Film Flashback February 28, 1972

There was a time when Murfreesboro was reduced to just two movie screens. There was the Martin Theatre in its pre-Twin days and there was the Marbro Drive-In with its one huge screen. The Princess Theatre had closed its doors and the Cinema One was several years away. It would open April 17, 1974 with The Three Musketeers. You could go see if a movie was playing on campus at M.T.S.U., but the the theatre and screen was very small. Your other best option was to drive to Nashville, but luckily on this night in 1972 there are a couple of great movies playing. 2001: A Space Odyssey is at the Martin Theatre playing for just three days. The movie had been out for 4 years at this point and it was to re-released in 1974, 1977, and 1980 so I'm perplexed why it would be playing in 1972. Gone With The Wind which had been re-released in 1971 had run from February 23-26. Diamonds Are Forever would follow it. 2001: A Space Odyssey is a stellar (get it) movie. Even if you've never seen it there are parts of it that have become pop culture totems. HAL-9000 may be fictional, but Siri and Alexa owe him some respect. Stanley Kubrick is often credited with filming the "faked moon landing" based on his direction of this sci-fi classic. If you have never seen it, you should set aside an afternoon to do so. 

The Marbro Drive-In had future cult favorite Two-Lane Blacktop which starred rock musicians James Taylor and Dennis Wilson. One of my favorite character actors Warren Oates is also a big part of this enigmatic film. Laurie Bird is wonderful as The Girl. Yes, that's right. She's just called The Girl. James Taylor is The Driver. Dennis Wilson is The Mechanic. Warren Oates character drives a brand new Pontiac G.T.O. Judge model so he's known as G.T.O.. His is perhaps the most developed character in the movie. Taylor and Wilson don't have many lines and what few they have are about the car The Driver drives. It's a 1955 Chevrolet. There were three used for the film and one of those became the 55 Chevy rolled in the American Graffiti drag race scene at the end. The main characters just drift from town to town looking to win enough money to keep going. There doesn't seem to be much purpose in the Monte Hellman directed film. When The Driver and The Mechanic run into Warren Oates's G.T.O. character he talks them into racing across the county to Washington D.C. for the pink slips of the cars, but as the movie goes on you see there will be no final scene showing who gets there first. The moment is the only thing that matters and it's exemplified by Laurie Bird's The Girl who plays all of the male characters off each other before leaving with a guy on a motorcycle. She's just drifting too. A hippie haze hangs over the film, but in a mild buzzed out way. I love its aimlessness and the rootlessness of the characters. Universal Pictures was probably hoping it would be the next Easy Rider, but it was a flop. Laurie Bird would tragically commit suicide in 1979. Dennis Wilson would drown in 1983. I have the Criterion DVD release of Two-Lane Blacktop. The movie is definitely not for everyone, but I love its languid pace when its about the speed of automobiles. The racetrack scenes were filmed at Memphis's now long gone Lakeland Racetrack. There's also a scene at Deals Gap on the Tennessee-North Carolina border. What a treat it would have been to have seen this movie at a drive-in. 

Sunday Showcase February 22, 1976

It was Grammy time back in 1976 so that year's hosts grace the cover of the Sunday Showcase. Andy Williams gets interviewed and lets us all know what he thinks about hard rock. And to think I used to like Andy.

Now, let's just go through this Sunday Showcase in order.

I never went shopping at Bernie's, but it seems like it must have been a great department store. 

The super exciting news this week is the arrival of WZTV channel 17. It was a big deal.

The one tune on the Top 10 Records list from February 22, 1976 that I was super crazy about was the "Theme From "S.W.A.T"." I loved the funky track and I loved the show. I still have the 45.

If you couldn't watch Channel 17 on its scheduled debut of February 28, you could go check out some Southern rock at Municipal Auditorium with The Outlaws and Elvin Bishop opening for The Marshall Tucker Band. Note how many banks you could purchase tickets from back then. 

If I had to pick a favorite station from my childhood it would have to be Channel 2 which used to be Channel 8. ABC was where it was at for me. Here's a big ad for what was showing that Sunday night. Six Million Dollar Man was one I rarely missed. 

Channel 2 was my favorite prime time viewing, but channel 5 was my afternoon fix. They would show movies in the afternoon during the weekday and this week was a theme week featuring Universal horror films. Plus it was their Dialing for Dollars call in contest for added thrills. Here is what was shown this week.

Monday

Tuesday

Wednesday

Thursday

Friday

Steve Martin would be at the Exit/In on Sunday and Monday. 

David Bowie would be coming to play Nashville again soon on what was dubbed his Isolar tour. He played Nashville often during the 70's, but I don't believe he ever came back after his 1978 Isolar II tour. If he did let me know in the comments section. Even better if you were at this show share your experience in the comments.

