Check out the bouncer who pushes a coupla kids away at the lower-left side of the screen right at the beginning. "Sorry lads, strictly business, you know." Lots of teenie-boppers of all genders probably wanted a piece of Scott, John, and Gary "Walker" in their heyday. In fact, in this clip it looks like most of the audience members are dudes!?! Anyway, personally, I'm partial to Scott's casual-yet-gentlemanly "mod" suit, but I'm sure plenty of you can't take your eyes off that electric ant hill John is packin' below the belt, not to mention the tantalizing glimpse of midriff. Gary, on traps, is wearing a sweater that Big Otis might have purchased at Zayre in Canterbury Gardens to jazz up his
The acoustics in the TV studio are just celestial, and when the crowd does sing-along backgrounds on the chorus it sounds like a host of archangels. Can't figure out where they stashed the orchestra, though.
To my
Update: temporal references corrected, with thanks to Big Hussein Otis.
this song is from '66 but I'm betting this tape was almost a year later, when they were doing it on the karaoke circuit-- the clothes are from the summer of love.
ReplyDeleteHow is this song a degree or two away from a famous Pepsi commercial?
BHO: correct on the year (spring 1966). But the clip pretty clearly seems to have been produced for television, with the multiple cameras and carefully composed frames. John's outfit hints at the future direction of pop hippie garb, but I'm gonna pull Style Police rank on you and declare that this performance was filmed no later than fall 1966. It looks like a transitional period between the early Invasion, where all the lads wore matching suits (with or without lapels), and winter/spring 1967, when many bands began displaying themselves either in Victorian-inspired garb (Sergeant Pepper/New Vaudeville drag) or hippie exploitation rags. I don't think anyone was interested in listening to the Walkers in 1967, let alone filming a performance.
ReplyDeleteMy memory is that this song came first and the Pepsi commercial came a few months after. You'll remember that a few years later Pepsi entered the postmodern world of advertising, first composing a song for a feelgood commercial, then releasing a long-form version of it for radio play. I still loathe the memory of that song. "I'd like to teach the world to sing / with Type 2 diabetes."
before the world began to sing-- the girl watchers theme used for a pepsi commercial (maybe the best one) was either written by or performed on top 40 by Bob Crewe-- the writer of this Walker Bros. ditty.
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