This week's Sunday Showcase review is for the June 29 - July 5, 1975 issue which features Bo Svenson on its cover along with Richard Jaeckel as Walking Tall Part 2 gets some heavy promotion. The Walking Tall movies were hits nationwide, but they were huge smashes in the state of Tennessee.
Monday July 14, 1975 you could have seen a great night of country music at the Grand Ole Opry House with Johnny Cash topping the bill. All of the artists on the bill are Country Music Hall of Fame members except for June Carter (her family is in, but she's not listed as an inductee) which is a shame as she was a great entertainer in her own right.
dancing on a pony keg
The Osmonds were coming to town on August 1 with Marie and Jimmy Osmond too. How about some bonus Osmonds material below the video.
Rock n Roll Medley 1975
The July 27, 1975 Sunday Showcase would feature the Osmonds along with Marie and Jimmy on the cover as they were the featured story. I think we might have crested peak Osmonds fever and started down the other side as they were still touting good seats available on the ad for the show.
Here's the article which features an interview with Donny and Marie. I learned that Donny was an electronics whiz and that Marie couldn't date until she was 16. I'll cover the Top 10 Records for the June 29th Showcase soon, but I will note that 4 of the songs in that Top 10 are still in the Top 10 almost a month later. Don't look ahead and guess which one's were in the Top 10 on June 29th. If you guess right you'll get a No Prize from the ghost of Stan Lee.
The summer's only major outdoor concert was coming soon to the Tennessee State Fairground Speedway Grandstand with Manitoba's finest rockers Bachman-Turner Overdrive hitting the stage with special guests Elvin Bishop and Wet Willie for a good dose of Southern rock and Canadian roll.
They rented a semi and came to Nashville
Prog rockers Yes were coming to town a few days earlier with a show on July 8, 1975 at Municipal Auditorium. A $6.50 ticket would run you around $31 today according to an inflation calculator site. You'd be lucky to find any concert tickets for less than $40 at an arena today and would be much more likely to spend hundreds of dollars for a decent seat (at least in a pandemic free world where rock concerts would happen) so this Yes show back in 1975 was a bargain. Yes toured a lot back in the Seventies and played Nashville multiple times. Forgotten Yesterdays has a rundown on this show.
Yes live 1975
I have an entire post filled with Ask Showcase questions coming soon, so here's a little taste with a question about Paul and Linda McCartney's stay in Nashville.
Those photos that Linda took can be seen at this website: Kenneth DeGraff along with a plethora of other info about when the McCartney's stayed in Nashville in 1975. My favorite song that came out of the Nashville visit was ostensibly about Curly "Junior" Putnam's farm where they stayed.
Let's go down to Junior's farm where I want to lay low
M*A*S*H had aired the "Abyssinia, Henry" episode on March 18, 1975 and people were still talking about Col. Henry Blake's exit from the show.
Charlie Rich had a song in the local Top 10 and an album that would hit number 1 on the country charts. My father would tell me that he used to see Charlie play live in a bar on Getwell Road in Memphis before I was born. Later in the year Charlie Rich would set fire to the slip of paper announcing John Denver as the Country Music Association Entertainer of the Year Award and the Tennessean only noted that Rich was "apparently disorganized" in its October 14 write-up the next day. Some speculated it was a protest against Denver, but I have come to think Rich was just trying to be funny. He's one of my favorite entertainers.
CMA Awards 1975
A very jazzy tune - should have left the strings off it.
Did you get the acts right that would still have their songs in the Top 10? It was the Captain & Tennille, The Bee Gees, The Amazing Rhythm Aces, and The Eagles. 10cc's "I'm Not In Love" is my favorite from this list, "Jive Talkin'" is awesome too, plus I was nuts over "Love Will Keep Us Together" when I was 9 years old.
Amazing Rhythm Aces
10cc
love didn't keep them together - it's still a great tune
Bee Gees
I'll wrap up this Sunday Showcase review with a couple of ads for great places to go to during the summer. I hope your 1975 was filled with joy if you were there and if you weren't there I hope this summer rocks.
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