I don't know about you, but nothing screams 70's as much as creating my own plant oasis.

The Ask Showcase page was often near the end of the section, but this week's edition we find on page 32. I'm mystified that someone would think Michael Learned and Karen Grassle were the same person, but I do love a good conspiracy theory. It's also funny to me that someone thought the Bionic Woman was married to the Six Million Dollar Man. 

It's time once again to play a game I call what was little Wally watching. The date would be Saturday February 28, 1976 and unless it was unseasonably warm or perhaps snowing the odds are pretty good I would be inside watching a little television. So, here's what I had to choose from.

7 AM I would be digging Scatman Crother's voice over work as Hong Kong Phooey or I might be catching Pebbles and Bam Bam. 

730 AM It's an hour of Bugs Bunny and Road Runner. I still enjoy Road Runner cartoons to this day, but Bugs Bunny just annoys me now. 

830 AM I was a huge Scooby Doo fan so I'm leaving the channel alone. My kids can attest that my love of Scooby Doo is still strong. 

9 AM Land Of The Lost is totally great. There's no way I would miss it. This would either be a season 1 or 2 rerun. 

930 AM I'm switching over to either Super Friends or the Shazam/Isis Hour. 

10 AM I'm probably switching between Planet Of The Apes and the Far Out Space Nuts. "I said lunch not lunch."

1030 AM Look at the choices! Soul Train, Ghost Busters, or Mister Rogers, I loved all of those shows. I guess it would depend on my mood or parents's mood on which one of these shows I'd watch.

11 AM Zoom is easily one of my favorite shows when I was growing up. I learned the Boston zip code thanks to it. 0-2-1-3-4! Send it to Zoom. This episode would probably be from the 1975-1976 season.

1130 AM It's either Fat Albert or American Bandstand

12 Noon If the CBS Children's Film Festival was showing something cool I would watch it. If not I would click over to Bandstand or the Sesame Street rerun. One thing I remember about these Sesame Street reruns shown on Saturday was that the end credits would just be a shot from a train of the tracks as you rolled along. I have yet to find any proof of this memory. If anybody out there reading this also recalls these let me know. 

1 PM to 5 PM it's sports, and more sports. I might watch some of these broadcasts, but I was quite likely to be doing something else. 

5 PM The Lone Ranger was a big deal in my house as my father loved the show, but we also tended to watch the Porter Wagoner show often too. 

530 PM It's time for that Ole Nashville Music.

6 PM Hee Haw was definitely on at our house. We wouldn't have been able to receive Channel 17 yet, so if we happened to have this week's Showcase I would have looked longingly at the schedule showing Wrestling airing at this time. 

7 PM Emergency! was in its fifth season, but I still loved it. 

8 PM S.W.A.T. was so good although it did briefly make me think the local UPS trucks were full of police in tactical gear. 

9 PM I'm only 9 years old so it's usually off to bed for me. Sometimes my parents would let me stay up. They might have watched the Grammy awards on this night. Notice it's on late and only for an hour and a half. 

If I managed to stay awake I would want to tune into the Nick Gulas promoted wrestling at 1030. SNL is not shown live as it doesn't come on until 1130 Central here. 

Daddy Said Sell

Joe Cocker would be coming to play Municipal on March 16 with Point Blank and Ozark Mountain Daredevils opening. I got to see Ozark Mountain Devils live at the One For The Sun concert held at Starwood Amphitheater in June of 1986. 

There were still many drive-in theatre's back in 1976. This isn't even all of them. 

The second to last page of the Sunday Showcase is for Tune In and this week's song is an oldie covered by Nazareth. I like how the band talks about how they run amok when they play live. 

That's it for this week. I hope you enjoyed it.

Film Flashback February 21, 1970

It was a mixed bag of movies back in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on February 21, 1970. We'll head out to the Marbro Drive-In for a double feature. The Family Way is probably better known now for having its score written by Paul McCartney and arranged by George Martin, but it's quite the charming film. Hayley Mills would marry co-director Roy Boulting becoming a young newlywed in real life in addition to playing the role of one. I wish I had a trailer to share, but none can be found so a piece of music from it must suffice.  Up The Down Staircase features Sandy Dennis as a young English teacher in an inner city high school. "I want to talk about my potential."

Martin Theatre has Walt Disney's One Hundred and One Dalmatians during its first re-release run having originally come out in 1961. There's not much to say about this one other than it's a fantastic classic.

