the T.A.M.I. Show

[Jon Stebbins]

Fifty thousand dollars for 4 songs in 1964 ..??  That cant be right.. !!

For their top-billed appearance in a nationally distributed feature film...yes it can.

Jon,  Is the order of the performances the way it played live?

Yes, I think it was filmed twice...two duplicate performances over two days in case they needed to fix anything, but I've heard they ended up using just one complete concert for the film.

Hey Mr. Stebbins, do you have any idea why the Beatles weren't there (even though I'm kinda glad they weren't...)

I have no idea if they were approached regarding this film/concert...but they were certainly busy. During the week of the TAMI Show concert the Beatles were recording at Abbey Road and also playing a short UK tour.

thanks Mr. Stebbins and I'm really enjoying you're book  I have one more question regarding the Christmas album but i'll phrase in another way cuz I myself am sick of writing this and I'm sure others are tired of reading it  but I've had this question in the back of my mind for a long time now....were both Denny and Al present for recording harmonies for all the Christmas songs (particularly the slower ones  )?

Yes. It's really rare for Dennis to not be somewhere in the harmonies when Brian is using those dense harmony arrangements. You can hear Dennis really clearly on I'll be Home For Xmas on the words "only" and "my" at the end of the song.

[retrokid67]

YEEEEEEEEEEES!!!          THANK STEBBINS you just gave me a Christmas present!!!

[retrokid67]

YEEEEEEEEEEES!!!          THANK STEBBINS you just gave me a Christmas present!!!

I was saying it as I was writing and forgot to type "Mr." sorry 

[Pinder's Gone To Kokomo And Back Again]

Am I completely crazy or did TAMI
show originally play In theaters along with Satellite footage of a Beatles concert somewhere?

[retrokid67]

Am I completely crazy or did TAMI
show originally play In theaters along with Satellite footage of a Beatles concert somewhere?

I don't know about that  but I do know that the BB, Leslie Gore, and the Beatles had something similar to what you're talking about in that same year. 

[Ian]

No that was the so called "Lost Concert." It was taped in March 1964 and played in theaters with footage of the Beatles at the Washington DC Coliseum (during their Feb 64 tour)  and Leslie Gore. It is called "The Lost Concert" because the footage was "lost" in some warehouse till its discovery in the 80s.  Actually-watch the Lost Concert first and than pop in the TAMI Show and be amazed at how much more polished the BBs were in the space of seven months!!

[retrokid67]

No that was the so called "Lost Concert." It was taped in March 1964 and played in theaters with footage of the Beatles at the Washington DC Coliseum (during their Feb 64 tour)  and Leslie Gore. It is called "The Lost Concert" because the footage was "lost" in some warehouse till its discovery in the 80s.  Actually-watch the Lost Concert first and than pop in the TAMI Show and be amazed at how much more polished the BBs were in the space of seven months!!

yea the difference between the two concerts is what I referred to earlier, the TAMI show is waaaay better 

[metal flake paint]

No that was the so called "Lost Concert." It was taped in March 1964 and played in theaters with footage of the Beatles at the Washington DC Coliseum (during their Feb 64 tour)  and Leslie Gore. It is called "The Lost Concert" because the footage was "lost" in some warehouse till its discovery in the 80s.  Actually-watch the Lost Concert first and than pop in the TAMI Show and be amazed at how much more polished the BBs were in the space of seven months!!

I didn't realise that the footage had been discovered that long ago. Interestingly, in the September 1998 issue of ESQ, Alan Boyd recalls being contacted in late 1997 by someone who had a 2 inch copy of their "Lost Concert" performance.

As a result of reading that, I always thought that it was a relatively recent find.

[CenturyDeprived]

No that was the so called "Lost Concert." It was taped in March 1964 and played in theaters with footage of the Beatles at the Washington DC Coliseum (during their Feb 64 tour)  and Leslie Gore. It is called "The Lost Concert" because the footage was "lost" in some warehouse till its discovery in the 80s.  Actually-watch the Lost Concert first and than pop in the TAMI Show and be amazed at how much more polished the BBs were in the space of seven months!!

