve of youth surge from the screen.

The Beach Boys harmonies and surf guitars are as flawless on stage as they are on record, astounding when you consider how many of today's acts must lipsync. It was, however, these very songs that caused the Beach Boys management to snip their set from future theatrical releases of The TAMI Show. By the time "Pet Sounds" was being recorded, they no longer wanted to be typed as the "surf and hot rod" band. It's only on this DVD that their entire TAMI performance is seen once more.

The Motown acts on the bill had just come off the road. Smokey told Dick Clark on that ABC-TV retrospective in 1974, "...I was hoarse." That's an understatement. The Miracles demonstration of The Monkey makes up for it. For that matter, a shot of Teri Garr doing The Monkey in tight jeans is worth it, too, bless her heart. Lauren Bacall was right: film is forever. Thus, so is beauty.

Marvin Gaye was backed up by Darlene Love and the Blossoms, and actually danced. Long after his passing, Motown associates would reveal how difficult that was, because, "Marvin...could NOT dance." The Supremes were resplendent in evening wear, two hits into a string of ten number ones in a row over 1964-65. Lesley Gore was the queen of the hop with a six song set. From a historical perspective, she was the leading female artist of the time.

Gerry and The Pacemakers and Billy J. Kramer and The Dakotas were overseen by the Beatles manager, Brian Epstein, so they came as a package deal. The Pacemakers opened the show and traded songs with Chuck Berry, quite an honor, as British bands revered early rock and roll and R & B performers.

Then there was James Brown. Forget the dated portions of this film--the big hair, the quaint, harmless frugging and twisting, and the distorted monaural sound. J.B. superseded all of that. He's a study in showmanship that's almost vaudevillian. I cannot emphasise too strongly the impact of this performance. When James died, clips of this night were shown in tribute, everywhere. Years before, another generation of singer-dancers paid homage to his TAMI Show set. Prince had it run on a continuous loop in the lobby of his Paisley Park offices in Minneapolis. Hammer danced along to it in a 1990 music video.

And who had the thankless job of following this tour de force on stage at The TAMI Show? The Rolling Stones. Producers had insisted that The Stones be last on the bill. Relative newbies from across the pond, they were faced with the unenviable task of coming on after J.B. . As the years passed, they would, of course, perfect their stage act as "the World's Greatest Rock and Roll Band." But on The TAMI Show, Mick Jagger's Brown-inspired, improvised moves look like those of a child who needs to pee--arms flailing, knees wobbling, hopping, jumping, generally having a fit. Their musician ship ruled...the choreography would get better. Not that the kids cared, that night. The screaming didn't stop.

Until The TAMI Show, rock and rollers were seen almost exclusively lipsyncing on dance shows like American Bandstand, or doing a live song or two as a guest on Ed Sullivan, or one of the many other variety shows of the era. This film set the standard for concert and concert films.

And the only thing today that comes close to the long-lost American myth of innocence, all that could come close to the good-time teen groove of The TAMI Show, would be something from the Disney Channel roster of acts. If you don't believe me, connect the dots. Hannah Montana, The Jonas Brothers, screaming tweens and harmlessness.

And if you're over 45, watch the TAMI Show, experience a world we once knew, and know that when you see James Brown, you will have seen nothing like it, before or since.


CLUSTER UPDATE, KARMA, AND CAREY MULLIGAN

My thanks to all who wrote or called. This cluster is over. New pain relief has been prescribed. Let's hope another four years passed before it strikes again.

Also, good friend Craig Gross's daughter Karma is now two and a half months old. Born on February 15th. Man, time passes fast!

And finally, lest you think my eye for the alluring is lost in '64, admiring Teri Garr in her youth:
Carey Mulligan of "An Education," is half my age. So what? That dimple knocks me out! So does her smooth British purring. Ya gotta call 'em like you see 'em.