One of the things I've really enjoyed in 2011 has been the weekly repeats of every 1976 Top Of The Pops. It's not always easy to watch (how many weeks were Brotherhood of Man number one? A thousand?), but watch it we do - the rules in our house being no whizzing forward, and get up and dance if you want to. Simple pleasures.
Ruby Flipper were the multracial, mixed gender dance troupe replacement to the hugely popular Pan's People. They only lasted for five months. Why? Well, Ruby Flipper were perhaps a little too, um, experimental for prime time telly. Take their routine for Bowie's 'TVC15', for example. Any ideas?
Roll on Legs & Co. Now there's a vivid image.
This song is a weird combo of the most pointlessly florid, roccoco verses and an absolutely killer chorus.
ReplyDeleteI didn't realise this for years, because I could never be patient enough to sit through the first verse before I knocked the needle onto "Wild Is The Wind".
Flick Colby, as quoted in Ian Gittins' "Mishaps, Miming and Music: True Adventures of TV's No.1 Pop Show":
ReplyDelete"Bill Cotton called me in to the BBC and said the British public didn't want to see black men dancing with white women. I argued but he told me to form another all-girl group or I was out."
Black male dancer Floyd Pearson's next TV job was on The Black and White Minstrel Show.
"the rules in our house being no whizzing forward, and get up and dance if you want to."
ReplyDelete^ I'm hoping your front room closely resembles this routine during your TOTP viewing.
Greatly enjoyed the chap in the blue waistcoat spinning on his arse in front of the TV half-way through. A move like that takes some real skill, which I'm able to confirm through bitter experience !
I had to watch this with no sound as there was music on in the room already and basically it is just some guys doing cartwheels. Rivetting.
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