For those who had to decide on a residing cultural determine to signify nineteen-seventies America, you can do a lot worse than Burt Sugarman. He made his identify as a tv impresario with The Midnight Particular, which placed on NBC’s airwaves performances by everybody from ABBA to AC/DC, REO Speedwagon to Roxy Music, and Conflict to Climate Report. Breaking with frequent follow on the time, the present allowed these acts to carry out reside slightly than lip-sync in opposition to pre-recorded tracks. Thus, even viewers who tuned in to The Midnight Particular to see their favourite bands have been assured to listen to one thing they’d by no means heard earlier than.
They stayed up fairly late to take action: The Midnight Particular adopted The Tonight Present Starring Johnny Carson, which meant that it aired at midnight within the Central and Mountain time zones, and 1:00 in Japanese and Pacific. In 1972, the notion of placing on a music present at that hour was unfamiliar sufficient that Sugarman had bother promoting it.
He finally had to purchase the airtime himself as a way to persuade NBC to select the present up, which it did quickly thereafter. (For the community, the prospect of extending their programming schedule would have been sweetened by the earlier yr’s Public Well being Cigarette Smoking Act, which had banned the once-lucrative airing of tobacco commercials on tv.)
Now, greater than half a century after its debut, The Midnight Particular has reappeared within the type of a Youtube channel, which options high-quality movies of the present’s authentic performances. These uploaded up to now have been organized into artist playlists devoted to acts like the Bee Gees, Fleetwood Mac, Tina Turner, and David Bowie. That final consists of Bowie’s rendition of “I Acquired You Babe” with Marianne Faithfull, seen on the prime of this publish, in addition to his model of The Who’s “I Can’t Clarify” above, a part of his closing efficiency as his space-alien alter ego Ziggy Stardust — itself initially shot for The 1980 Ground Present in London, which regardless of its identify came about in 1973. The Midnight Particular itself would run till 1981, which implies that a substantial amount of music stays to be introduced out of Sugarman’s archives for us to get pleasure from right here within the twenty-twenties. You’ll be able to watch Bowie’s full 1973 efficiency on The Midnight Particular under.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=playlist
Associated content material:
David Bowie Grew to become Ziggy Stardust 48 Years In the past This Week: Watch Authentic Footage
8 Hours of David Bowie’s Historic 1980 Ground Present: Full & Uncut Footage
David Bowie’s Remaining Gig as Ziggy Stardust Documented in 1973 Live performance Movie
David Bowie Talks and Sings on The Dick Cavett Present (1974)
Watch an Episode of TV-CBGB, the First Rock ‘n’ Roll Sitcom Ever Aired on Cable TV (1981)
Based mostly in Seoul, Colin Marshall writes and broadcasts on cities, language, and tradition. His initiatives embrace the Substack e-newsletter Books on Cities, the guide The Stateless Metropolis: a Stroll via Twenty first-Century Los Angeles and the video sequence The Metropolis in Cinema. Observe him on Twitter at @colinmarshall or on Fb.
