The Old Grey Whistle Test Live.

proggy

This Friday 21:00 on BBC4.

Bob Harris hosts a live tribute to the series with special guests and rare archive footage.

RandallFlagg

I hope it's full of prog rock hippy shit

Phil_aka_Pip

RandallFlagg said:

I hope it's full of prog rock hippy shit

If I were a TV watcher, that would suit me just fine

Philly_Q

Phil_aka_Pip said:

RandallFlagg said:

I hope it's full of prog rock hippy shit

If I were a TV watcher, that would suit me just fine

I am a TV watcher and it would suit me just fine too.

AlexC

Richard Thompson’s on it. That’s good enough for me. Not Prog, but perhaps a touch of hippy. (Well, he was in a ‘folk’ band)

freakboy1610

"There will be music from Peter Frampton, Richard Thompson and Albert Lee - who all performed on the show. Bob will be speaking to them and other guests, including Dave Stewart, Joan Armatrading, Ian Anderson, Kiki Dee, Chris Difford and Danny Baker, plus singer Mollie Marriott, Pink Floyd animator Ian Emes and Mike Appleton who produced the original series."

Philly_Q

Oh fucking hell, Danny Baker.  That's ruined it.

I hope he doesn't speak to any of the artists, he'll be desperate to show that he knows more about their own careers than they do.

EricTheWeary

Philly_Q said:

Oh fucking hell, Danny Baker.  That's ruined it.

I hope he doesn't speak to any of the artists, he'll be desperate to show that he knows more about their own careers than they do.

He did those album programmes in BBC4 a few years ago and was just awful as a presenter, talked all over everyone. Hopefully it won't be too much of him. 

Richard Thompson seems to be in good form still so I shall look forward to that, Albert Lee is gigging near me in April and I'm currently contemplating tickets so be interesting to see how he is now. I did see him years ago, my memory of which was great guitarist buy very dull performer. It was how I learned about tap tempo though, Albert would take a minute between each song to sort his delay out with the drummer. 

impmann

Cool. Danny Baker is actually a really nice guy in real life - and nowhere near as annoying as some make him out to be.

EricTheWeary

impmann said:

Cool. Danny Baker is actually a really nice guy in real life - and nowhere near as annoying as some make him out to be.

I really quite like him as a personality ( and used to love him on R5 once upon a time) but he is pretty awful at interviewing. However, presumably he won't be doing the interviewing on Friday night so I can just enjoy his wit and wisdom. 

Philly_Q

I still hear his 5 Live show on Saturday mornings and find him intensely irritating (yes I know I could switch it off).  He pisses about, states his own opinions or ideas as facts, constantly makes little digs at the BBC and doesn't pay attention to what the callers or interviewees are saying.  If he didn't have a studio sidekick (Louise Pepper usually) the whole thing would collapse.

Maybe he's fine in different circumstances but I wish he'd retire from broadcasting.

Anyway, I hope his appearance on OGWT is a brief one.

AlexC

If you read the article on the BBC website it states 

“Danny Baker will be singing his own songs backed by a one off OGWT supergroup of Ian Paice on drums, Neil Tennent on keyboards, Glenn Hughes on bass and Polly Jean Harvey on guitar.”

I could have misread that, of course...

TheBigDipper

AlexC said:

If you read the article on the BBC website it states 

“Danny Baker will be singing his own songs backed by a one off OGWT supergroup of Ian Paice on drums, Neil Tennent on keyboards, Glenn Hughes on bass and Polly Jean Harvey on guitar.”

I could have misread that, of course...

Yes, but just think how great it would be if you hadn't...  

Philly_Q

AlexC said:

If you read the article on the BBC website it states 

“Danny Baker will be singing his own songs backed by a one off OGWT supergroup of Ian Paice on drums, Neil Tennent on keyboards, Glenn Hughes on bass and Polly Jean Harvey on guitar.”

I could have misread that, of course...

It sounds like hell on earth... but I would watch it.  

Having said that, if we were looking for a 5 Live presenter who genuinely fancies himself as a top drawer musician and songwriter.... I give you Nicholas Andrew Argyll Campbell, OBE.  Another knob who thinks he's a world expert on music.  Every time some musical luminary pops his clogs old Nicky starts spouting away like he's their biggest fan... "Ooh, that D to B minor chord change, Rachel...".  Wanker.

Sorry, I am derailing this thread.  Apologies to Whispering Bob.  He never made it all about him.

Deadman

Excellent. Cheers for the heads up @proggy ;

proggy

@Deadman No problem mate.

TTony

Philly_Q said:

 Apologies to Whispering Bob.  He never made it all about him.

Wis'd.  Old Bob came from the BC era.

Before Celebrity.

BigLicks67

Watched it last night, it was terrible just a load of people plugging their shit. Apart from RT who is as always excellent.

JezWynd

BigLicks67 said:

Watched it last night, it was terrible just a load of people plugging their shit. Apart from RT who is as always excellent.

Plus ça change

mart

Not the most rewarding 3 hours I’ve ever spent, but it had its moments. 

Some of the clips confirmed how much fantastic stuff they’ve got in the archives that they’ve never put out on DVD. Yes, you can get OGWT volumes 1-3 and they’re good, but where’s volumes 4, 5, 6 etc - they clearly have tons more great stuff that they could release.

Mind you, I could also ask where’s volumes 2, 3 and 4 of The Tube - I’m sure they must also have some good stuff in their archives. 

EricTheWeary

BigLicks67 said:

Watched it last night, it was terrible just a load of people plugging their shit. Apart from RT who is as always excellent.

Watched some of it last night, rest on iPlayer this morning. Yeh, pretty much that^.
Needed more of the archive clips,especially the lesser seen ones. Lovely that they played the Marley song in full but I’ve seen it a lot of times. I enjoyed the bits with Tom Robinson about the history of the show and the bits with the animator and about the archive film guy. It was a three hour show with a good one hour show contained within it. 
Hopefully the next step would be to make more use of the archive although I’m not holding my breath waiting.