Re: [Harp-L] LW on video (was LW in Europe)

[Tom Ball <havaball@xxxxxxx>]

In response to my inquiry, Scott Dirks has contacted me off-list with 
the following Email.  It is both comprehensive and  definitive, and 
Scott gave permission for it to be forwarded to the list.  Thank you 
indeed, Scott, and thanks again for the great LW bio!   (And thanks 
also to Bert, Tom E, and everyone else who contacted me both on-list 
and off.)

For those of you who have yet to read "Blues With a Feeling," the 
Little Walter biography by Scott (co-written with Ward Gaines and 
Tony Glover,) I would recommend it highly -- IMHO it is one of the 
finest, most complete and balanced music bios ever written.
-TB

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Tom Ball wrote:
Recently there has been a discussion of the brief Little Walter clips 
of him accompanying other artists at the AFBF in Europe, which brings 
to mind the following question:

According to Paul Vernon's book "African-American Blues, Rhythm and 
Blues, Gospel and Zydeco on Film and Video, 1926-1997," somewhere 
there are two other clips of LW as well:

'My Babe' from the British TV show 'Ready, Steady, Go' (Sept 25, 1964,) and
My Babe' and "Juke' from the British TV show 'Beat Room' (PV gives 
the date as Oct 26, '64; the LW bio suggests Sep 26.)

In both cases it is thought that Walter only lip-synched and/or faked 
the harp playing on these shows, but nevertheless these clips would 
be very entertaining to see...

As far as I know the clips themselves have never surfaced -- either 
officially or through booted collector video. Has anyone actually 
seen them? Were they destroyed after the initial airing(s)? (Scott D, 
do you still occasionally monitor this list? <g>)

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To which Scott replied:
I do, but only via the "harp-l archives" page in "Yahoo groups", 
which means I can't post notes to the group.  But you're welcome to 
forward this info if you'd like.

The Ready, Steady, Go footage WAS lip synched, but the Beat Room 
footage probably was not.  I saw that Tom Ellis posted a note with 
good details on the RST footage, to which I'll only add that I've 
also heard that Dave Clark's company doesn't actually *have* a lot of 
the old RST shows.  Apparently they got some of the ones with 
high-profile British Invasion acts like the Beatles, Stones, Kinks 
and Who, which they've licensed out over the years, but my 
understanding is that they don't actually have the show with Little 
Walter, nor many of the other shows without a high-profile pop star 
as a guest.

I've spent a lot of time trying to track down the Beat Room LW 
footage, with no luck.  I did however find ONE episode (featuring Tom 
Jones) a few years ago, and at least on that episode, all of the 4 
acts perform live, including John Lee Hooker who is backed by an 
now-unknown Brit R&B band that featured the future guitarist from the 
group Yes.

LW also performed with Long John Baldry during his '64 British tour, 
and according to a mention in Melody Maker magazine, that performance 
was "filmed for Southern TV".  Southern TV doesn't exist anymore, and 
none of my many inquiries have ever even come up with any evidence 
that this "film" was ever broadcast.

In '67, LW performed in the Netherlands on a TV show which definitely 
WAS recorded and broadcast at a later date (this info
came from someone who was at the performance who then watched in on 
TV a couple of weeks later.)  I've found documentation of this, made 
my own inquiries, and also a friend over there with connections 
looked into it, but never had any luck finding the footage.  The only 
answer we've ever gotten is that it probably doesn't exist anymore, 
since it hasn't been seen or shown since right after the initial 
airing.

There was a performance on German TV during that tour, but when I 
started investigating this stuff in earnest 15 years ago, one of the 
first things I heard was that the German footage was disposed of when 
the vaults were purged in the 1970s, so I never followed up any 
further.

The only other confirmed TV performance I ever dscovered was the one 
on Danish TV with Hound Dog and Koko Taylor, which was broadcast in 
Denmark in 1968 and then buried in their vaults.  I acquired a dub of 
it around 10 years ago directly from Danish TV, but sat on it while I 
looked for other stuff.  A few years ago Danish TV opened their 
vaults up and made everything available for licensing, so now this 
footage is commercially available on DVD.

And as far as I know, that's it for LW performance footage.  But I 
would encourage anyone who is so inclined to pick up where I left off 
and continue looking!

Scott