Last on this week's list is an X rated film. Persons under 17 not admitted even if they happened to be with a guardian. The Princess Theatre was nearing the end of its days and it tended to show more outrageous fare. More is a hippy dippy love story that turns to hard drug addiction. The movie is far more famous for it's soundtrack composed by Pink Floyd. There is nudity in the official movie trailer so don't say I didn't warn you. I'm sure the showing at the Princess was a hit with the discerning M.T.S.U. students back then. 

That's all for this week. Next week we're headed to another year and I promise it will be out of this world. 

Sunday Showcase Tune In Special 1975 - 1980

This week I'm not going to review one Sunday Showcase. I'm going to bring to you loyal readers some of the many Tune In pages which were featured instead. I'm sure you remember the Tune In part where a current popular song's lyrics and chords would get published along with a blurb about the performing artist which was quite often not the person who wrote the song. I believe this Tune In section didn't originate in the Sunday Showcase, but was originally part of the Sunday Magazine in a sub-section titled Young World. I grabbed a few of these for you. You will have to click on the photos to make them bigger. I've added YouTube of the studio versions of the tunes if you want to play along.

January 20, 1975

August 17, 1975

The first Tune In featured in a Sunday Showcase proper is "Lyin' Eyes" by the Eagles. It was the November 9, 1975 issue if you really want to search it out. Why did The Tennessean begin putting the Tune In page in the Sunday Showcase? I would guess the biggest reason is that the Sunday Magazine and it's sub-section Young World ceased to exist and was replaced by the nationally syndicated Parade insert. Here's one of my all time favorite entertainers Groucho Marx on the cover of that first Parade featured in The Tennessean.

From here on out the Tune In section would be in the Sunday Showcase thrilling us kids, teenagers, and adults alike with songs and artists we might sometimes like. It would be popular tunes of the day from rock, country, and soul featured. This was a real treat in an era where the only way to get song lyrics and music was to either buy a songbook or perhaps Hit Parader magazine which featured songs of the day. This part of the Sunday Showcase was usually on one of the last couple of pages of the section right after the Ask Showcase page so I'd flip to the back just to see if I liked the tune or not before starting at the front. I hope all of these tunes take you back to those days. My method for picking the songs was to randomly take a date and see if it was a song I enjoyed back when I was a kid except for one. If you think you know which one I didn't like feel free to add a comment with your guess. One hint: it's not "Hot Rod Hearts." I was rather overjoyed that I found that one randomly. I bought the 45 when I was in 8th grade. I was just a dreamer killing time. I'm posting the songs chronologically. 

November 23, 1975

January 18, 1976

August 8, 1976

March 6, 1977

December 18, 1977

February 5, 1978

August 13, 1978

March 11, 1979

August 26, 1979

September 2, 1979

April 13, 1980

October 19, 1980

A few short weeks later on November 2, 1980 Tune In would feature "Coming Out" by Diana Ross. That was a tune that was in heavy rotation at the skating rink just like the "Hot Rod Hearts" single so it's cool to see it here. Next week's paper wouldn't have a Tune In. There is a story about celebrity children facing perils instead. November 16, 1980 would have a song, but it's not labeled Tune In. It's just a country tune called "She Can't Say That Anymore" made popular by John Conlee. "Smoky Mountain Rain" is featured the following week and a Brenda Lee tune in the November 30th edition of the paper. The Milsap sung "Smoky Mountain Rain" had crossed over to the pop charts (I bought the 45) so maybe the paper was just forgetting the Tune In title. Sadly, that wasn't the case. The December 7, 1980 paper revealed that Tune In had been tuned out as from now on only country songs would be featured under the new page title of Nashville Beat. No longer would I flip straight to the back of the Sunday Showcase to see if it was a song I liked. A part of my youth was now gone. It's the nature of life. I loved the Tune In page, but for whatever reason (probably money) it was removed and something else took its spot. This sounds very familiar in light of Nashville's current boom. Oh well, enjoy this Diana Ross song written by Nile Rodgers and Bernard Edwards of Chic that used to get me roller skating at top speed at Skatecenter West aka Jack's. 

December 2, 1980

Film Flashback February 14, 1986

There were lots of choices of movies to see on Valentine's Day 34 years ago in Murfreesboro, Tennessee. The Martin Four has a horror movie, a couple of romances, and an action bromance. 

Freddy was getting his revenge in A Nightmare On Elm Street 2 Freddy's Revenge. I've never been a huge fan of these movies, but Freddy is definitely an icon of horror. The first movie is the best of the bunch, but it's diminishing returns ever after. I do like Scary Terry on Rick and Morty though. 

Out of Africa would win seven Academy Awards with mega stars Robert Redford and Meryl Streep starring in the Sydney Pollack directed blockbuster. It would get Best Picture and Pollack would get Best Director while netting 11 nominations total. I have never seen this melodrama, but I might have to watch it one of these days. 

