Youth Culture Forever: Celebrating 50 Years of ‘The T.A.M.I. Show’
This week marks the 50th anniversary of one of the most important events in music history. It was an occasion that brought together many of 1964’s biggest acts from all across the pop world for two nights of incredible performances, kitschy dancing, and nonstop adolescent screaming. Knowingly or not, it set the stage for the next few decades of popular culture on various fronts, and may have even scored a few points for racial equality. It had a brief run in movie theaters, and then spent the next few decades languishing in obscurity; the sort of relic that only weird old guys who spent hundreds of dollars on film prints knew about. Thankfully, Shout! Factory intervened with a DVD release in 2010, and the film has been helping to blow minds and shake moneymakers ever since. So let’s look back on 50 years of the excitement, entertainment, and music of teenage America: The T.A.M.I. Show.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Nn77nHa_H9c
“T.A.M.I.” stands for either “Teenage Awards Music International” or “Teen Age Music International,” depending on which promotional materials you’re looking at. In 1964, the teenager was still a relatively new concept, and the idea of marketing music specifically towards teenagers was proving itself to be a viable business model, thanks to some moptops from Liverpool who had landed on US shores just seven months earlier. So on October 28th and 29th, the Santa Monica Civic Auditorium was filled to the brim with high school students clutching free tickets, ready to hoot and holler. Audience members included Partridge Family member David Cassidy and filmmaker/music video pioneer John Landis, both of whom were seventh graders at the time. It’s not a stretch to consider that The T.A.M.I. Show would have a profound effect on what both of these young men would go on to accomplish later in life.
What set The T.A.M.I. Show apart was how it gleefully drew artists from all over the spectrum of popular music. Chuck Berry opened the show, the original wild man of rock ‘n’ roll passing the torch to the next generation. From there, it’s a journey across the musical cosmos, making stops in R&B (Smokey Robinson and the Miracles; Marvin Gaye; the Supremes), surf rock (the Beach Boys; Jan and Dean, who also served as emcees of the show), pop (Lesley Gore), British Invasion (Gerry and the Pacemakers, Billy J. Kramer and the Dakotas), and garage rock (the Barbarians), before closing out the show with the one-two punch of James Brown and the Rolling Stones.
Leaving aside its status as a cultural landmark, The T.A.M.I. Show works first and foremost as a wonderful time capsule. We are treated to future greats in their infancy (just look at young Dennis Wilson bashing the hell out of his drum kit during the Beach Boys’ set), or at the top of their game (the Supremes, the Miracles, and Lesley Gore as seen here are likely how all three acts would wish to be remembered). We get reminded of some great curios, like Jan and Dean introducing the world to the concept of “sidewalk surfing,” the Barbarians’ one-handed drummer Victor Moulton, who tweaked his prosthetic hook so it could hold a drumstick, and those ever-present go-go dancers, who included future Young Frankenstein and Mr. Mom star Terri Garr, and Toni Basil of ’80s “Mickey” fame.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5_jqhXNF98A
And then, of course, there’s James Brown and the Rolling Stones. Neither were particularly established names at the time; Brown was a few months away from releasing his breakthrough single, “Papa’s Got A Brand New Bag,” and the Stones had just recently made their first appearance on Ed Sullivan to promote their first big US single, “Time Is On My Side.” Brown performed first and completely owned the stage from the moment he made his entrance. Backed by the robotic funk of the Famous Flames, Brown danced, howled, and sweated like the superstar he was yet to be.
In subsequent interviews, Keith Richards has claimed that the Stones’ biggest professional mistake was agreeing to follow Brown on The T.A.M.I. Show (Brown, for his part, was reportedly incredulous about not closing the show, telling director Steve Binder, “Nobody could follow me.”) In the end, it took some encouraging words from Marvin Gaye — who told them, “Just go out there and do your thing” — to buck up the Stones, who put on a blistering, seductive set of raucous blues rock. Any doubts that the Stones were the real deal are effectively silenced by the possessed, erotic look in Mick Jagger’s eyes as he stalks the stage. All those girls aren’t screaming because they just found a penny on the ground, let’s put it that way.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lDrIE9m7f74
Behind the scenes, The T.A.M.I. Show brought together an impeccable pedigree of talent. The show’s director, Steve Binder, who worked on The Steve Allen Show at the time, would parlay this gig into a lifetime of portraying rock ‘n’ roll on television, from the variety show Hullabaloo to Elvis Presley’s legendary ’68 Comeback Special. Jack Nitzsche, the show’s musical director, had cut his teeth working with Phil Spector, and would go on to work with a few of the show’s musical acts, including the Beach Boys and the Rolling Stones, and most famously, Neil Young’s early solo work. The backing band that Nitzsche brought together would arguably become known as the Wrecking Crew. If you needed West Coast session musicians in the Sixties, you called on these folks, whose ranks included Leon Russell, Glen Campbell, Carol Kaye, and Hal Blaine. Perhaps most importantly, The T.A.M.I. Show was the second program ever to be shot in Electronovision, a system of high definition video specifically designed to be converted to film. Electronovision would prove to be a groundbreaker not just for concert films, but eventually music videos.
And furthermore, in it’s own quiet, unassuming way, The T.A.M.I. Show scored one for the Civil Rights movement. Keep in mind, society was still deeply segregated in 1964 — despite LBJ signing the Civil Rights Act into law on July 2 — and the entertainment industry was no exception. So it was somewhat unprecedented to see not only black artists and white artists sharing the stage together, but to look out into the audience and see black kids and white kids dancing together. Binder credits the film with “bridging the color gap in America to a great degree,” and all you need to do is watch the show’s grand finale, with all the artists onstage jamming together in harmony to be reminded of the great things that can happen when youth and music collide.
