Fascinating
documentary on BBC4 about legendary music programme Ready
Steady Go, which aired between 1963 and 1966.
When I first got into music, and all things modernist, it was up there
as a key influence. I liked its catchphrase
“the weekend starts here”, announcing a show featuring great music to be
watched by a generation of soul stylists before heading for The Scene or The
Flamingo. It was referenced in the clip in Quadrophenia where Jimmy watches the show in his wet “shrink-to-fit” Levis,
much to the disdain of his parents. It was
also celebrated by Generation X in their 1977 single “Ready Steady Go”,
complete with hookline “because I’m in love with Cathy McGowan”.
The show
was produced by Rediffusion’s Head of Entertainment Elkan Allan, directed and
produced by Vicki Wickham and Michael Lindsay Hogg (who also interestingly
directed some episodes of Brideshead Revisited) amongst others. The documentary featured fascinating
contributions from Wickham and Hogg, including the reminiscence from the latter
that, following a show dedicated a certain legendary singer “James Brown said I
have soul”. I agree with the sentiments
he expressed. That was an accolade to outstrip the majority out there.
The documentary
reflected the anarchic edge to Ready Steady Go, some of which was arrived at by
accident. The first studio used was
small, so much so that, by necessity, there was no separation between audience
and artist. The result was that the
performers used a variety of small stages and the audience mingled freely. The effect visually was to give the show a unique,
authentic quality. Other shows may have
tried to replicate it but the effect was never as natural as on the original.
The show really
was a unique coming together of a small number of visionaries, who appreciated
the potential of the times they were living through and made the most of it;
the British R&B boom bands, the emergence of Motown and Stax and influences
from the west coast. The ethos of the
show was in touch with what was happening on the street, from recruiting
archetypal mod Cathy McGowan as presenter to visiting the clubs the young mods
visited to pick the show’s dancers.
The
documentary included all sorts of anecdotes, such as the initial Tamla Motown
tour of Britain playing to empty houses, and Georgie Fame being added to the
bill to increase ticket sales. It’s a shame so much of the footage has been
wiped. I would have loved to have seen
clips of Small Faces, The Creation and The Action, to name but three, who were
key bands of the period and whose legacy has stood the test of time.
But there
were plenty of great clips in both the documentary itself and the “best of”
show that followed. Dusty Springfield
and Chris Farlowe were regulars on the show.
I loved the footage of The Rolling Stones and perhaps the most menacing
performance of Paint It Black I’ve seen, where the lights were turned off intermittently. The idea was Lindsay Hogg’s, as was Pete
Townshend putting a camera on the machine head of his guitar, with which he
would strike Keith Moon’s cymbals from time to time during Anyway Anyhow
Anywhere (the one in the clip in Quadrophenia), giving the effect of the screen
shaking. It worked perfectly.
All in
all, an interesting night’s viewing. It was
a ground breaking show which should have continued past 1966. Sadly, there were other shows that had come
afterwards, that were doing a similar thing, and it couldn’t compete. But the original’s still the greatest, as
this documentary makes clear. We need a
new Ready Steady Go to showcase the underground talent that is out there
today. We really do.