Clips from old syndicated country shows (Pet Milk Opry, etc.)

The proprietor of this place the other day posted a clip of Johnny Cash singing "Big River" on the old Pet Milk Grand Old Opry syndicated TV show. The pristine clip he posted may be the best quality one floating around out there.

However, as I noted in my response to this thread, there's a lot of that stuff circulating in lesser video quality but no less fantastic musical quality. And I also mentioned my days growing up in the 1960s South ... and it might have been broadcast elsewhere in the country, but given that I was in elementary school I hadn't traveled very broadly at that point , I can only speak of my experience ... where every Saturday afternoon usually, THIS was what was on TV, hours of shows featuring legends making legendary music, on one of the two channels we got in those days, rather than network programming or sports events.

And it was utterly glorious ...

So I'm going to post a few, anyone else want to contribute, have at it.

 

Buck's show is an absolute treasure trove of music ...

 

Call it a spoiler if you want to ... but the smile Earl Scruggs shoots Mother Maybelle in that clip after he finishes his last solo is one of the sweetest moments I've ever seen during a musical performance.

 

Another priceless resource for classic country are the Gannaway films, recorded in Nashville ca. 1954-56. (I see just now that JozefK has posted something from one of them.) I first saw these when PBS ran them in the early 1980s under the show title Classic Country.

There have been several video collections put out since then, and many of these clips are on YouTube. I'll find a few of my favorites as time permits.

 

Yes those are great. One TV station in my area, I don't know if they had a true syndication deal or not, ran clips from them on weekday afternoons for a while back in the '60s.

 

Just think about this ... live music, played and recorded well, on TV, every week. Those were the days.

 

Including some country shredding ...

 

Flatt and Scruggs was my favorite ... my daddy, RIP, who taught me how to play guitar, had the old Mercury album with them posed in front of their bus with "Foggy Mountain Breakdown" on it and I about wore it out; then the Beatles came out and I became a rock and roller although I never lost my love for Flatt and Scruggs ... and I'll always be grateful that he took me to see them live twice, first time I was 5 years old but I freaking ABSOLUTELY remember everything about that night, it was such an experience.

 

Here's a great performance from the Gannaway collection.

Webb Pierce recorded two studio versions of "Teenage Boogie" (itself based on his "Hayride Boogie" from several years previous, when he first came to notice on the Louisiana Hayride).

But neither of them rocks as hard as this spirited live performance.