I did go see Murphy's Romance at the Martin Four when it was running there. It might seem a bit odd for a then single 19 year old to go see a romance movie instead of the horror film or action film playing, but I was a big fan of both James Garner and Sally Field. The trailer and television spots had made the movie look like a good combo of romance and comedy. It was a very entertaining film. Garner got an Academy Award nomination for the film directed by Martin Ritt. 

The other option at Martin Four was a Chuck Norris and Lee Marvin action film The Delta Force. It was a Cannon Film so you know it had a certain level of B movie fun to it. George Kennedy and Shelley Winters are also part of the cast. The trailer is tough to take in this post 9-11 world. Many years have passed, but the level of foreshadowing real events pretty much smacked me in the face. It was the last film of Lee Marvin.

The Cinema Twin has Kevin Bacon in Quicksilver and the Steven Spielberg juggernaut The Color Purple with Whoopi Goldberg, Danny Glover, and Oprah Winfrey which, like Out of Africa, also received 11 Academy Award nominations, but would not win any. The movie would play at the Cinema Twin for quite some time. I have not seen either of these films, but need to get around to watching them someday.

So that's what was playing at the movies in Murfreesboro, Tennessee on February 14, 1986. We'll be heading back fifty years next week to check out an X rated flick with Pink Floyd ties. 

Music For Monday - Desire & The Ville Posse, Sir Chance 1st, Devastating Crew, and the Blow Pop Crew

I got to reminiscing the other day with a guy about the hip-hop rap scene back in Nashville during the 80's and he got this wonderful glint in his eyes when he talked about the Blow Pop Crew and others. I hope these tunes give you that same glint.

Sunday Showcase February 11, 1973

It's the Flintstones On Ice and Duke Ellington gracing the cover of this week's Sunday Showcase. Let's take the A train all the yabba dabba doo way back to February 11, 1973.

That very Sunday on the radio you had a choice of classical performances to enjoy, but most interesting for me is the different formats and call letters of several of the stations from today. FM radio was really catching on, but the big hitters were still on the AM band with WMAK and WLAC being the two big pop music ones.

The number one tune in Nashville for this week was "Dueling Banjos" which I have always loved. It also gives me a guidepost to where I was living then. I believe my family was a few months away from moving back to Murfreesboro. We had moved to Mississippi the previous year and my parents ran a place called Rainey's Cafe in Ripley. There was a jukebox and I remember I would dance when "Dueling Banjos" played. I really enjoyed being the center of attention back then. It's a really solid Top Ten with The Sweet, Elvis Presley, and Jim Croce making appearances. 

There were many coming attractions on their way to Nashville from superstar pop groups like The 5th Dimension to Guy Lombardo. Just check out this ad below which you can always make bigger by clicking on.

You could go see Jim Dandy and the Black Oak Arkansas bunch along with Nils Lofgren's band Grin in a few weeks as they were booked at the War Memorial Auditorium. Not only was there a Sgt. Pepper's record store in Rivergate there was also a Sgt. Pepper's in Hillsboro Village. It was billed as a Whole Earth Store.

The Exit/In would show movies some nights back in the early 70's. Legendary songwriter Townes Van Zandt was playing during this week Wednesday through Saturday with a live broadcast on KDA FM. Yes, that's right it was KDA FM. Just scroll back up to the Sunday on the radio photo for confirmation. WKDA FM was progressive rock and WKDA AM was country. So the progressive station is broadcasting a show by a folk/country performer. That's one thing I love about the past; compartmentalized demographic research had not yet taken over radio. 

I'm too young to remember much of the early 70's Nashville so I have never heard of this place called the Villa. When I saw the ad I figured it was a restaurant that featured soup. Like real soup. But then later on in the Showcase I discover that the Soup is actually a group. Just check out their photo. I don't about you, but I bet they were either awesome or awful. Perhaps both. This is one place I would love to hear more about. Are there any people around who joined the Villa Mafia back in the day? I would love to hear from you. 

I wonder if the hippies who lived on the Farm would like the Soup? I doubt it, but Stephen Gaskin and the Farm Band would be performing a free concert at the War Memorial Auditorium on Wednesday of this week in 1973. I wonder if the "cultist teacher" part of the notice was provided to The Tennessean or if they inserted it? Gaskin did cofound the Farm, but I never thought of its residents as being part of a cult. The few people I've met from there over the years always seem pretty cool.

The biggest concert coming up was the return of David Bowie and The Spiders From Mars to War Memorial Auditorium on February 23, 1973. Note the photo insert telling us the return show will be expanded both in length and content, with the addition of saxophones, piano, and a new drummer. 

      

From the last Ziggy Stardust performance at the Hammersmith Odeon later in 1973.