I didn't realise that the footage had been discovered that long ago. Interestingly, in the September 1998 issue of ESQ, Alan Boyd recalls being contacted in late 1997 by someone who had a 2 inch copy of their "Lost Concert" performance.

As a result of reading that, I always thought that it was a relatively recent find.

My mother's recollection of attending The T.A.M.I. Show is that they filmed the whole thing twice (in 2 days) in order to get the best possible performances captured, and then the released film was presumably edited together from both days' performances. (This is not too dissimilar with how some TV sitcom live audience tapings are done).

I wonder if somewhere in a vault, there lies outtake footage of The BBs from the other day's performance? Not holding my breath though.

[retrokid67]

No that was the so called "Lost Concert." It was taped in March 1964 and played in theaters with footage of the Beatles at the Washington DC Coliseum (during their Feb 64 tour)  and Leslie Gore. It is called "The Lost Concert" because the footage was "lost" in some warehouse till its discovery in the 80s.  Actually-watch the Lost Concert first and than pop in the TAMI Show and be amazed at how much more polished the BBs were in the space of seven months!!

I didn't realise that the footage had been discovered that long ago. Interestingly, in the September 1998 issue of ESQ, Alan Boyd recalls being contacted in late 1997 by someone who had a 2 inch copy of their "Lost Concert" performance.

As a result of reading that, I always thought that it was a relatively recent find.

My mother's recollection of attending The T.A.M.I. Show is that they filmed the whole thing twice (in 2 days) in order to get the best possible performances captured, and then the released film was presumably edited together from both days' performances. (This is not too dissimilar with how some TV sitcom live audience tapings are done).

I wonder if somewhere in a vault, there lies outtake footage of The BBs from the other day's performance? Not holding my breath though.

that would be an interesting find 

[Bicyclerider]

No that was the so called "Lost Concert." It was taped in March 1964 and played in theaters with footage of the Beatles at the Washington DC Coliseum (during their Feb 64 tour)  and Leslie Gore. It is called "The Lost Concert" because the footage was "lost" in some warehouse till its discovery in the 80s.  Actually-watch the Lost Concert first and than pop in the TAMI Show and be amazed at how much more polished the BBs were in the space of seven months!!

Has the Lesley Gore footage ever been recovered?  I'd love to see that!

[Quzi]

No that was the so called "Lost Concert." It was taped in March 1964 and played in theaters with footage of the Beatles at the Washington DC Coliseum (during their Feb 64 tour)  and Leslie Gore. It is called "The Lost Concert" because the footage was "lost" in some warehouse till its discovery in the 80s.  Actually-watch the Lost Concert first and than pop in the TAMI Show and be amazed at how much more polished the BBs were in the space of seven months!!

And yet their best live recording (What'd I Say) was recorded in January 1964...  either way, there's no denying by the end of 1964 the live band were tight. I wouldn't be a Beach Boys fan if I didn't appreciate the fruits of Brian's orchestral experiments, but goshdarn if I'm not curious on where a more traditional rock band route would have taken the group post-1964. There was definitely something brewing back then that never got to be fully unleashed.

[EgoHanger1966]

No that was the so called "Lost Concert." It was taped in March 1964 and played in theaters with footage of the Beatles at the Washington DC Coliseum (during their Feb 64 tour)  and Leslie Gore. It is called "The Lost Concert" because the footage was "lost" in some warehouse till its discovery in the 80s.  Actually-watch the Lost Concert first and than pop in the TAMI Show and be amazed at how much more polished the BBs were in the space of seven months!!

Has the Lesley Gore footage ever been recovered?  I'd love to see that!

It still exists - The whole thing was screened fairly recently at an LA event. A clip from Lesley's portion is on Youtube - live "It's My Party". Not aware of any of the rest of it circulating...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=acRMALrg1t4

[guitarfool2002]

Adding some local Philly flavor to the "Lost Concert" story.

