Rock ’n’ roll, if it is anything, is pure joy in sound.
Except as represented in Hollywood dross, there really is no singular rock and roll type. Rockers come from all over the country, all over the world. I've known rockers who read Rimbaud between performances, and others who were...well, I believe the scientific term is "pre-verbal". I've known those who made their way to the stage through blues bands, jazz bands, garage bands, country bands, and church choirs. I've known, and built a guitar for, a rockabilly singer from Australia, a metal head from Brazil, and a ye-ye girl from France.
They have different body types, different accents, different styles. Some have been married forever; other have a more open regard for the institution. Some will never, ever be able to turn down a drink, a syringe, or some pills [often all at the same time], others will not even permit a beer in their studio. I once sat backstage with the bassist of a group for whom we were opening and discussed Beat poetry while his drummer sat in a dark corner and injected himself with heroin.
So, it really should not be a surprise that the fellow who brought the psychedelic world of rock to American living rooms was a middle-aged, bespectacled, umbrella-wielding Oxbridge Englishman in a proper suit.
Jack Good was born in London in 1931. He graduated from Balliol College of Oxford University where he participated in the theatre community. This lead to his being hired by the BBC where, by 1957, he had become a producer and was given an extraordinary responsibility. While the practice in the early days of BBC television was to suspend broadcasting from 6pm to 7pm, ostensibly so that parents could settle their children for the evening, Good thought it an apt time to offer a youth-oriented music show.
Good had been to the States and had seen Dick Clark's American Bandstand and, although he enjoyed the music, found the production too staid and controlled given the style of the music. Seeking to avoid that in the BBC's version, he found a disk jockey more frenetic than Clark, cleared the sound stage of any sets or props, and filled it with the bands, the audience, and the dancers.
At 6:05pm on February 16, 1957, with the words, "It's time to jive on the old six five with our band, Don Lang and the Frantic Five", the Six Five Special had its debut. It was nothing like American Bandstand as it was live, largely un-rehearsed, and filled with a mad energy. That really could have been a description of Good, too.
While intended to fill the broadcasting schedule for a month or so, the Six Five Special was popular enough to be given an open-ended contract, eventually staying on the air for a year-and-a-half. It probably would have stayed on indefinitely, but the BBC managed to alienate Good by altering his vision of the show and reducing the amount of music. They also added an educational portion and the football [that is, soccer] scores. Without Good's vision, the show began to fail and surrendered by the end of 1958.
By that time he had left the BBC for its rival, ITV. His new bosses noted the possibilities of the Six Five Special and wanted to Good to re-create it for their schedule, and in accordance with his un-diluted vision. On September 13, 1958, Oh, Boy! premiered with all of the recognizable Good features: open sets, popular music, something resembling dancing, and the adrenaline that comes from an absence of rehearsal.
In turn, Oh, Boy! was succeeded by Good's Boy Meets Girls, another incarnation of the same idea. By this time, Good's style was being copied by both the BBC and European television studios. Realizing that the United States was a vast market waiting for something more vivid than Dick Clark's bland product, using his own money, Good produced a pilot episode of an Americanized version of the shows he had been producing in the United Kingdom. It was rejected by everyone to whom he brought it. With that, Good returned to England to work on stage production and as an actor in a couple of films.
For the 1964-65 season, ABC-TV was hungry for something that would appeal to the growing youth market and began to review some of the rejected pilots. When they came across Good's, they offered to purchase his pilot but staff it with their own producer. When Good promised to have The Beatles on the first broadcast if he were given the role of producer and carte blanch to shape the show, the deal was finalized.
They have different body types, different accents, different styles. Some have been married forever; other have a more open regard for the institution. Some will never, ever be able to turn down a drink, a syringe, or some pills [often all at the same time], others will not even permit a beer in their studio. I once sat backstage with the bassist of a group for whom we were opening and discussed Beat poetry while his drummer sat in a dark corner and injected himself with heroin.
So, it really should not be a surprise that the fellow who brought the psychedelic world of rock to American living rooms was a middle-aged, bespectacled, umbrella-wielding Oxbridge Englishman in a proper suit.
Jack Good was born in London in 1931. He graduated from Balliol College of Oxford University where he participated in the theatre community. This lead to his being hired by the BBC where, by 1957, he had become a producer and was given an extraordinary responsibility. While the practice in the early days of BBC television was to suspend broadcasting from 6pm to 7pm, ostensibly so that parents could settle their children for the evening, Good thought it an apt time to offer a youth-oriented music show.
