tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22637089.post114858509198168395..comments2024-01-31T21:11:53.545-05:00Comments on Michael J. Hayde's BETTER LIVING THROUGH TELEVISION: Every Saturday Night! (Part 1)Michael J. Haydehttp://www.blogger.com/profile/08072544837488259305noreply@blogger.comBlogger2125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22637089.post-1149099608610338452006-05-31T14:20:00.000-04:002006-05-31T14:20:00.000-04:00Thanks for writing, Art. You've made some very as...Thanks for writing, Art. You've made some very astute observations.<BR/><BR/>I don't think any of the folk footage in Scorese's documentary came from <I>Hootenanny</I> - I noticed some <I>Ed Sullivan</I> stuff in there, as well as some folk one-shot programs (I have the complete show from which Dylan's early rendition of "Blowin' in the Wind" derives).<BR/><BR/>I've added a <I>Variety</I> article from March 1963 pertaining to the <I>Hootenanny</I> blacklist and boycott.Michael J. Haydehttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08072544837488259305noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-22637089.post-1148807275585875102006-05-28T05:07:00.000-04:002006-05-28T05:07:00.000-04:00Great selection - I had just been watching the Sco...Great selection - I had just been watching the Scorcese Dylan documentary, and amazed at the rich history of the folk music movement. <BR/><BR/>I wondered if that was how they managed all the tv recordings of those folk groups, little known outside of their circle.<BR/><BR/>"Hootenany" looks like it introduces a tv model - it takes the format tv uses for any "urban music" context, replacing the contents to attract the "folk-music" trend and public. <BR/><BR/>Of course, this was during the Blacklisting period, so incidents occured. A decade-plus later, during the Vietnam era, "Hee Haw" will do the same for country music, by copying the immensely popular, topical, urban "Laugh-in" tv show format. <BR/><BR/>And it works, far outlasting "Laugh-In", as it turns country music into a safe, non-topical, cartoon of itself, its audience, and its roots.<BR/><BR/>To cap off sometime around the same TV/Vietnam political era, a kind of folk-roots returns, the satirical political one, via the short-lived, and censored, Smothers Brothers show.<BR/><BR/>Concerning music, politics, censorship etc...I dont think the 1950s networks were so different from their version in the 60s or 70s. TV always tries to soften the edges, take away the topical (easier in repeating over years) and ultimately produce a cartoon-culture. <BR/><BR/>All 3 TV networks just seemed so unable to reflect on the way popular culture (what else is represented in the name "folk" and "country") shifted from the 50s onto the progressive 60s and through till the 70s. <BR/><BR/>Don't get me started on how mid to late 70s then got packaged again - just look at the music incidents and censoring on the so-called Sat.Nite Live. <BR/><BR/>There is a reason music and audiences returned with the new web-radio boom, and not with TV.Anonymousnoreply@blogger.com