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| Has anyone ever seen a guest appearance that JW made on the Nana Mouskouri show in either the 60s or 70s in which he played 'Torre Bermeja'? I'd like to see if it is possible to get a copy of this. Anyone? |
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 Tim posted on Sunday, 16 October, 2005 - 09:15 pm
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| Don't remember this at all and my Mum loved watching Nana. I'm always fascinated by the biographical sleeve note on several JW CDs (eg Iberia, Takemitsu) that JW was a regular guest on Val Doonican's shows. Anyone know any details of that ( I don't think Diablo Suelto is a translation of either 'rocking chair' or 'hand-knit sweater')? |
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| I have a video of JW playing TB on the Val Doonican show, maybe that's what Philip is thinking of. Must have been late 70s or even 80s. He also accompanies Val in a song (playing, not singing) |
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| narby posted on Thursday, 20 October, 2005 - 08:31 pm
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| No, this was definately the Nana M show because I remeber her backup group of guitarists. I think it must have been early 1970s because JW was reasonably young and the performance was brilliant- as you'd expect. I saw him play many times in the 70s in Melbourne and can't remember a note being wrong-quite amazing. |
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| In a brief interview with Val JW says that he has been playing an Australian guitar for 3 years, so that should date it. The Nana appearance must have been quite some time earlier. |
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| Richard posted on Saturday, 15 July, 2006 - 10:47 pm
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Ancient thread, I know, but I wasn't around at the time...
Although I can't help with tracking down a recording of JW's appearance on Nana's show (or any of the others at the time), a few observations.
In the late 60s/early 70s, the BBC tried copying the format of US TV shows, built around a popular MOR singer, and thus The Lulu / Cilla Black / Cliff Richard / Tom Jones, the aforementioned Nana Mouskouri / etc Show.
The idea was that the singer would sing their own hits, duet with a couple of people of similar ilk, perhaps do a sketch or two, and introduce someone else to do a "star turn".
Val Doonican's shows started that way, but unlike most of the others, lasted for more than one two seasons. I started following JW in 1978, and I know that he (alone or with Sky) appeared at least once in every VD series until the show finished. If I recall correctly (strangely, the interweb doesn't seem to give a definitive answer), the last show was the 1984 Christmas special which included Sky playing Troika.
JW was a "natural" to appear on several of those shows in the 60s and 70s - he was a "name", but not a very big one (at least in the world of popular music) nd thus relatively cheap; he was undemanding in terms of entourage or technical requirements, needing only a chair and a decent mike; he could accompany pretty much anyone and his legendary sight-reading skills meant he could be presented with a score and play it live on TV at very short notice.
I know for a fact that he appeared on The Demis Roussos / Cleo Laine / Diana Ross Show and probably several others. The fact that he appeared in Nana Mouskouri's is no surprise, given that JW was seriously involved in the Greek political struggle in the late 60s-mid 70s, as was she (as I recall, she was living mainly in France and Switzerland at the time), so they probably became friends.
The long and the short of it is that there must be loads of JW appearances in the BBC vaults, both playing with big stars of the time and playing solo pieces on TV, and unless a dedicated JW fan gets a job with the BBC archives, it's unlikely any of us will ever see them again... |
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| When will JW next be playing in Melbourne? |
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