There is a wealth of classic music clips available these days, allowing one to vicariously enjoy moments which stretch over the years since the advent of film. Never seen The Doors or Jefferson Airplane or The Beatles? No matter, they’re there at the click of a mouse with concerts and songs galore. If you have the time to spare, you can travel down a veritable rabbit hole which is essentially what your scribes at Americana UK are tasked with when it comes to our classic clips feature. For this writer, some of the most fascinating watches are to be seen when there is a juxtaposition of our relatively niche scene and your regular run of the mill telly entertainment.
It’s not a new phenomenon. Television has a long history of inserting musical entertainment of all sorts into chat shows, kid’s TV and current affairs programmes. One minute you’re enjoying the likes of Crackerjack and then a bunch of drug sodden musicians suddenly appear to play their latest single. The Andrew Marr Sunday politics programme was like a grown up version of those vintage shows as they regularly invited a band to close the show after they had dispensed with solving the political problems of the day. With the talking heads – usually politicians – forced to stay and watch the band until the closing credits rolled, this was, at times quite surreal. One of my favourite moments was seeing Phillip Hammond forced to tap his feet to the jangling guitars of The Dreaming Spires. Moreover, their song, ‘All Kinds of People’, remains as pertinent today (only more so) as it did back then.