This is a poster from a local event, I grabbed this from another collector's site:



This one was hosted by Philly DJ/celebrity Jerry "The Geator With The Heater" Blavat, who I also just mentioned last week in the "1963" thread. He's still going strong, hosting record hops and live events, really one of the last of that breed of AM radio DJ's who still does his routine every week (now he's on 88.5 WXPN) and is still popular.

Anyway, the "closed-circuit" event was an obvious attempt to cash in on Beatlemania, and bring a live experience to their fans short of staging an actual live show. You can find announcements of these events and broadcasts by searching the Billboard archives from 1964, it was a pretty big deal and a novel concept.

What I didn't realize is how much beyond the actual film/telecast some cities and venues took the promotion. They'd sell tickets to screen the film, but as this poster shows they'd also book live acts to perform on the same bill.

Check out the poster: For two bucks, you'd see the filmed Beatles/Beach Boys/Lesley Gore performances, but you'd also get the Geator hosting the thing and featuring three live acts, two of which were at that time among the hottest in Philly and boasting some recent top-10 nationwide singles, not to mention Frankie Lyman in his post-teenager stage.

The Orlons were from Philly, and had three classics which charted nationwide: "The Wah-Watusi", "South Street", and "Don't Hang Up". The Watusi was a big dance craze, "Don't Hang Up" had a terrific bass vocal hook, and "South Street" had the famous catch-phrase "Where do all the hippies meet? South Street, South Street...". In one conversation the late Rev. Bob Hanes said that record was the first time he had heard the word "hippies" used on a song in that way. They were a big draw.

The Tymes had an all-time classic beach-shore-Boardwalk song called "So Much In Love", just a great late summer vocal harmony record with finger snaps and an acapella intro that reminds a lot of people of nights at the Jersey Shore...before MTV bastardized the whole image of that scene.

I thought it would have made for a great Beach Boys cover in 1963-64, they could have pulled it off verbatim and it could have sounded great with the California vibe replacing the Jersey vibes.

"So Much In Love" apparently bumped "Surf City" out of the number one slot on the charts in '63.

I need to search further, again this is from the Philly area, but it would be interesting to find some posters or newspaper ads promoting these similar "closed-circuit" matinees to see if other DJ's and promoters did a package show for the local fans as Blavat did for his Philly audiences, and to see what other acts may have been on the bill playing live along with the filmed performances.

Getting two major charting acts who happened to be Philly locals, a star from the original Rock and Roll era in Frankie Lyman, the filmed performances on the big screen, and "The Geator" doing his hosting routine...

...not bad for a 2 dollar ticket in March '64!  

[guitarfool2002]

One other funny thing to note on that poster: There is more than a little old-fashioned drive-in style Ballyhoo and hype being used to advertise the screening event. If you saw that poster in a storefront window or hanging on a billboard or record shop or whatever in 1964, doesn't it look on first glance like the Beatles were coming to Philly for a show? 

Definitely intentional! March 1964, anything labeled "Beatles" was like catnip for all of the (especially teenage girls) young Beatlemaniacs buying up every piece of bric-a-brac with them or their name on it.

Take a quick look at that poster, and the prominent words are "Beatles" "In Person!".

Once you read the fine print, you'll see "on closed circuit TV" in much smaller print scrunched in between the hype.

But it worked through "minor deception" in getting the attention of all those fans, didn't it? 

[retrokid67]

I wish that they hadn't stopped after the "T.N.T. Show" (though it wasn't as good as T.A.M.I.), even though they had the  Monterey pop festival, I wish they had done something like this every two years going into the 70's and the 80's 

[Andrew G. Doe]

Well, there was this little thing called "Woodstock"... 

[Niko]

I'm actually pretty tall thx agd

[retrokid67]

Well, there was this little thing called "Woodstock"... 

O yea how could I forget about that one 

[guitarfool2002]

I wish that they hadn't stopped after the "T.N.T. Show" (though it wasn't as good as T.A.M.I.), even though they had the  Monterey pop festival, I wish they had done something like this every two years going into the 70's and the 80's 

Perspective here: I'd recommend with no malice or sarcasm intended doing some research into rock and pop history of the 60's and early 70's with concerts, television broadcasts, and the like, it's not only informative but a hell of a lot of fun!

