New Musical Express. Why no official release?

I watched the 1965 NME on youtube the other night and was completely blown away by this amazing collection of performances, especially by the Beatles. There is another clip of the Beatles from the NME 1964 show which is also great. I found a higher quality transfer of the Van Morrison performance which hopefully indicates that the whole concert could look and sound very good.

Anybody know why these wonderful performances haven't had an official release yet?

 

My guess is they don't have the requisite legal clearances to put it out. Pretty amazing line-up of artists. Thank the gods for footwear!

 

I wish there was a copy of the 1967 show in existence....

 

Official release of the NME Poll Winners Concerts may be problematic due of the notoriety of the emcee (Jimmy Savile).


Cat

 

Dave Clark probably owns it and is sitting on it like the other stuff he's got.

 

The 1964 NME Poll Winners' Concert was filmed by UK TV company ABC, who at the time held the weekend ITV franchises for both the Midlands and North of England. In mid 1968 all of the ITV franchises were re-allocated, with both the Midlands and North of England ones being re-allocated to their weekday operators, and ABC therefore lost both. However they effectively merged with London operator Associated-Rediffusion to become London weekday operator Thames TV. Thames themselves lost their ITV franchise during the re-allocation of 1993, continuing as a production company, changing hands several times.

Consequentially this means that there's probably some lost paperwork over the years as to who actually owns the rights to the filmed performance - I'm aware of similar issues with other content from defunct ITV operators.

 

As I understand it, by '67 & '68 more control was being exerted by various groups and their record company managements over media presentation, especially among top tier groups like the Beatles & Stones. This had an impact on what was filmed for broadcast and what wasn't. Also, around this time the NME Poll Winners Concert moved from film to videotape and ...as many here know... the BBC was notorious for wiping and reusing videotape in the 60's as a cost saving measure. Yes, this is a tragic loss, historically speaking.


Cat

 

The 1967, 1968 and 1969 concerts appear not to have been televised. ABC's coverage of the 1966 concert wasn't taken up by all ITV regions, and it seems that they didn't bother after that - the loss of their franchise was known by the time of the 1967 concert. The BBC's wouldn't have been able to take over broadcasting of the concert due to its connections with a commercial publication.

Wembley Empire Pool (as the venue was then called) also hosted a charity music concert around the same time of the year. The BBC broadcast a short excerpt of that annually as the Record Star Show.

 

Material from these programs have appeared on the various British Invasion DVD's by Reelin' In The Years (The Hollies, Gerry & The Pacemakers, Dusty Springfield, Herman's Hermits).