Sunday Showcase Review December 9, 1973

 I didn't set out to share a very special Sunday Showcase this week. It just fell right into my lap as I perused old issues of the Tennessean.

The cover of the December 9-15, 1973 Sunday Showcase features Big Bird and Marcus Welby, M.D. because one of the most momentous television events of my young life was going to be taking place on Tuesday night as Channel 8 and Channel 2 swapped stations (the numbers at least)!!! You can read the details if you blow up the photo. More on this event from me below.

I was 6 for most of 1973 and I watched lots of television. Channel 2 and channel 8 happened to be the ones I watched the most. Channel 2 was the public television station at the time and I was hooked on Sesame Street, The Electric Company, Zoom, and more, while channel 8 was the ABC affiliate which showed lots of cool stuff too. It was traumatic that they would be swapping. I thought the adult world was a fairly unchanging monolith. Sure, new things were created, but I was still at the age when most things seemed permanent. I got over it especially since the public television station came in much clearer. I wonder how many parents let their children stay up until 9PM Central that night to see the switch happen?

There were multiple Showcase pages associated with this swap. I remember the animated A Christmas Carol special from this page vividly as it actually frightened me. 

If you read the article about the move you know that not only would the channels swap, but that WSIX channel 8 would get new call letters also becoming WNGE2. The good doctor Welby approves.

Here's the Sunday night TV guide with WSIX-TV Channel 8 and WDCN Channel 2 listed. NBC will have Bing Crosby and Bob Hope Christmas specials on this night. 

Marie Osmond & Bob Hope

Tuesday night December 11 is when the change happens at 9PM Central. WSIX becomes WNGE channel 2 and WDCN becomes channel 8. There's ad for the first show aired on the new channel 8 below the guide. It was The Six Wives of Henry VIII with this night's installment about Catherine of Aragon.

This week's Sunday Showcase review is brought to you by the Franklin Road Melrose Business District. Don't let construction keep you away from the great businesses on this road. 

There was a time when Harding Mall had it all. 

Rivergate Mall has free rides on Santa's rocket sleigh. I love the Rivergate logo.

I tried to find a color version of this ad online, but could not find one. I dig the graphics. I also miss the Holiday Inn signs from the past. 

Cain-Sloan has your Christmas records covered at their Green Hills, Rivergate, and downtown location.

This would have a great week to just camp out at the Exit/In with Linda Ronstadt and Jerry Jeff Walker playing multiple nights. I wonder if any of those WKDA broadcasts were taped and saved?

Jerry Jeff Walker live 1973

Linda Ronstadt on the Midnight Special 1973

11-18-1973 Linda live broadcast on KSAN

Johnny Winter was coming in the upcoming year. Brownsville Station would open for him at Municipal Auditorium on January 5, 1974. That must have been a rocking night!

Brownsville Station live 1972

Johnny Winter live 1973

One of the neat things about these old issues of the Sunday Showcase is finding how often country music stars performed benefits for local high schools. One of my favorite country music singer/songwriter of the Seventies was Tom T. Hall and he was scheduled to do 2 shows at Franklin High School to benefit the band boosters. 

Tom T. Hall

Muther's Music Emporium was short lived, but it was about to open with a stellar first week's line-up of acts with Wet Willie, Ted Nugent & The Amboy Dukes, and the Bob Seger System among them.

Wet Willie live 1973

Ted Nugent & The Amboy Dukes live 1973

Bob Seger System

There was no music top ten this week. I guess with all of the excitement with the channel 2 and 8 swap they forgot to include it. So let's go see Black Belt at the Loews Crescent instead. Remember when I made a series of posts about the movies that played the Loews Crescent over the years? Sure you do. That's all for this week, but the Sunday Showcase review will return for a few more weeks and then the series will be finished. 

Sunday Showcase January 20, 1974

It's Sunday again, so it's time to dive into a random old Tennessean Sunday Showcase. It's 1974 and Jack Benny is one of the cover stars. There was to be a third "farewell" special to also air on NBC, but the comedian would die on December 26, 1974. 

When I was in 1st grade there was a mandatory time after lunch in which we had to put our heads on our desk and just chill out. It was like nap time, but we were too old by this point. My 1st grade teacher, Mrs. Susie Wilson, would play soft music during the time so after the song "Seasons In The Sun" was released on 45 in December 1973, we would be treated to it almost every school day. I liked it a lot even though the lyrics seem a bit heavy for a small child and now it is lodged in my brain forever. It was the number 1 song of the past week in Nashville on January 20, 1974. Once again, the quirkiness of the Nashville charts is shown as David Bowie's "Sorrow" from his Pin Ups album lands at number 8. It would not chart nationally, but Bowie played Nashville regularly in the early Seventies so he was very popular here. 

Local station WNGE 2 has a full page ad for the ABC Sunday Night Movie of the week which was to be For A Few Dollars More. I watched many of the ABC Sunday Night Movies over the years and never wanted to miss a James Bond one or a Clint Eastwood one. My mother would cook popcorn on the stove and it was the best popcorn ever made. 

I don't know what in the heck the King of Tara and Boy Wonder deal is, but it's definitely an interesting ad for an event at the Pub.

The Nashville Flea Market was coming up soon. Flea markets today aren't as much fun these days. I think the internet has greatly reduced the chance of wandering upon a flea market seller with true bargains.

The Exit/In was going strong with Henry Gross coming for a series of show from January 22-January 26. Then Tracey Nelson and Mother Earth would take over. WKDA FM 103.3 in the pre-KDF days would even broadcast live there. This is when the Exit/In was thought of as more of a "listening" room instead of just a club. 

Muther's Music Emporium over on Hermitage which had been opened by former disc jockey Joe Sullivan was another great place to see live music in Nashville in 1974. He also owned Sound Seventy Productions which around this time was clearing about $4,000 profit per average concert he promoted according to an article in the February 18, 1974 Clarksville Leaf-Chronicle. Bruce Springsteen would play Muther's a little over a week later on January 29, 1974. This show would be captured on a bootleg recording.

A big Sound Seventy Productions concert was coming up at Municipal Auditorium on February 2nd. Black Oak Arkansas with their frontman Jim Dandy would be rocking out on a Saturday night with some special guest stars to be announced. Those guests would The Marshall Tucker Band and The Charlie Daniels Band for a big night of Southern rock. 

The Royal Lipizzan Stallion Show was coming to Municipal on February 9 and 10. 

Last, but definitely not least is this ad for the upcoming Ike & Tina Tuner Revue which will play Municipal Auditorium on February 1st with the Spinners.