Although a night early, for the 50th anniversary that goes along with, I hope you appreciate this video Billy Oconnell, a lot, as much as I love to share it and as much as I loved watching it the first time I did back in the 1990s on the internet. I know its tomorrow night when we celebrate the 50th anniversary of the debut/premiere on ABC-TV of one of the most significant Rock n Roll television shows of the decade that we celebrate in this group, but Im going to be not having as much time to post tomorrow (I have a doctors appointment tomorrow morning, my moms in the hospital at Emory University here in Atlanta and Im hoping to go visit her, and I have to go get medicines and groceries so time will be limited for me tomorrow), so I wanted to share this video that celebrates that 50th anniversary tonight. Although Shindig! that premiered/debut on ABC-TV 50 years ago tomorrow night, September 16th, 1964, had a short life span lasting less than two seasons until January 8th, 1966, the memories it left both people at the time and also what has been saved to video (I have to admit I am one that had to wait until later to see much of these performances until the 1990s due to the fact I was born only in November 1963 and only remember slightly the abbreviated second season first hand) this Rock n Roll showcase still resonates with many of us both who remember it from that time and those who didnt get to see many of the performances until much later. If anything Shindig! defines for many of us music of the mid-1960s since it has some of the best performances by artists ever seen (both in L.A. and when they had some highlighted in London.) More than that though the combination of the announcer-host, the late great Jimmy ONeill and those performances, plus the Shindig! dancers and the fact that the artists were encouraged and did go out and perform with the young audiences made this show simply, electrical (pardon the unintentional pun as to what was happening with music of the time period.) (And compare that to the performances on The Ed Sullivan Show, from the same time period, when the artists never came close to the audiences.) And then there are those audiences, at a time when the so-called mixing of the races was discouraged, this show reveled in that, with their audiences, and that was also very electric indeed and very historic indeed. And so in celebration of the 50th anniversary of this very important television 1960s icon, tomorrow night, here is one of those performances, both as a still and the video of the performance -- from the night the show premiered 50 years ago tomorrow night -- September 16th, 1964. It is of the late great Sam Cooke, less than 4 months before he was unfortunately tragically taken from us on December 11th, 1964 singing a very iconic 1960s song, Bob Dylans Blowin in the Wind, in only a way Cooke could. (I admit that this is one of the first performances from the show I remember watching back in the 1990s and just as I did then this performance still tears me up like very little can from television, knowing in hindsight the full history of Sam Cooke, plus as a student of history and of music history the importance of the song to the 1960s):
Posted on: Tue, 16 Sep 2014 00:20:52 +0000