The festival and package-concert deal was *huge* throughout the late 60's, and went far, far beyond Monterey and Woodstock...those just happened to be filmed and made more prominent as a result. Every region had a festival, a large-scale concert, and it dates back to the old country 'caravans' of the 30's and 40's playing the areas which listened to the Opry on WSM, and into the late 50's and early 60's where guys like Alan Freed and Dick Clark would stage similar traveling caravans where busloads of acts both famous and working their way up would tour with music revues, like an old carnival show.

TAMI and TNT were only two examples of what used to be on television on a weekly basis, they just happened to be more rock/pop oriented and therefore more widely known and released. The "variety show" concept was the *thing* in the 60's, from daily after-school fare like Bandstand to Shindig and Hullabaloo to the Sunday shows like Hollywood Palace and Sullivan, to the "specials" hosted by the likes of Herb Alpert and others.

It goes much deeper than TAMI and TNT, again I'd suggest just looking a bit deeper into that whole scene - and with YouTube you can actually see a lot of the examples, to further put it into context for the 1960's rather than what it is in 2013 and more importantly, what the more lazy "history of rock" type of discussions simply ignore or fail to mention in favor of pointing out the wonders of Woodstock and the joys of Monterey and the evils of Altamont...where in reality they were only pieces of a much larger pop music puzzle.

[retrokid67]

I wish that they hadn't stopped after the "T.N.T. Show" (though it wasn't as good as T.A.M.I.), even though they had the  Monterey pop festival, I wish they had done something like this every two years going into the 70's and the 80's 

Perspective here: I'd recommend with no malice or sarcasm intended doing some research into rock and pop history of the 60's and early 70's with concerts, television broadcasts, and the like, it's not only informative but a hell of a lot of fun!

The festival and package-concert deal was *huge* throughout the late 60's, and went far, far beyond Monterey and Woodstock...those just happened to be filmed and made more prominent as a result. Every region had a festival, a large-scale concert, and it dates back to the old country 'caravans' of the 30's and 40's playing the areas which listened to the Opry on WSM, and into the late 50's and early 60's where guys like Alan Freed and Dick Clark would stage similar traveling caravans where busloads of acts both famous and working their way up would tour with music revues, like an old carnival show.

TAMI and TNT were only two examples of what used to be on television on a weekly basis, they just happened to be more rock/pop oriented and therefore more widely known and released. The "variety show" concept was the *thing* in the 60's, from daily after-school fare like Bandstand to Shindig and Hullabaloo to the Sunday shows like Hollywood Palace and Sullivan, to the "specials" hosted by the likes of Herb Alpert and others.

It goes much deeper than TAMI and TNT, again I'd suggest just looking a bit deeper into that whole scene - and with YouTube you can actually see a lot of the examples, to further put it into context for the 1960's rather than what it is in 2013 and more importantly, what the more lazy "history of rock" type of discussions simply ignore or fail to mention in favor of pointing out the wonders of Woodstock and the joys of Monterey and the evils of Altamont...where in reality they were only pieces of a much larger pop music puzzle.

Yea you're right about that there's some awesome concert footage on YouTube, unfortunately there's not enough of our guys though, and you would think they would have some from 1974/75 

[guitarfool2002]

Take a look at all the festivals that were staged even in the late 60's and early 70's, even written accounts short of having video or film, and you'll find a few where the Beach Boys showed up too! It was something of a trend to stage these big festivals, then it kind of fell out of fashion then came back in to where we are now with a whole load of these things like Coachella and Bonnaroo and whatnot. Blame Lollapalooza and "Warped Tour" because they made tons of money...

