re: Non-Phish Show Of The Day Thread

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The Smokey Robinson Show was a 1970 musical variety special starring Smokey Robinson & The Miracles. It aired on the ABC Television Network, on December 18, 1970, and featured guest stars The Supremes, The Temptations, Stevie Wonder, and Las Vegas singer/performer and actress Fran Jeffries.

Originally intended to be Smokey's sendoff into a solo career, the massive success of The Miracles' 1970 # 1 smash hit, "The Tears of a Clown" delayed his departure for another 2 years (strangely, that song was not sung on the special). Filmed at the height of success of Motown Records, this special was essentially a launching pad for Smokey's solo career and to prepare the public for his upcoming departure from the legendary Miracles - the very first of the Motown groups.

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The idea for this project came from Playboy Magazine - I was asked to submit a list, in late 1999, of the ten greatest songs of the Millenium. Hah! I thought, hypocrites - they don't mean millennium, they mean twenty years - I'll call their bluff and do a real thousand-year selection. My list was similar to the choices here on this CD, starting in about 1068, and winding slowly up to 2001. That they failed to print my list among others submitted by rock's luminaries, is but a slight wound - it gave me the idea for this show, which has been performed occasionally, and will hopefully receive a few more airings. The idea is that Popular Music comes in many forms, through many ages, and as older forms get superceded, sometimes the baby is thrown out with the bathwater - great ideas, tunes, rhythms, styles, get left in the dust of history, so let's have a look at what's back there, and see if still does the trick. I am unqualified to sing 98% of the material here, but me having a go could be considered part of the fun. Also, trying to render an Arthur Sullivan orchestration with acoustic guitar and snare drum is pretty desperate stuff, but may, at a stretch, be thought charming. What appears on this CD is a performance, rather than a chronological, distillation of several different shows - hence some gaps in the 17th and 18th centuries, and too much weight on Music Hall and Rock & Roll - we just felt that some performances weren't quite captured - perhaps on Part Two?

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Amazon.com

As Richard Thompson explains in his typically droll annotation, 1000 Years of Popular Music came about after Playboy asked various musicians to rank their top ten songs of the millennium. While most dipped no farther back than a few decades--a century at most--Thompson's musical memory rose to the challenge. The result is this concert set's encapsulation of 22 songs that trace a musical progression from the Middle Ages through Britney Spears, with Judith Owen and Debra Dobkin providing spare instrumental and rich vocal support. Released as a concert DVD with two audio CDs, the selection is irrepressibly idiosyncratic, from rounds, madrigals, and British balladry that recall Thompson's early days in Fairport Convention through the music-hall singalong of "I Live in Trafalgar Square" to dips into the songbooks of the Kinks ("See My Friends"), Squeeze ("Tempted"), and Bowling for Soup ("1985"). Among the highlights are the soulful tenderness of the 17th century's "Bonnie St. Johnstone," a haunting "Shenandoah," a samba arrangement of Cole Porter's "Night and Day," and a deliriously rocking rendition of the Easybeats' "Friday on My Mind." --Don McLeese

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The Dictators are another example of unsung heroes from the early punk movement that never got the respect and recognition they deserved. Although they were considered a novelty act when they first emerged in 1973, the band has gone on to become one of the most influential of all the early punkers, and their first album, The Dictators Go Girl Crazy, is considered a masterpiece.

This recording from the Bill Graham archives, made after the band released its second album, Manifest Destiny, and its first for David Geffen's Asylum records, caught them on a brilliant night. For this show the group played second, on a triple bill that also included the Nuns and the Ramones. Because the band incorporated so much humor into their show (thanks mainly to frontman, Handsome Dick Manitoba -- a cocky cross between Elvis, Sha Na Na's Bowser, and anyone from WWF wrestling), they arguably often were not taken seriously for their music.

Today, supporters such as Steven Van Zandt (aka Little Steven) consider the Dictators a crucial link from the '60s garage band area to the angry punk movement of the late 1970s. The music was abrasive, and the lyrics borrowed heavily from Frank Zappa's school of sarcasm. Aside from the band's musical prowess, many rock historians consider them among the funniest acts ever.

By 1979, the band had still not seen any commercial success (perhaps the fact that their last '70s studio album was on the ROIR label and called frick 'Em If They Can't Take A Joke had something to do with this). They soon split up, and went off to other non-music related careers. However, in the late 1980s, the core members re-grouped and have worked on and off ever since.

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Lots of discussion

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