Some great stuff here!

Midnight Special YouTube Channel Debut

One clip I'd love to see again is The Kinks doing, "Money Talks" in 1974.

I'll have to see if any of it is previously unreleased. I have 18 Midnight Special DVDs. What I'd really like now, and doesn't look like we'll ever get, is a commercial release of Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. There was a pending release some ten years ago. Then the bottom fell out of the DVD market and they probably couldn't find a distributor. That's what happened to the Pretty Things documentary. Completely finished, in the can, and far as I know, never seen the light of day. It's called Midnight to Six. Made in 2012. A handful of band clips from it on YouTube.

Quote
24FPS
I'll have to see if any of it is previously unreleased. I have 18 Midnight Special DVDs. What I'd really like now, and doesn't look like we'll ever get, is a commercial release of Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. There was a pending release some ten years ago. Then the bottom fell out of the DVD market and they probably couldn't find a distributor. That's what happened to the Pretty Things documentary. Completely finished, in the can, and far as I know, never seen the light of day. It's called Midnight to Six. Made in 2012. A handful of band clips from it on YouTube.

It was included on "Bouquets from a Cloudy Sky" box-set, but it deserves a standalone release.

Quote
Cristiano Radtke

Quote
24FPS
I'll have to see if any of it is previously unreleased. I have 18 Midnight Special DVDs. What I'd really like now, and doesn't look like we'll ever get, is a commercial release of Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. There was a pending release some ten years ago. Then the bottom fell out of the DVD market and they probably couldn't find a distributor. That's what happened to the Pretty Things documentary. Completely finished, in the can, and far as I know, never seen the light of day. It's called Midnight to Six. Made in 2012. A handful of band clips from it on YouTube.

It was included on "Bouquets from a Cloudy Sky" box-set, but it deserves a standalone release.

Well, that's sad. I never even heard of such a boxset in the states. They only made two thousand copies. I was looking forward to seeing it because the Pretty Things never had much presence in the states. I didn't hear of them until the 1990s. Comparably I do have the Small Faces documentary by the same outfit (Reelin' in the Years). The Small Faces had a slightly higher profile in American, but not much. Here they were known more as a one hit wonder with Itchycoo Park. Marriott was known in the U.S. for Humble Pie. And of course the rest of the Small Faces as Faces with Ron Wood and Rod Stewart.

Did the Stones ever appear on the show

Quote
Taylor1
Did the Stones ever appear on the show

I don't think so. BUT... here's Keith and Ronnie

Bobby Keys & (I believe) Nicky Hopkins with Leo Sayer on The Midnight Special

Quote
exilestones

Quote
Taylor1
Did the Stones ever appear on the show

I don't think so. BUT... here's Keith and Ronnie

That is ROCK'n"ROLL!

Remember watching this when I was a kid.

"Twisting the Night Away" with keith

[www.youtube.com]

Midnight Special would air on NBC after the Tonight Show with Johnny Carson at 1:00AM on Friday night (actually Saturday morning)

ABC had In Concert, which came on earlier at 11:30PM on Friday night.


The Midnight Special episode with Faces was a "special" one indeed. It wasn't filmed in the studio as usual, with multiple acts performing. I believe they were the only group that night. I was glued to the set.


But there was a big problem--on that very same night, ABC's In Concert featured the premiere of Alice Cooper's Welcome To My Nightmare. This was the first album in which "Alice Cooper" was not the band anymore--it was just the lead singer, Alice. The promotion of that special was through the roof. It had HUGE buzz. But the show itself had the production values of a '70's TV variety show, and most of the songs were pretty lame..."Only Women Bleed" etc. At any rate, the Alice program stole all of the thunder that night.


But for Faces fans, this was a little bit of heaven.

[www.youtube.com]

Quote
Taylor1
Did the Stones ever appear on the show

No. They did appear on Don Kirshner's Rock Concert. (On film).

I didn't remember In Concert, had to look it up, apparently it too was started by Don Kirshner before Don Kirshner's Rock Concert.

Kind of funny to think back then bands were heard not seen unless you went to a concert or were a night owl.

Midnight Special and Don Kirschner's Rock Concert also exposed the rock audience to Black R&B acts in an era when the supposedly free-form FM AOR radio stations playlists were actually less diverse than the scorned Top 40 AM radio format.

Like this 1974 James Brown performance.

[www.youtube.com]

Quote
loog droog
Midnight Special and Don Kirschner's Rock Concert also exposed the rock audience to Black R&B acts in an era when the supposedly free-form FM AOR radio stations playlists were actually less diverse than the scorned Top 40 AM radio format.

Like this 1974 James Brown performance.

[www.youtube.com]

I'll have to see if that was released on the DVDs. Great track. His vocals predate looping, where they repeat a stanza.

While I have fond memories of watching some great performance on Midnight Special back in the day,
there was also a lot of mediocre fluff such as this from Neil Sedaka - one of the most unhip singer/songwriters in history:





That said, I sort of liked that song back in 1975 when I was 12 yrs. old....

_____________________________________________________________
Rip this joint, gonna save your soul, round and round and round we go......