Good had been to the States and had seen Dick Clark's American Bandstand and, although he enjoyed the music, found the production too staid and controlled given the style of the music. Seeking to avoid that in the BBC's version, he found a disk jockey more frenetic than Clark, cleared the sound stage of any sets or props, and filled it with the bands, the audience, and the dancers.
At 6:05pm on February 16, 1957, with the words, "It's time to jive on the old six five with our band, Don Lang and the Frantic Five", the Six Five Special had its debut. It was nothing like American Bandstand as it was live, largely un-rehearsed, and filled with a mad energy. That really could have been a description of Good, too.
While intended to fill the broadcasting schedule for a month or so, the Six Five Special was popular enough to be given an open-ended contract, eventually staying on the air for a year-and-a-half. It probably would have stayed on indefinitely, but the BBC managed to alienate Good by altering his vision of the show and reducing the amount of music. They also added an educational portion and the football [that is, soccer] scores. Without Good's vision, the show began to fail and surrendered by the end of 1958.
By that time he had left the BBC for its rival, ITV. His new bosses noted the possibilities of the Six Five Special and wanted to Good to re-create it for their schedule, and in accordance with his un-diluted vision. On September 13, 1958, Oh, Boy! premiered with all of the recognizable Good features: open sets, popular music, something resembling dancing, and the adrenaline that comes from an absence of rehearsal.
In turn, Oh, Boy! was succeeded by Good's Boy Meets Girls, another incarnation of the same idea. By this time, Good's style was being copied by both the BBC and European television studios. Realizing that the United States was a vast market waiting for something more vivid than Dick Clark's bland product, using his own money, Good produced a pilot episode of an Americanized version of the shows he had been producing in the United Kingdom. It was rejected by everyone to whom he brought it. With that, Good returned to England to work on stage production and as an actor in a couple of films.
For the 1964-65 season, ABC-TV was hungry for something that would appeal to the growing youth market and began to review some of the rejected pilots. When they came across Good's, they offered to purchase his pilot but staff it with their own producer. When Good promised to have The Beatles on the first broadcast if he were given the role of producer and carte blanch to shape the show, the deal was finalized.
On September 16, 1964, Shindig! was aired. For those at least my age, the show altered our understanding of popular music and captured, as did nothing else at that time, the raw energy of the music. Shindig! was frenetically filled with performances, dancers, an appreciative audience and occasional, and blissfully brief, interviews with the artists. Consider this opening medley and the range of music styles represented:
With Shindig!, the so-called British Invasion began, through which Jack Good served as an able curator. Among all of the "one hit wonders" who claimed their fifteen minutes on ABC's stage, there were also groups that not only rose to stardom and fame, but, at least in one spectacular case, are still performing.
Good knew, as few did in the U.S., that it was the blues musicians of the American south who most inspired the music of the British rockers. This was why, against the objections of a few at ABC, he demanded that black musicians appear on the show. With this willingness to de-segregate pop music on television, and the promise that their idol would appear with them, The Rolling Stones appeared on Shindig! with Howlin' Wolf, the obscure bluesman whom they idolized and who, at the age of 55 and after four decades of performance, became an "overnight" sensation.
As with the BBC, the executives at ABC couldn't help but continually interfere in what was a successful product, and Good, again, left the production. As with the Six Five Special, without Good it ultimately failed. Shindig! was replaced by Batman in the fall of 1966.
Without question, it is Good's vision that determined the look, the sound, and the influences of rock music; an impact that would continue for the remainder of the decade, if not the century. This is why his name should be as well known by those of us who enjoyed the music of the era as are the names of the successful musicians. Certainly, if for only presenting as many black artists as white, he should be as well-known as Dick Clark.
Good would return to the U.K. and produce musical theatre, occasional documentaries, and even act from time to time. Eventually, he converted to the Church of Rome and spent the remainder of his life in Oxford, selling his religious-themed paintings and recounting the great stories of his days with the rockers to anyone willing to sit with him. He would die at the age of 86 just a couple of months ago.
Upon his death, Good's assistant producer, among the other memories he shared, such as Good pinning "I Love Shindig!" buttons to the cardboard cut-outs of Lawrence Welk that adorned the ABC studio lobby, said that he was hopeful that his former boss had achieved his singular realization of the eternal: “His idea of heaven was Jerry Lee or Cliff Richard or Elvis giving it 100 percent.”
Yeah, he's not the only one. Thanks, Jack; and thanks for making Howlin' Wolf known, too. Oh, and those Stones guys.
