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| The Shindig Dancers in traditionally frantic form. |
Over the last few weeks, I’ve been revisiting the old musical variety series SHINDIG, which ran on ABC-TV here in the States from 1964-early 1966. (It's not officially available but DVD-Rs abound; check eBay.) Last night, I watched the final episodes and thought I’d jot down my impressions.
Hosted by Jim (later Jimmy) O’Neill, SHINDIG was the first all-rock/pop music series on television and it was quite a phenomenon at the time to see such music given a frenzied hour of free reign on television. Initially, it was must-see TV and it reached a high point when they scored The Beatles and other top British acts for exclusive appearances. I’ve read interviews with O’Neill in which he noted constant network interference, red-pencilling suggested acts because “the midwest [wasn’t] ready for them.” At some point, the network further decided to cut the show to a half hour, twice a week (Tuesdays and Saturdays) - and then to just thirty minutes a week - and then it was dead and replaced on the ABC schedule by... BATMAN.
There is a lot to like about the original hour-long run, not least of all some talented regulars like The Righteous Brothers, The Blossoms (with Darlene Love), Donna Loren, Billy Preston (at his peak here, IMO), Glen Campbell, and James Burton and the Shindogs, and not to mention Carole Shelyne and all the other impressively athletic Shindig Dancers. If there are (and there will be) individual artists who don’t meet with your approval, they finish within two minutes and replaced with someone else you’ll like or love, and the breathless pace always builds to an almost gospel fervor with each week’s grand finale, where the various guests sometimes play together or in rapid succession.
SHINDIG sustained this formula for something like 50 first season hour-long episodes, with no reruns - which is a pretty impressive feat. Typically the artists either sang live over pre-recorded tracks made especially for the show or lipsynched, and to save time the songs performed had to drop the second verse to reach the all-important chorus sooner. But the second season episodes include a number of acts playing live. Unfortunately, almost everything in both seasons is marred by the shrill screaming of teenage girls, which I have to believe was pre-recorded and poured like so much gravy over everything. Bobby Sherman was also among the show’s regulars; he’s not bad during the first season, where he adaptively interprets various hits by artists beyond the show’s budget in the manner of the 1950s show HIT PARADE, but his delivery of songs turns downright smarmy by the second season, his cheesy, camera-mugging personality eclipsing any attempts at serious lyrical interpretation.
Alas, it’s also in the second season where network interference becomes unbearable, forcing out many regulars and replacing them with now-familiar film clips from the UK, imposing some highly inappropriate guest hosts on the program (would you believe Zsa Zsa Gabor performing “High Heeled Sneakers”?) and turning a teenage fever dream into a far less innovative musical variety show egregiously intended for all ages. (I love Louis Armstrong, but I did not want to see an entire episode of SHINDIG devoted to his music - especially as it wasn’t his 1930s music. Even the Beatles were not known at the time for playing for more than 25 minutes.) There were also filmed visits to London and Europe that might have been okay if they weren’t so off-flavor.
One of these shows was based around footage of a British outdoor festival where The Yardbirds, The Animals, Brian Auger, and Graham Bond (with Ginger Baker on drums and Rod Stewart singing backup), and The Who are all shown performing live - and sounding like they had all had way too much beer or something. The music they make tears outside the usual SHINDIG perimeters of song into improv and noise - highly unusual TV for the time, if nothing else. On a Halloween episode, Boris Karloff charmingly guest-hosted (seated throughout) along with Ted "Lurch" Cassidy and, after that, the show's air time was apparently up for sale by the network; SHINDIG became the shill for a Johnny Mathis Christmas episode, and American International Pictures bought the hour block once to present a special WEIRD WORLD OF DR. GOLDFOOT episode produced by AIP that captures live theatrical performances by Vincent Price, Susan Hart, Aaron Kindaid, and Harvey Lembeck (Eric von Zipper) doing a pretty good job taking over Jack Mullaney’s Igor role.
The most interesting of the later shows features Barry McGuire (who does NOT perform “Eve of Destruction”), the first national TV appearance by The Mamas and Papas, and an early formation of The Grass Roots - all performing live, together and separately, in the round for a small, adult, coffee-house-type audience. Barry even lends himself to a couple of Beatles numbers and is not bad. The penultimate episode, a rare return to original format, is actually a tribute to the show’s own cancellation, with semi-regulars Dick and DeeDee (whom I grew to enjoy) taking part in a horrifically embarrassing Batman-themed number. The final episode includes a band cruelly spoofing the Rolling Stones and other rock acts of the day in what feels like a last-minute network coup de tat against youth-oriented programming.
I guess I somehow missed a lot of the later episodes when they were first shown because my memories of the show were only positive. Revisited, the show is an interesting time capsule that encapsulates a heated argument between corporate and creative about what the Sixties really meant. What I found most arresting about all of the episodes is how the words of Bob Dylan, on those occasions when his songs were performed, had a weird way of unifying everybody.
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