Whatever happened to the great music variety shows?

Those used to be really important for music.

Ed Sullivan of course
Smothers Bros
Sonny and Cher
Glen Campbell

They need shows like that on the networks on prime time now. Like that would ever happen again.

 

Who is this hypothetical "they" who need those shows?
There is no such mass captive audience anymore.
Programming one in prime time would be certain ratings disaster.

 

Maybe not a golden classic, but I loved David Sanborn's "Night Music". Where else could you watch Eric Clapton, Robert Cray, Warren Zevon, Charlie Haden, Steve Turre, NRBQ, and Dan Hicks all on the same program, playing together.

 

you can thank hal wilner for the eclectic musical combinations on that show. conway twitty and the residents was a classic as was leonard cohen and sonny rollins.

 

Don't forget JacK Benny's show would also often have a variety format as well. Last week Connie Francis was his featured guest. You can catch Jack's show Sunday nights on the RTV (Retro TV) network if you get it.

 

People decided that they really didn't like variety just more of the same old crap.

 

The current show that I find provides a good variety and presented like no other music show on TV is Jools Holland's Later. I'm surprised this show isn't more discussed and popular than it is but if I want to discover new artists performing on the stage, I turn on Jools' show. And not only do you see modern day, cutting edge artists but they throw in Tom Jones, Andy Williams, Burt Bacharach, Glen Campbell, etc. in the mix. Paul McCartney's even been on the show.

 

I blame the Bay City Rollers and Howard Cosell.

 

The problem is that popular music is so fragmented now. MTV even dropped their Total Request Live show long ago, and that consisted of only the most popular music videos. People can just hit up YouTube and see their favorite artists nowadays. About all you see now are the musical guests on late night like the talk shows and Saturday Night Live.

American Idol seems to be filling the quota for music on primetime TV anyway. Maybe a music show needs to have the drama of a competition to succeed nowadays.

 

+1 for Later with Jools Holland, currently available in the US on Ovation (edited down from it's original BBC incarnation, though).

Personally I'd like to see an American Idol type competition to see if some of today's heavily auto-tuned pop stars can actually sing.

 

The kids started to drop acid and watch "The Wizard of Oz" with the TV's sound off and Dark Side of the Moon on the stereo.

Didn't you take history when you went to school?

 

Heh

 

One of the factors may have been oversaturation with similar variety shows from Ed Sullivan's Toast of the Town in 1948 to their gradually diminishing in the 1970's and 1980's. Maybe there were just too many of them. (I keep hoping that is true regarding the number of Reality shows.)

 

Let's not forget the "Dean Martin Show" every Thursday night at 10PM on NBC. They were great variety shows with lots of music.

 

Living High in the Dirty Business of Dreams

And a brilliant comic as host.

 

That sort of campy stuff went out by the early 80's.

 

I think as the bigger musical acts started clocking serious money on concert mega-tours, the incentive and appeal to do variety shows wore off for them. The networks always used them as a cheap way to fill programming, but the rise of dedicated music channels showing nothing but music videos helped to end interest in them.

 

i remember the family watching those shows-i would be reading & not paying attention
until a rock band came on.of course,now i would enjoy some of the pop offerings,since
i learned to love the kind of "adult " music i thought so corny back then.on the other
hand, there were a lot of lame,mediocre acts on those shows.

 

too expensive to book the big acts.

also senor wences is gone, so what's the point?

 

There are more than 3 channels to choose from now.

 

more than three channels, but really nothing to choose from.

 

The kids'll eat it up!

Springsteen was right!

Suggestion A: Hey—Why doesn't a cable channel do re-runs of the Dean Martin Show, now that everybody's in on the joke?

Suggestion B: A revamp of the Ed Sullivan Show With Marilyn Manson as host!

 

ed sullivan was marilyn manson's father. little known fact.

 

I miss the all music shows like Midnight Special and Old Grey Whistle Test...they were all about showcasing current music, and they weren't a prime time thing. Seems like something along those lines could make a go of it today, especially with this handy internet thing.

But today, it happens in the late night talk shows--play a quickie and cut to commercial.