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Hootenanny
The Best of Hootenanny |
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As fans of the old TV music variety shows can attest, this has certainly been a long time in coming. Obviously clearing music rights is a quagmire that labels would just as soon bypass. That’s especially true of multi-artists, half hour specials where everyone involved is going to want a piece of the DVD pie, and rightfully so.
There were several popular shows that captured the musical frenzy of viewers who enjoyed catching a glimpse of a song set of up and coming artists. There were many in the world that included Britain’s Top of the Pops and The Old Grey Whistle Test, while America generated shows like Shindig, The Midnight Special, Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert, Motown Review, Soul Train, and Hullabaloo, to name just a few of the popular ones.
But before Shindig arrived in 1965, Hootenanny offered looks at singing groups as well as comedy skits in the young years of Rock. Started in 1963, with host Jack Linkletter (son of Art Linkletter – remember him?), this Saturday night, half-hour variety show featured a stream of up and rising musicians, many of which you’ll recognize if you remember the period. Most of the acts were folk, R&B, and gospel in nature, all underpinnings of Rock. The show moved across college universities to provide its acts to a hip and a very receptive audience.
Hootenanny was successful for ABC, enough so that it would expand the show from its half-hour to a full hour. However, ratings began to fall and by the autumn of the following year, Hootenanny was no longer. But it blazed the trail for the coming varieties that would enjoy more success and showcase Rock as it moved from a folk style to a more rock orientation.
But no one will deny the importance of Hootenanny as it blazed brightly for the year that it was on television. Shout! Factory provides a 3-disc set with a collection of some of the best artists from that show, many who went on to greater success in the years to come. With a boxed slip-cover that contains three thin plastic cases that house each DVD, Shout! Factory begins the offering with what we hope will eventually yield the full season for Hootenanny, sets for Hullabaloo, Shindig!, Soul Train, Midnight Special, and even Don Kirschner’s Rock Concert.
The cool things that you’ll find in these discs are a very young Judy Collins, a pre-solo June Carter with The Carter Family, a beautiful and unmistakable pre-solo, Carly Simon (who sing a version of “Turn, Turn, Turn"), and other nuggets. There is Barry McGuire, whose “Eve of Destruction” would post as a hit, as he played with The New Christy Minstrels, John Phillips with The Journeymen before he became a Papa with The Mamas and The Papas, and Johnny Cash.
But those artists were hardly the highlights of this show. There were many that provided wonderful performances and a lot of them show up here. There are the stunning, and well received, performances of Marion Williams & Stars of Faith (who will bring to mind Janis Joplin), as well as performances by bluegrass stars, Flatt & Scruggs. As I understand, there are many who have not made it to this set (likely due to the aforementioned musical rights morass) such as a pre-Simon & Garfunkel incarnation. But, with more than 80 performances by some 47 artists, and a few comedy sets by Louis Nye, Bill Cosby, Woody Allen, including a surprising political send-up by Vaughn Meader, there will be more than enough to entertain as you relive or enjoy this slice of history.
Regardless, this collection is very important in that it reveals and represents admirably the early periods of Rock. If you remember these periods or are something of the archivist, then Shout! Factory’s brilliantly cleaned up video and sound will please the hell out of you. I cannot recommend this Hootenanny 3DVD ‘best of’ enough to you.