Limit it to the late 60's and you'll find a lot of fascinating history of these gatherings that get lost to history in favor of Woodstock and Monterey, again because those were filmed and widely released. Atlanta Pop in 1969, "Fantasy Fair and Magic Mountain Music Festival" near LA days prior to Monterey where the Doors played with about 20 other bands, Watkins Glen where the Band and others played, Miami had a pop festival in 1968 where Hendrix was filmed, the infamous Isle Of Wight, there are many of them where what we'd consider now-legendary acts performed yet they don't get reported as much. It's an interesting search.

[retrokid67]

Ok I'll take a look at them, they sound awesome, thanks

[guitarfool2002]

Cool! I don't want to turn this into a list of events that rock historians have failed to cover for decades, but I had to list another example just for the record. Check out this lineup from the "Fantasy Faire", as I listed above, held the weekend of June 10th in Marin County hosted by KFRC. This was the week before Monterey Pop, some of the same acts appeared, yet you'll find not much of a record of this event, even though it was comparable to Monterey and very, very similar in design. The only high cards Monetery was holding turned out to be Hendrix and the Who, so they won in a way...

Sat June 10th lineup:
P.F.Sloan
The Grass Roots
Moby Grape
The 13th Floor Elevators
Spanky and Our Gang
Rodger Collins
Blackburn and Snow
Every Mother's Son
The Sons of Champlain
Jefferson Airplane
The Mojo Men
The Merry Go Round

Sunday June 11th lineup:
The Byrds
The Loading Zone
Tim Buckley
The Doors
Every Mother's Son
Wilson Pickett
Hugh Maskela
The Steve Miller Blues Band
The Seeds
Country Joe and the Fish
Smokey Robinson and The Miracles

And they held another "Fantasy Faire" at Cal State Northridge the weekend of July 16th, with some of the same acts, and adding The Mothers for one notable addition.

Yet most rock fans who immediately know Monterey Pop (for obvious reasons) probably know little about these events, one coming before Monterey, even though they were pretty big draws at the time. That's what I mean by the events that weren't reported as much, you can research and find some really cool photos and memorabilia from these lesser-known festivals.

Anyone know if the Beach Boys were invited to play this first "Fantasy Faire" June 10-11 1967? I've never heard anything about it if they were approached to perform there.

[retrokid67]

Cool! I don't want to turn this into a list of events that rock historians have failed to cover for decades, but I had to list another example just for the record. Check out this lineup from the "Fantasy Faire", as I listed above, held the weekend of June 10th in Marin County hosted by KFRC. This was the week before Monterey Pop, some of the same acts appeared, yet you'll find not much of a record of this event, even though it was comparable to Monterey and very, very similar in design. The only high cards Monetery was holding turned out to be Hendrix and the Who, so they won in a way...

Sat June 10th lineup:
P.F.Sloan
The Grass Roots
Moby Grape
The 13th Floor Elevators
Spanky and Our Gang
Rodger Collins
Blackburn and Snow
Every Mother's Son
The Sons of Champlain
Jefferson Airplane
The Mojo Men
The Merry Go Round

Sunday June 11th lineup:
The Byrds
The Loading Zone
Tim Buckley
The Doors
Every Mother's Son
Wilson Pickett
Hugh Maskela
The Steve Miller Blues Band
The Seeds
Country Joe and the Fish
Smokey Robinson and The Miracles

And they held another "Fantasy Faire" at Cal State Northridge the weekend of July 16th, with some of the same acts, and adding The Mothers for one notable addition.

Yet most rock fans who immediately know Monterey Pop (for obvious reasons) probably know little about these events, one coming before Monterey, even though they were pretty big draws at the time. That's what I mean by the events that weren't reported as much, you can research and find some really cool photos and memorabilia from these lesser-known festivals.

Anyone know if the Beach Boys were invited to play this first "Fantasy Faire" June 10-11 1967? I've never heard anything about it if they were approached to perform there.

When I read "Smokey Robinson...." I automatically thought of his performance of the T.A.M.I. Show. I like the Miracles (and Motown, that's where my music roots start) in all but was I the only one that thought their performance was a little bit over the top?  .  I will admit though that Smokey had some strong legs during the "Mickey's Monkey" segment   .   And yea I'll definitely look into all of these shows